EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN FRANKLIN COUNTY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 13, 1993                   TAG: 9304130360
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN FRANKLIN COUNTY
PERHAPS those of you who wish to make allegations regarding prejudice in our schools and those who prejudge the residents of Franklin County as racists should come for a visit to the Land of Equal Opportunity.
I have been a substitute teacher with the school system for the past two years, and I hope to secure a full-time position for the 1993-1994 school term. I certainly would not want to pursue this goal if I believed that there was no equality of educational opportunity for each and every student as well as for educators. This system has tried to reduce the disparity in education by affording all students the same opportunities to learn, and by providing the most advanced state-of-the-art educational programs and equipment that the financial budget will allow.
I also have had the opportunity to work with at-risk students at the IDEA Center, the alternative educational center in Franklin County. This is a tremendous program that saves students without regard to race or social background and reroutes them in the community through performance-based and vocational-based programs. It also serves as an adult-education facility in the evenings where anyone in the community may enroll to take credits to earn a high-school diploma.
There will always be prejudices in our communities, regardless of where we live. As educators we must not identify ourselves as black or white. It does not matter as long as we are striving to reach all students and educate them to the best of our abilities. We are not here to promote tension or mistrust among our students.
The School Board and administration at Franklin County deserve the utmost respect and praise for what has been achieved within our school system. We have some outstanding teachers who travel from Roanoke and various other communities to teach in Franklin County. Let's stand behind those who have developed and implemented the high standards of our educational system and disregard the prejudices of those who would try to tear us down. ELIZABETH N. GIBBS WIRTZ

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB