ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 18, 1996 TAG: 9612180034
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
Hunched over white paper and circling answers with a No. 2 pencil, the Montgomery County School Board took a test Monday night. The subject: itself.
Watching closely were teachers - about a dozen of them - who said they had a particular interest in this "exam."
"I'm concerned about the ineffectiveness of this board," said teacher Delores Graspas. "There are serious problems in this system and they just need to stop the infighting and get on with it."
That, in a nutshell, was the goal for most board members who sat around a conference table in Virginia Tech's College of Veterinary Medicine.
"I don't say that we're below satisfactory," said member Mike Smith, "but we cannot function as a board because we can't be a team - there are too many quarterbacks here."
Several board members have pushed for this self-evaluation. They claim deliberations that last for months and decisions that split the board are signs of an ineffective group.
Underneath recent board performance, though, lies a three-year battle between those who supported Superintendent Herman Bartlett and those who would not. In October, the board narrowly agreed to search for a replacement to Bartlett, whose contract ends in July.
Those tensions were only alluded to Monday night. Instead, through filling out evaluations and discussing individual concerns, the board scratched the surface to reach a deeper level of cooperation and trust.
Don Lacy, an associate professor at Tech who specializes in facilitating governmental boards, had the group answer questions like "Do members have second thoughts after making a decision?" and "Are they open and willing to listen or do they engage in mind-games, guilt trips and sour grapes?"
Lacy left the Montgomery School Board in 1994 after serving eight years and was able to share some personal insight.
"You're caught in a kind of stream of activity and you are moving," he said, "but you need to decide what direction you want to head. Most boards focus on minutia and lose vision."
Several board members admitted to hindering the process somewhat. Vice Chairman Barry Worth said he needed to listen better to other viewpoints. Wat Hopkins wanted to avoid vocally supporting a position and then getting stuck if he wanted to change his mind.
Roy Vickers wanted to see more unity on the board once a decision is made; Mary Beth Dunkenberger agreed. She cited the board's decision - since altered - to build a new middle school on the site of the present one in downtown Blacksburg.
"As an example, I didn't accept it and I went around and asked people if we could get support for two schools," she said.
Lacy will compile the "test" results and report back to the board on major problems or concerns. Then comes the hard part.
Lacy encouraged the board to meet again and discuss problems that came up in the results. The true test of a changed board, though, will come as the it tries to develop a new budget, choose a new superintendent and build three new schools.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 linesby CNB