THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 18, 1995 TAG: 9506160170
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
All over Portsmouth there are students and their parents willing to attest to the difference a fledgling magnet program has made in their public school experience.
In fact, many of them showed up at a recent School Board meeting and made a successful plea on behalf of the programs. As a result, the superintendent found some money to put back into the budget to help keep the magnets going.
The stop-gap money amounts to less than $200,000, a small investment in a program that has great potential for refurbishing the image of Portsmouth public schools.
Many people in Portsmouth actually are unaware that the magnet programs even exist. Many are under the impression that they never began after the city failed to get a $6 million grant from the federal government. That grant was scuttled, would you believe, by a group of Portsmouth people who took a busload to Washington to lobby AGAINST it.
Of course, we didn't get the money after that. There are too many cities in the nation who wanted money and the politicians sure weren't going to give it to a city where there was opposition. The local opponents represented a small percentage of Portsmouth, as do most of the noisy and vocal opponents of many projects.
The opponents, mostly white, argued that the magnet programs would benefit black youngsters and hurt average kids. At the time and to this day, I think that's baloney. But that's a story for another time.
The fact is, the magnet program still got up and running for the fall of 1993 - money or no money.
Two years later we have three magnet programs still going: arts at Churchland High, international studies at Wilson High and the science and technology program that encompasses Douglass Park Elementary, Hunt-Mapp Middle School and I.C. Norcom High.
In addition, there is the Montessori program at Park View Elementary, the only public school Montessori classes in the area.
City Clerk Sheila Pittman, president of Hunt-Mapp PTA, is a real magnet enthusiast. Her daughter Jan is one of many students bused from Churchland to participant in the Hunt-Mapp magnet classes.
I remember Sheila talking last year about Jan's excitement about going to Hunt-Mapp, how she was up early and ready to take the bus to Willett Drive every morning.
``Students are doing what they previously thought to be impossible,'' Pittman said. ``They are learning while enjoying school.''
Pittman said magnet enrollment doubled at the end of the first year at Hunt-Mapp and now about 400 students, half of who will travel across town, are now expected to enroll for next fall.
The students are doing fascinating things in all the programs.
Currents has reported on the Hunt-Mapp students' plans to built an ultralight airplane this summer and about the development of the Portsmouth Education and Information Center that not only will link all of the city's students and teachers by computer. It also will enable them to communicate with the world.
At Churchland, music and art programs are so successful that they are attracting talented students from all over the city. I even heard of one young woman who moved here from another city so she could enroll. Recent Currents stories also have reported on the success of the choral groups at Churchland.
All in all, the programs have proven themselves worth saving. The School Board would have been insane to let them go without minimal funding this year - and they did do minimal funding just to keep them alive.
A lot of money in any school system, and Portsmouth certainly is no exception, goes to classes and assistance for students with problems. It is important to spend some money on the kids who are able and inclined to excel.
Keeping the space and technology program alive and vital is doubly important with the pending construction of the new Norcom High, which will be built with all the technological advances.
Success of that school or any school depends on having an integrated student body. The magnet program which draws from across the city will help make the Norcom student body more diversified, offering all students a broader array of learning experiences.
Portsmouth citizens should be proud of the magnet programs that have succeeded in spite of tight budgets and public ignorance. All students as well as the city's image will benefit from these successes. by CNB