Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 23, 1994 TAG: 9402230289
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
More teachers will be assigned to kindergarten through second grade in 1994-95 as a first step toward 15-pupil classes through fourth grade.
``We can't afford to do that overnight,'' Superintendent Bill Asbury told the School Board at Monday night's budget workshop, but next year can start ``a countdown that would get us there in the next five years.''
The plan is to reduce class sizes in kindergarten, first and second grades from about 25 to 20 next year, and continuing the process until the desired levels are reached through fourth grade.
Nine more teachers will have to be assigned to the lower grades to reach next year's planned pupil-teacher ratio.
Children who have not mastered basic skills by fourth grade will likely fall farther behind each year, Asbury said. That is why it is important to teach those skills early.
Testing shows that the county now has 64 kids coming out of fourth grade inadequately prepared for the school years ahead, Asbury said. ``So is it any wonder that, along about the ninth or 10th year, you lose about 70? ... If we don't teach them to read, write, compute and have a good work ethic, they're not going to make it.''
Research shows that class sizes must be drastically reduced to make much difference, he said.
The school system has tried various approaches to reducing dropout rates and in-school problems.
``We've been tampering with the limbs and sort of ignoring the roots,'' Asbury said. ``The staff felt like we needed to get on with it. We needed to tackle the problem in meaningful ways.''
But smaller classes are just the start of Pulaski County's planned critical skills program.
In fact, Asbury said, the program itself will be worked out by the some 60 teachers working in those early grades next year. ``We're asking them to decide what to teach, how to teach it and how to organize their day,'' he said.
Teachers now with the school system will be surveyed to see which ones are interested in the new primary grades approach and to judge which ones would bring the best skills to it.
By May, the teachers will be in place and can begin brainstorming and planning their critical skills program.
The program will eventually include ``jump start'' summer programs to get young children ready for school, and tutoring or mentoring to help older ones. Their progress would be assessed at the beginning and end of each year, although Asbury said teachers with reduced classes should know where each pupil is academically all year long.
Asbury said he would like to see a screening program for incoming school children in place this summer.
The program will be so thorough that, if a child has not mastered the basic skills needed for the rest of school by grade four, it will be because the child has a handicap or learning disability that will have to be addressed, he said.
More children than ever are coming into schools from homes or situations with serious social problems no one dreamed of a few decades ago, he said. It is vital to involve parents from the start of a child's school career so the importance of education will be reinforced at home.
``We've got to go back and start filtering out the things that distract from our basic mission,'' Asbury said. Drug resistance, hunting safety and all the other programs imposed on the teaching day over the years are important, he said, but might better be given elsewhere.
``We're talking about teachers simplifying their work day, not complicating it,'' he said.
The payoff for teachers in the upper grades is that they will get a better prepared and motivated student, he said.
Funding the program will be the subject of a later workshop.
``This is what we would like to do if our funding proposal works out,'' Asbury said. He said the program would not be started at the expense of other initiatives the school system has launched at other grade levels, such as improving the high school science program and linking it with computer software at the Southwest Virginia Governor's School.
The proposed 1994-95 school budget has three tiers: expenses which are mandated, contractually obligated like the remaining 1.25 percent of a 3 percent teachers' raise instituted this year, or otherwise unavoidable like rising utility expenses; a second tier of what school officials believe are priority needs; and a third of initiatives they believe are essential but depend on the state providing sufficient funding.
The critical skills program at the elementary level, like the additional 3 percent teachers' raises planned for 1994-95, falls into the second tier.
The School Board will discuss its budget next before and after a joint meeting with the county Board of Supervisors planned for March 7.
by CNB