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

DATE: MONDAY, October 23, 1995                   TAG: 9510240002
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DON L. GARDNER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BEDFORD'S SCHOOLS ARE STRUGGLING WITH SERIOUS PROBLEMS

MEMBERS of the Bedford County School Board and school Superintendent John A. Kent have tried to make it seem like Citizens Who Care is attacking them personally and that we're not concerned about issues. They say they've tried to answer our concerns, but we'll not accept their answers. As long as their answers are given in generalities or restating their previous stance, I cannot see how people of Bedford County can accept their half-hearted, feeble attempts to excuse themselves from their past performance.

We don't care who's on the School Board or superintendent as long as the following issues are dealt with, within a timely fashion, and action is taken to correct what our organization perceives as real problems in the school system:

Lack of in-depth knowledge by the present School Board of our schools' fiscal and academic conditions.

A "rubber stamp" approach to anything Kent wants to do in the school system.

Poor morale among teachers caused by a punitive approach to candid remarks they might make in public. Also, a lack of support for their concerns by the School Board.

A 14 percent drop in present 11th-graders' Iowa Basic Skills Test scores from the same group's scores when they were in the fourth grade.

A dramatic drop in funding for instructional materials for teachers' use in the classroom. It dropped from a previously low figure of $30 per student to a new low of $20 per student.

Also consider the following:

Kent recently revised the figures on instructional funding for '93-'94. However, even with revised figures on student population and city/county budget revenues, our county's ranking - according to the Virginia Education Association method of analysis - will only go from 134 to 131-133 out of Virginia's 134 school systems for the '93-'94 school year.

There are million-dollar overruns on the last three school-building projects, but the school administration and School Board cannot see how they can afford $50,000 to $100,000 for a professional construction adviser on these various jobs.

Our schools are being run without textbooks for each student. The ones we have are up to 15 years old, are falling apart and are outdated. Yet the administration, with the School Board's blessing, is only spending $91,000 on textbooks out of the $450,000 given to the county by the state over the past two years for buying books. If in fact textbooks are old hat, as we've been told, why did the state feel a need to appropriate almost $500,000 in two years for this purpose?

Bedford County schools received $100,219 from the Virginia Department of Education for high-school library-technology updates on Aug. 19, 1994. The implementation deadline for this project was June 30, 1995. As of Oct. 4, these initiatives haven't been implemented at any high-school library. Why?

There was a $468,000 balance left on the books from all of the county's 20 schools for the end of the '94-'95 school year. However, approximately 90 percent of those funds are earmarked for student accounts. These are mostly accounts students have generated in special activities like yearbook, athletics, boosters, Future Farmers of America, etc. These funds cannot be used for day-to-day school operation. Actually, in the instructional-funding accounts from the 20 schools, there was a $61,000 deficit, which must be carried over into the '95-'96 school year, to be paid off with the current year's allocations.

Every time the school administration does a computer count at the schools, we get a different number.

While instructional funding for students and teachers is at or near the bottom of the list, our School Board elects to pay Kent, at the rank of 27th in Virginia, in base pay of $89,322 and with benefits of vacation pay, retirement, travel allowance, medical/dental insurance and unused sick days. This comes to approximately $120,000 per year. At the same time, it paid his former wife's medical and dental insurance for him for the past two years.

If the same people who have been on the School Board for the past 10 to 15 years think the above issues are personal attacks, and they stand on their record that everything is lovely, then I see no hope for constructive change.

Citizens Who Care feels that Stan Butler, Shirley McCabe, Betty Earle and Wes Gordon have demonstrated a command of the issues. They have indicated a strong desire to bring about change in our school system. We urge you on Nov. 7 to give them an opportunity.

Don L. Gardner lives in Huddleston and is president of Citizens Who Care.

by CNB