School E-mail March 4, 1996

Return to School e-mail archive directory

Subj: Riner Update & Other Info
Date: 96-03-04 09:39:53 EST
From: James.C.Klagge@bev.net (James C. Klagge)
To: SchoolsMailinglist@sable.cc.vt.edu

Dear voters,

The school board and the board of supervisors had a joint meeting on Friday, March 1, concerning the Riner site. We made our case for a 40-acre site, not only for a new 750-student elementary school, but also for space for future expansion of the middle and high school there, as well as for recreational facilities that would serve the community as well as the schools. (Henry Jablonski asked why we need to buy all the land now. Annette Perkins asked if the land would still be available and undeveloped in 10 years. Henry said he didn't know. Annette said: That's just the point!) The supervisors agree to hold off until Monday, March 11 before making a final decision, and they agreed to hear from the public on both sides of this issue at that meeting at 7pm. I hope people affected by this will be willing to speak up. Please inform people you may know from Riner. You will be limited to 3 minutes, and you should call the county administrator (382-6954) to get your name on the list to speak. I certainly don't want to force something on the people in Riner that they don't want. This hearing is becoming the way to find out what they do want.

Many of you on this list are not from Riner, and would not be directly affected, but I wanted to share with you a larger related issue. The 40 acre request was generated by the FUSS study (Facilities Use and Space study), which was a large-scale and community based attempt to determine the adequacy of current facilities, and the long-term needs for facilities in the school system. Needs were spread out over 4 phases, each roughly 5 years long. So we are planning well into the next century. The new HS in Shawsville, the new or modified MS in Blacksburg, and the new MS in Christiansburg are all based on the first phase of this study. Two of the supervisors expressed strong reservations about this study: Joe Gorman complains that the study was based on a 25 student class-size, whereas the Focus:2006 calls for 20-student class size. He has said that this flaw casts doubt on the whole report. Nick Rush also said he has always been suspicious of the report, though he did not elaborate on his reasons. (And others have suspicions that went unvoiced.) The Riner issue shows that the supervisors are planning to reassess all building programs, rather than accept the long-term planning done by the school system. They certainly have that right. But I think citizens need to know that nothing can be taken for granted in terms of the long-term planning we've done. The case for long-term planning, and for any specific plan, will have to be remade each time it comes up for consideration. That will require a lot of energy in the way of citizen participation.

As for Gorman's complaint: He is right that the two plans are based on different class size goals. I'm not sure how that happened (it happened well before I got on the board), but we have put in a budget item to pay to reassess the FUSS plan in light of the class size issue, and other updates as well. But I don't think that problem undermines the value of other aspects of the FUSS study. If anything, that adjustment would make future needs even more pressing.

Unfortunately, this site discussion seems to be taking away from the discussion of the budget. Apparently the supervisors will decide on a maximum tax increase for public discussion on Sunday, March 10. So far I heard they are talking about something in the range of 4 to 10 cents. There is still time to get your input on this.

Thanks for the many responses I have gotten from these mailings. I hope it is serving a good purpose. As you can see, I have managed to get rid of the address list at the beginning of the letter. I got lots of help on this, for which I am thankful.

-Jim Klagge.

email: admin@gisone.com