THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 16, 1994 TAG: 9410160052
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 109 lines
When U.S. Senate candidate Oliver L. North questioned the quality of the city's public schools in a recent televised debate, PTA members at W.H. Taylor Elementary saw red.
Flinging darts at the public education system is old hat for conservative politicians, but North touched a nerve. It wasn't just that he was wrong on the numbers of dropouts and students who attend private schools in Norfolk.
What rankled many PTA members was the public perception his comments fed: That the city's schools are a failure. And that a majority of Norfolk parents have turned to private schools in frustration. Actually, more than 90 percent of Norfolk's school-age children are enrolled in public schools.
``I just thought he was way off base and was indicative of somebody who hadn't done his homework,'' said Alice Mountjoy, immediate past president of Taylor's 400-plus-strong PTA.
``There are a lot of us who believe you can't pay to send your kid to a private school that would be any better than Taylor,'' said Linwood Beckner, whose two children attend the school, which is centrally located in the affluent West Ghent neighborhood.
Last year, fourth-graders at nine of Norfolk's 35 elementary schools scored in the top quarter nationwide in science on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills; 31 of the schools landed in the top half.
Taylor students finished in the top 20 percent nationally in math and science and finished in or near the top quarter in reading, language arts, study skills and social studies.
Because many families who have children at Taylor could afford to pay for a private education, their support of the public system is significant; it's also key to Taylor's success, school officials said.
``I don't think I've ever seen a school with more parental involvement. It's unbelievable,'' said Mary Ann Bowen, who became principal this year.
``You have a lot of caring people at Taylor, and you really feel the support,'' Mountjoy said. ``It's the parental involvement that creates this caring atmosphere that rubs off on the teachers and the students.''
The student body at Taylor is diverse, drawing not only the sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers and business owners who live in West Ghent but also children from the lower-income neighborhoods of Park Place and Lamberts Point. About one-third of the 467 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
``The fact that they bring in poverty-level children and educate them as well as they do says something,'' Beckner said.
The school's teachers are experienced - 12 of the 20 hold master's degrees. Teachers have more of a stake in the school's performance since it began experimenting several years ago with ``site-based management,'' an increasingly popular concept that gives teachers and parents a voice in curriculum and other areas of operation.
Classwork emphasizes developing research skills and exploring relationships among wide-ranging subjects. Slower kids are placed alongside higher-achieving kids instead of being isolated or ``tracked,'' and they are given individual attention as needed.
Just because the school serves an affluent neighborhood doesn't mean it has the best of everything, parents said. The PTA has lobbied unsuccessfully for years for a $750,000 addition to enlarge a tiny cafeteria, add bathrooms and eliminate five mobile classrooms.
Taylor's educational excellence is grounded in tradition. Opened in 1917, it is Norfolk's oldest public school still in use.
The grandparents and parents of many children now attending the school also passed through its doors, including some of the city's most prominent citizens. For example, three former Norfolk mayors - Mason Andrews, Vince Thomas and Roy B. Martin - are expected to attend an alumni homecoming today to raise money for the PTA's scholarship fund.
``We could have located anywhere we wanted, and we chose this neighborhood for this school,'' PTA President Mella Goldman said.
Goldman and her husband, Charles, went to the school, and their daughter, Mason Leigh, is now in fourth grade. Charles' father, retired doctor Milton S. Goldman, walked to school there in the 1920s, when the school was surrounded by farmland.
In many ways, Taylor serves as a mirror of Norfolk's social history in the 20th century: Its auditorium played host to Liberty Bond speakers and community songfests during World War I; the school was transformed into an emergency hospital during the city's flu epidemic of 1918; it was named an emergency fallout shelter in the 1960s, and a truckload of food was shipped in during the Cuban missile crisis; the Taylor faculty was racially integrated in 1967 and its student body desegregated by 1970.
``It's sort of an institution around here,'' said Beckner, a Taylor alumnus. ``It's been there forever.''
The PTA, the nucleus of the school's support network, focuses on ways to enhance the children's exposure to cultural arts. But it also has taken an active political role.
Last year, for example, a gun-control resolution the PTA adopted was approved by the state PTA council and figured into the General Assembly debate that produced legislation limiting handgun purchases to one a month.
This year, the state PTA will consider a Taylor-passed resolution seeking ways to address television violence.
Despite critics, including politicians on the campaign trail, Norfolk's public schools have the ingredients to provide a well-rounded education, Taylor parents said.
``It's the people here that make it such a success story,'' Goldman said. ``I think the families that utilize this school place a lot of importance on education.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MOTOYA NAKAMURA/Staff
Charles M. Goldman, left, PTA President Mella Eure Goldman, their
daughter, fourth-grader Mason Leigh Goldman, and Charles' father,
Milton, have all been students at W.H. Taylor Elementary School in
Norfolk.
by CNB