School E-mail April 1, 1996

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Subj: Goals 2000, Riner, Budget, BMS
Date: 96-04-01 14:14:55 EST
From: James.C.Klagge@bev.net (James C. Klagge)
To: school issues@vt.edu

As many of you know, the school board will have a chance to decide whether to request that the state seeks federal funds through the Goals 2000 program. The legislature has said that if 85% of local school boards make this request, the state administration must proceed to make the request. We will discuss, and presumably vote on, this Tuesday.

There is a public address time at the start of the meeting at 7:30, and anyone who would like to address the board on this matter (or any other) is welcome to do so at that time. You will be limited to 3 minutes speaking time. If you would like to express an opinion through e-mail I will take that into consideration in my vote, and report the substance of the responses at the meeting. I am quite sure some who oppose Goals 2000 money will be speaking at the meeting, so if there are those who support it, it would behoove them to be vocal as well. Sometimes public boards are, for better or worse, swayed by the squeakiest wheels at the moment.

I assume you are familiar with the issues: Allen doesn't want to seek the money for fear there are/will be federal strings tied to the money. It amounts to $6 million for Virginia, which will be available on a competitive basis through application--not automatically distributed. 47 others states have already taken such funds. The program was developed by the Bush administration. Some believe it is unconstitutional for the legislature to direct the Governor to do anything like this.

My view, so far, is this: While it may or may not be unconstitutional for the legislature to direct the Governor, I will leave that to others to debate--It is not inappropriate for the school board to express its desire to be able to apply for these funds. That's what I see OUR issue as being. This is not a democrat vs. republican issue, since the program was set up by the Bush administration. We could use any money we can get, and our system has a well-established competitive grant-seeking program. I think the evidence from the other 47 states, many of them more conservative and therefore more wary than Virginia, is that there are no strings. With as much publicity as there has been about this, the Fed's are certainly not going to hang themselves by suddenly imposing a bunch of strings. The governor has shown no reluctance to accept federal money in other contexts, such as flood relief, so this can't be just a principled stance of accepting no federal money. I'm planning to vote for it.

As you may have heard through the newspaper, the Board of Supervisors came to an agreement with the Salmonses to purchase almost 40 acres of their land for roughly $8000/acre. Apparently that's what it took to avoid condemnation and satisfy the Salmonses. It's a lot of money, but I'm glad it's over. I hope the high price does not adversely impact what we have to work with for the school itself. I think all of this shows the value of "sticking to our guns" as well as the value of public pressure. Having gotten what we sought on this one, it will be easier to get what we seek on other things. Compromise is good, but having a reputation for compromising can sometimes be bad (as Bob Dole is finding out). Also, one doesn't want to compromise on important issues--the problem is to discern exactly which those are.

The Board of Supervisors will decide on the tax rate on Wednesday. I am not optimistic, even about a 6 cent raise. BUT, I do feel like we made some progress this year on getting public involvement in the process. A lot more people know how things work. And there were more school supporters than usual at the public hearing. 10 spoke in favor of taxes to fund the school budget. 9 spoke against any tax increase. Those aren't the kind of numbers we need to have turn out to really get the ears of the supervisors. But it is better than in past years--and they weren't only the usual suspects of teacher and PTA representatives. There were also parents and even retired people! But we are really going to need more personal effort next time around. Believe me--that's the only way things will change. Supporting a tax increase in your heart means nothing unless your supervisor hears about it. Okay, enough sermon for now.

Tomorrow we discuss the BMS issue. I hope you benefited from the views that I shared over e-mail. I certainly benefited from the process. I got 3 dozen responses from my e-mail inquiry. I appreciate the specific comments people made, but I will share with you the ranking results (recall 1 is build on a new site, 2 is expand and renovate current building, 3 is new building on back of the current site):

As people's first choice: (1) got 10; (2) got 13; and (3) got 11.

What people clearly opposed: (1) was vigorously opposed by 9 people who did not like the idea of moving out of town, or using up new land; (2) was clearly opposed by 10 people who had concerns about the disruption to education and the safety of students; (3) was only clearly opposed by 1 person.

If we consider which option has the most support as people's first OR second preference: (1) was the 1st or 2nd choice of 14 people; (2) had 18 supporters; and (3) had 24 supporters.

In other words when you consider which plan had the widest support and the least opposition, (3) is the clear winner.

Finally, there were 300 people on my list who didn't respond. I'm assuming they do not feel terribly strongly about the options, or are willing to leave it to our judgement.

I'm planning, at this point, to support (3). Not simply because of the "vote". I was initially in favor of (2). But I am concerned about not only disruption to education, but also the problem of foreseeing time and expense and interruption of renovating, especially where asbestos is bound to be involved. I think (2) LOOKS like the most economical option, but we can't tell in advance. I am leery of imposing hardships on our teachers and administrators, and on a whole generation of middle school students, with no certain light at the end of the tunnel. Squires looks like a bad precedent. The Major Williams renovation was delayed 6 months, and that was with no occupants around.

More information will be presented at the meeting--about costs of disposing of the old school, about trips that looked at on-going renovation projects in middle schools, etc. These things could influence my vote, but I'm just telling you how things look to me so far.

Hope this helps you keep track of what's up. Thanks for your interest. (Again let me remind you I'm happy to take you off my list if you prefer!)

-Jim Klagge.

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