School Board E-mail November 6, 1997

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Subj: School Board News
Date: 97-11-06 03:29:16 EST
From: James.C.Klagge@bev.net (James C. Klagge)
To: "school issues list"@vt.edu

Dear Friends,

1) ELECTIONS: In case you haven't seen the results of local elections: Tina McPherson will be the new SB rep from district A (she defeated Arnold Saari); while Mary North, from D, and David McCrumb, from C, were unopposed. For Board of Supervisors, Annette Perkins won in A (defeating Frank Baker), Joe Stewart won in C (defeating Jim Smith), and Jim Politis won in D (defeating Jim Martin, Barry Worth, and Todd King). I'm looking forward to working with all of these people to support and improve our schools.

2) BUDGET HEARINGS: There are 4 school board meetings this month, which will be held in the 4 attendance strands in the county, to hear people's views about what we should or should not put into our budget request this year. This is your opportunity to make sure we hear about those items that you most care about. These hearings do make a difference to us. For example, last year many people spoke about the need for a full-time reading specialist in each of our elementary schools. That was put into our budget request and did eventually get funded. Though we cannot fund all things that are requested, and we can't even put into our request all the things that are mentioned, we do want to hear what your priorities are. The hearings are scheduled as follows:

Thursday, November 6 Shawsville HS Auditorium, Hearing & Meeting

Tuesday, November 11 Auburn HS Auditorium, Hearing

Thursday, November 13 Montgomery Co. Schools' Admin. Building, Hearing

Monday, November 17 Blacksburg HS Auditorium, Hearing & Meeting

All of these meetings will start at 7pm. You may go to any of these, regardless of where you live. If you cannot make any of these hearings, but would like to express your opinions about the budget, you can e-mail them to all SB members by using the following addresses:

perkins@bev.net,
bjortner@vt.edu,
mdunkenb@bev.net,
bworth@pen.k12.va.us,
jklagge@bev.net,
whopkins@vt.edu,
MooreDR@corning.com,
msmith2@bev.net,
rvickers@vt.edu
and the superintendent at: fmorton@bev.net

3) EARLY RELEASES: If you have elementary age children then you know that we have instituted a special early release day each month for teacher preparation time. This presents a child-care burden for some families. The teachers at the middle and high school level get a reasonable amount of preparation time built into their daily schedule, but that has not previously been possible with elementary teachers' schedules.

Two years ago I proposed adding aides to supervise playground time so that teachers would at least have that time free, but money was not found in the budget for that. Also it was noted that it would be difficult for teachers to do collaborative planning since their recess times are not coordinated. Last year the administration came back with a proposal that would add prep time in a way that would allow for collaboration, and not add to the budget--these early releases. Traditionally middle and high school teachers have opposed early releases because they didn't want to lose the class time, and they felt that they didn't need the extra prep time. So these early releases are only for elementary students, and they are earlier than the past early release times for elementary students.

So far I have heard good things from teachers about the value of this time. I have also heard complaints from parents. All I can say is that it is educationally valuable to students that their teachers be working on advance preparation, especially in light of the new curriculum required by the new state Standards of Learning. And it is also valuable for teachers to be able to do more intentional and planned coordination between subject areas and grade levels. Though there are trade-offs, we have to make decisions based on the educational benefits, which in this case seem quite significant. The administration is monitoring how this time is being used, and I'm sure this will show its value.

4) ENROLLMENT PROJECTIONS: In my last letter I shared with you some preliminary figures for enrollment projections in the Blacksburg area. Glen Earthman has now completed his report and I will share his final projections with you. (His report actually gives projections for every year between now and 2010, but I thought this abbreviated version would suffice for now.)

Area/Level 1997 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010

Auburn

Elementary 517 637 697 746 798 855 914

Middle 296 272 314 354 379 407 438

High 320 358 341 343 402 447 478

Blacksburg

Elementary 1869 1983 2062 2144 2230 2319 2412

Middle 888 1001 1031 1071 1113 1158 1194

High 1052 1174 1221 1270 1321 1374 1429

Christiansburg

Elementary 1481 1524 1553 1582 1613 1643 1675

Middle 767 777 815 838 854 879 896

High 950 960 978 997 1016 1027 1047

Shawsville

Elementary 513 521 526 531 537 542 547

Middle 294 282 285 288 291 294 297

High 288 325 329 332 335 350 353

This suggests we can expect about 11,680 students in our schools in the 2010--about 2500 more than we have now--a growth of about 27%! While some people will want to quibble with these numbers, Earthman's projections have consistently been the most reliable available to the county. No doubt there will be discussion about the size and reliability of these projections.

Recently in the newspaper a reader criticized the school board and the board of supervisors for not moving faster in meeting school building needs. That is a legitimate concern, but we are dealing with complex issues. Since I have been on the board we have begun the new elementary school in the Riner area, which is now about 55% complete, and slated to open in the Fall. We have also secured land and approved plans for the new HS in the Shawsville/Elliston area. The MS in Christiansburg has been slowed by some difficulties in finding appropriate land for a new MS and by on-going debate about the possibility of other ideas. The SB has recently affirmed the plan to build a new MS on a new site, and the search for such land is moving forward.

The MS in Blacksburg is the most troublesome. There was a lengthy debate over 3 options which was ended by the supervisors stipulating that we had to stay on the current site and expand and renovate. The SB accepted this and approved conceptual drawings for this. Progress was again delayed by a report to the supervisors by a consulting firm that we consider having 2 Middle schools--a new one and a renovated one. In the meantime we began getting indications from Earthman, who was updating his projections for us, that growth in the Blacksburg area might make our plans for a single renovated and expanded MS questionable. Not only might it be too small, but expanding it might be educationally unacceptable because it would house too many MS students in one place.

This is one of the issues we will be discussing this month at our meetings. The "delay" that the newspaper reader complained about may end up being a blessing in disguise if it kept us from moving forward with plans to fix a problem that would only constitute a short-term fix. Indeed, the projections for most areas of the county suggest that growth will be greater than we had been anticipating in many places. We can never perfectly plan for the future, but this experience should put us on notice to keep the long-term well in view.

Sincerely,

Jim Klagge
School Board Member
District F.

email: admin@gisone.com