THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 5, 1996 TAG: 9607030229
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: VANEE VINES
LENGTH: 74 lines
Handbook approved
A look at more of the action from last week's School Board meeting:The board unanimously approved the district's latest handbook spelling out penalties for students who break rules.
Officially known as the ``Students' and Parents' Rights and Responsibilities, and Expectations and Consequences'' handbook, it contains one major change from last year.
Look-alike drugs and weapons:
Under the board's previous policy, a student caught with look-alike drugs or weapons would face expulsion from school.
Under the new policy, the board or the administration could instead decide to suspend such a student for 10 days and reassign the student to an alternative education program - if the student had not been selling look-alike drugs or brandishing a look-alike weapon.
In at least the past two school years, several board members have complained about having to expel otherwise good kids who unwittingly bring look-alike weapons to school, for example.
Resignations and reassignments
James Hurst Elementary Principal James Victory resigned last g1vvbrd05 Victory week for a job as principal of C. Alton Lindsay Middle School in Hampton.
His resignation was among those listed in the June personnel report.
Victory, who worked in the Portsmouth district for nearly 19 years, could not be reached for comment.
Overall, fewer district workers left Portsmouth in 1995-96 compared with the previous year, the report showed.
This past school year, 152 workers resigned; 163 did so in 1994-95.
The administration splits resignations into six categories: ``Other employment; leaving area; maternity; retirement; graduate study; miscellaneous.''
About 36 percent of the 1995-96 resignations fell into the ``other employment'' category.
The administration confirmed this week the following reassignments for next school year:
Douglass Park Elementary Principal Gordon Ellsworth will move to James Hurst.
Simonsdale Elementary Principal Nancy Dunn will move to Douglass Park.
William Slate, a central office personnel analyst and former principal, will move to Simonsdale as principal.
In other matters...Churchland High air
The central office released this week another statement on the status of Churchland High, where several students and staffers have complained about polluted indoor air in the past two years.
``Classes will continue to be held at Churchland High School during the 1996-97 school year for all students zoned for that facility,'' the statement read in part.
A district spokesman said the administration released the statement because of persistent rumors that Churchland High would close soon.
Over the past year, the city has fixed many of the four-year-old school's ventilation-related problems.
But it will be at least another two weeks before a company that recently studied the situation releases its recommendations, a city Engineering Department staffer said this week.
The company is the second to study the problems.
The district had urged the city to get a second opinion because some of the first company's recommendations could be both expensive and disruptive.
One of those recommendations, for example, reportedly called for closing the entire school so all remaining repair work could be done at once.
The first company that studied Churchland's air-quality problems found that many of them stemmed from too little fresh air in the building and a lack of adequate humidity control.
Too little fresh air in a building can raise carbon dioxide levels - causing headaches, fatigue and dizziness.
About a dozen other schools in the region have reported similar problems. by CNB