
DATE: Tuesday, November 18, 1997            TAG: 9711180299

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SERIES: Part three

SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 141 lines

SOUTHWESTERN ELEMENTARY: PAST VS. FUTURE NOSTALGIA ASIDE, SUFFOLK MUST DECIDE BETWEEN SPENDING MONEY ON RENOVATIONS OR

A NEW SCHOOL

Kathy Tillery, a first-grade teacher at Southwestern Elementary School, frequently goes home with a headache - not because of the school children but because of her classroom's noise level.

When the air conditioning kicks on, she must raise her voice to be heard over the roar of the fan, her students' voices rise - and their concentration levels drop.

Although Southwestern's mechanical systems have been updated gradually, they are nothing like those of newer schools.

Bundles of wires, recently installed to provide computer connections, run along the high ceilings of the first-floor hallways. Classrooms have only two electrical outlets, and the school nurse makes do with a four-way plug in the dispensary's single usable outlet. Sharing a telephone line with the rest of the school means that she sometimes has to wait to call parents when their children are sick.

How to deal with Southwestern Elementary is among the decisions facing Suffolk's leaders as they try to build a school system for the next century. Burdened by fast-paced growth that's pouring children into underprepared and aging schools, the city must weigh its resources and choose how much it can afford to invest in the buildings and technologies to educate its young residents.

The school system has asked for $142.2 million over the next six years - $35.3 million for next year alone - to build and improve schools. But the city has its own long list of construction needs extending 10 years into the future. Going into Wednesday's City Council public hearing on its capital budget, city officials have set aside just under $9 million for school construction next year.

When Southwestern - a brick school with high ceilings and wide corridors - was built near the rural village of Holland, the community was proud. Over the years, many former students happily sent their offspring there.

But technology, education and student needs have changed since the school opened in 1955. Overcrowding, makeshift classrooms and aging facilities have deflated some of the school's nostalgia.

Now the system calls it one of its worst. The School Board has proposed an $11.5 million, 800-pupil elementary school to be built in the southern/western portion of the city by September 2001. It would replace Southwestern and Robertson Elementary, which is in Whaleyville in the southern area of Suffolk.

An alternate proposal: additions and renovations to both. Southwestern's renovation would cost just under $8.7 million.

``I love where we are - in a pretty safe environment, with a community school with parents involved - but I also want for my children all the things the new schools in north Suffolk have,'' said Linda Howell.

Howell is a Southwestern kindergarten teacher, its PTA president, and the mother of a second-grader.

What residents have now is a sound, well-maintained, two-story building brimming with character and unique features that include a quiet, rural setting, tall windows that flood classrooms with natural light and a large gym/auditorium.

The school isn't large enough for its 476 students, some of whom must attend classes in mobile units rather than inside the building.

What the parents want is a modern, safe, high-tech school designed for young children.

What they've got falls a bit short of hopes.

One by one, first-graders hop onto a stool to reach a water fountain that was installed years ago at a height for students years older and inches taller.

Southwestern Elementary, originally designed as a high school, saw service as a middle school before becoming an elementary school seven years ago. While the younger children can adapt to restrooms and water fountains scaled for older students, teachers fret about primary students tripping and tumbling down stairs.

Although Howell feels fortunate that her kindergarten classroom has its own bathroom - a feature not all kindergarten classes at Southwestern have - a persistent leak in the ceiling has her class checking for rain in the bathroom on a stormy day.

Only the first floor of Southwestern is handicapped-accessible. So far, accessibility has not been a problem, according to former principal Wanda Hamilton.

Art teacher Richard French has adjusted to classroom clatter echoing off the 15-foot ceiling and slate floor of his basementart room, nicknamed ``the dungeon.''

Administrators and teachers have creatively managed the available space at Southwestern.

Special-education classrooms have been carved from former industrial arts areas. Individual testing is conducted in a converted storage closet on the first floor.

On the second floor, the speech therapist works from an office squeezed between the guidance counselor's office and a classroom.

Belinda Everett teaches fifth grade in a mobile unit parked next to the main school building. Her students enjoy the privacy of an independent classroom.

They look forward to a breath of fresh air as they walk to the main building for restroom and lunch breaks, but Everett worries about emergencies because she has no way to contact the main building.

Having grown well beyond capacity, Southwestern now houses its entire fifth grade (76 students), one second-grade class and four resource classes in a cluster of six mobile units behind the school.

``The biggest need is for expansion to get rid of the trailers,'' said Carl Sweat, Southwestern parent and a former student. ``Holland has a whole different character from downtown Suffolk, and I favor the neighborhood school concept.''

This week, as the city wrestles with its construction priorities for another year, trailers dotting school-yards throughout the city will be an item of contention.

So will the question of what to do for the students and staff at Southwestern Elementary School. ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

Wanda Hamilton Former Southwestern principal

JOHN H. SHEALLY II photos/The Virginian-Pilot

Southwestern Elementary students use a stepping block to reach the

water fountain, which was designed for high school students. But the

school has a host of other obstacles in its path to the future.

Terron Schlatter uses a paper keyboard to practice computer

fingerwork. Schlatter, a fourth-grader at Southwestern Elementary,

and the other students have to take turns at the computers because

the school doesn't have enough terminals for every student.

Students Say:

Photos