School E-mail March 26, 1997

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Subj: Building Program
Date: 97-03-26 16:39:45 EST
From: James.C.Klagge@bev.net (James C. Klagge)
To: School Issues List@vt.edu

Dear Friends,

As you may have seen in the newspaper the school board has decided to make a decision at our meeting on Tuesday (April Fool's Day!) about which school to proceed with next (building a new HS in Shawsville/Elliston; renovating and expanding BMS; building a new CMS, for which land has not yet been secured). There will be a time for public address near the beginning of the meeting at 7:30pm. I also encourage you to contact your own school board representative if you have a strong opinion about this issue.

Their e-mail addresses are:

Annette Perkins, Chair & District A: aperkins@pen.k12.va.us
Bernie Jortner, District B: bjortner@vt.edu
MaryBeth Dunkenburger, District C: mdunkenb@bev.net
Barry Worth, District D: bworth@pen.k12.va.us
Jim Klagge, District F: jklagge@bev.net
Wat Hopkins, District G: whopkins@vt.edu
David Moore, Vice-Chair & Town of Christiansburg: MooreDR@corning.com
Mike Smith, District E: msmith2@bev.net
Roy Vickers, Town of Blacksburg: rvickers@vt.edu

If you live in one of the towns, you currently have 2 representatives--your town representative and the representative from your voting district. If you are unsure what voting district you live in, you can call 382-5741.

I have resisted making a decision on which school to do next until the supervisors agreed in principle that all the schools would eventually be done in a timely fashion. The school board has decided that it is not realistic to expect them to make such a commitment, and the best thing to do is put forward the next school and ask for funding. And then once that is under way, put forward the next one. And so on. I don't like this approach, but apparently that is how we are going to do it. This may be simply a decision of which order to do them in. But since we have no long-term commitments, it could also be a decision that leaves the 2 remaining schools very much on the back burner. It depends on what other kinds of financial commitments the supervisors decide to take on, and what the political and economic climate is like in the county over the next several years. My point is that this decision could very well turn out to be quite an important decision, and so it is important that people who have strong feelings about this should be heard.

Those board members who have not already visited these schools during class times will have a chance to do so this week, and we will be getting other information relevant to making comparative judgements about need. However, the reality is that all three schools have great needs. I don't see the differences being strong enough in themselves to justify one decision over another. I think this decision will be a combination of need and politics. For example, when hearings on the county budget were held in Shawsville last week, several people from the Shawsville community spoke up about the needs there. (You might want to look back at my message of 3/11 to see what position various school board members took about priority at that point.) Speak now or hold your peace for awhile.

The board will also be discussing the proposed school calendar for next year, which includes the proposal for only 3 early releases for secondary students, but 15 early releases for primary students, as a way of giving elementary teachers more planning time (so on 12 days elementary students would be getting home before secondary students). Though this is not an ideal solution, I hope the community will support this as an experiment to determine its value. In any case, whether you support or oppose it, this is the time to comment on that as well.

-Jim Klagge

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