Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 21, 1993 TAG: 9310220371
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV18 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The entire group will have its first meeting at 7 p.m. Oct. 28 in the Vocational Building at Pulaski County High School. The members will then split into committees to tackle different aspects of their study.
Those serving are Libby Vansant, Doris Gridley, Linda Hill, John Hocker, John Wenrich, Amy Brooks, Sharon Sayers, Wayne Wooten, Ned Olinger, Sheila Spangler, Janis Carter, Joyce Arehart, Bona Lawrence, Faith Chumbly, Bill Hubble, Ervin Strauss, Cheryl Tillery, Janie Montgomery, Richard Ashworth, Melody McGlothlin, Dale White, George Williamson, Jeanie Anderson, Joe Reed, Hiawatha Nicely, A.J. Smith, Carol Brockmeyer, Hugh Huff III, Joe Weddle, the Rev. Steve Ridenhour, Wayne Carpenter, Andy Hall, Jon Wyatt, John Beahm, Kenneth Bowling, Rachel DeHaven, Janet Johnson, Sue Berkley, Dr. Scott Brandau, Miller T. Farris Jr. and Thomas Powers.
They were drawn from a cross-section of the community.
The number of students attending schools in the county has dropped by about 2,500 since 1977 and is continuing to go down by about 100 every year. The decline is expected to continue through the 1990s and five to 10 years into the next century.
The board closed one of its smaller schools, Hiwassee Elementary with about 40 students, in recent years. At the end of the 1992-93 year, it closed Jefferson Elementary and redistributed its 220 students among Critzer, Claremont and Northwood Elementary Schools.
The up side of the loss of student enrollment is that school officials have been able to lower pupil-teacher ratios and find space to offer new programs. The down side is that state money, which is tied to enrollment, has gone down drastically.
At Tuesday night's School Board meeting, Superintendent William Asbury said this year's school population has already dropped to the level it was expected to reach in March. Based on previous experience, he said, the numbers can be expected to drop even more by then and will leave the 1993-94 school budget with less state money than had been anticipated.
The county has a total of 5,237 students in Pulaski County High School, Dublin and Pulaski Middle Schools and its remaining eight elementary schools.
The loss of state revenue during the 1980s was offset with overall increases in state funding for education generally. That is not the case in the 1990s.
The burden on the county to make up the difference has kept getting bigger.
Local funding has not come close to making up for the loss in state money. That has meant and will continue to mean closing more schools, reducing staff and cutting some programs.
School officials are also concerned about the age of their school buildings. Their newest ones, Pulaski County High and Critzer Elementary, are 20 years old. The others are about 45 years old.
The increasing age of the structures is running into a need for more modern facilities including climate control for new technical equipment such as the computers at all grade levels in the county.
The task force has the goal of completing its study and recommendations by middle or late January.
It will make its recommendations to a joint commission of School Board and Board of Supervisors representatives. It was that commission which called for setting up the task force to make the study.
``No recommendations were made to close any schools,'' Supervisor Bruce Fariss, a member of the task force, told his board a month ago.
But the task force, drawn from a cross-section of the county, may have to make such recommendations.
``It will take a lot to go against the recommendations of this group,'' Fariss has said. ``This will be an important group that, to a large extent, will control the future of education in this county.''
by CNB