ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 21, 1997 TAG: 9702210001
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
Members of the Pulaski County School Board proved Tuesday night that they are as good at memorization as any student in their classrooms.
They approved a massive and far-reaching school construction program for presentation to the county Board of Supervisors without seeing it.
Superintendent Bill Asbury asked the board to base its vote on how it has shaped the school-building program in closed-door session. If he outlined it in writing and handed it to the members, he said, it would become a public document which anyone could ask to see.
"We're not ready to make our capital plan available to the public or the press," he said. "It's still under construction, to some degree. I'm asking the board to accept our recommendations that we've talked about."
The plan will be outlined at a March 20 joint meeting with the supervisors, again probably in closed-door session because it will involve site acquisition and other matters allowed, by law, to be discussed away from the public. Once both boards are satisfied with it, the plan will be made public, possibly after the joint session.
The plan has been under way for several years. It is based largely on recommendations by a cross-section of Pulaski County parents, teachers, business and civic leaders who served on a study committee, and public comment on those recommendations at several open meetings to discuss school building needs.
It has been 25 years since Pulaski County had a capital needs plan, Asbury said. If this one is carried out as now envisioned, he said, there will be no school system in Virginia with better buildings than those in Pulaski County.
"It will carry us not only into the next century but through the first half of that century," he said. "And it's taken literally years to put together."
The School Board has been holding weekly work sessions on preparing its proposed 1997-98 budget, the next of which is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Asbury will meet Feb. 27 with a cross-section of randomly chosen people, including teachers and parents, who will act as a sounding board for the budget. School officials will explain why they are proposing the budget items now planned, and will look to the invited participants to suggest what might have been overlooked.
An open forum will be held for public budget suggestions March 6, and budget discussions with the supervisors at the joint meeting March 10. Nothing will be made final at the joint meeting, because local school officials do not expect to know yet what the state is doing with education funding.
Asbury will present the recommended budget to the School Board at its regular meeting March 13, with the starting time changed to 6 p.m. A public hearing on that budget will be held March 20.
The School Board also revised its calendar to take into account school days missed recently due to snow. If nothing changes between now and the end of the school year, the last school day will be June 12.
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