THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 16, 1997 TAG: 9701160249
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 106 lines
Irresistible force, meet immovable object.
Growing education needs - like classroom seats - smacked head-on into political reality - taxes - at a sometimes testy work session Wednesday between the City Council and the School Board.
Council members recoiled from school officials' request for $127.7 million over the next five years for new and renovated schools - schools the educators call desperately needed because of crowding and age.
It's not going to happen, council members said of the building plan. Not in its current form. Come back, the council told school officials, with new calculations on the relative costs of building fewer but larger schools and adding to and renovating existing buildings.
``Whew!'' Vice Mayor Charles F. Brown said. ``We're going to need some re-engineering. We all know that education needs to be tops. But education is more than just buildings.
``I think we all have to come up with a better plan than what I see here. Because I don't think the taxpayers are going to buy it.''
He and other council members worried loudly about being asked to add 20 to 30 cents to the property tax rate just for the next fiscal year to cover the city's proposed $59 million in building needs. They said the increase could anger taxpayers and scare off new businesses.
A little more than $15 million is sought for the school system's most pressing need: two new elementary schools to open by September 1998. Building them alone would require a tax increase of 6 to 7.6 cents, according to city estimates.
Suffolk property owners currently pay $1.03 per $100 of assessed value in most of the city. The rates are $1.21 in the Suffolk borough and $1.41 in the Central Business District.
Councilman S. Chris Jones said the city couldn't afford to raise rates enough to build all the needed schools without scaring off the industrial development needed to increase the tax base - and pay for all the needed schools. He and Schools Superintendent Joyce H. Trump called it Suffolk's ``dilemma.''
Plus, they and others agreed, there's no time to wait for industrial development. The city already has 91 mobile classrooms spread among its 15 schools, with new students registering every day.
``We're running out of places to put them,'' School Board Vice Chairman Calvin W. Jones said.
Being ``realistic,'' Chris Jones said, means considering building larger schools where the needs are biggest: the elementary level.
Vice Mayor Brown and Councilmen J. Samuel Carter and Curtis R. Milteer hammered the School Board about this, and about expanding existing buildings rather than building new ones.
Put 1,000 students in an elementary school, rather than designing for 650, Milteer said. Bigger schools seemed to work for Virginia Beach and Fairfax County, where the students do relatively well, Brown argued.
But the socioeconomic makeup of the communities is different, answered School Board Chairman Mark A. Croston. Relatively higher family incomes, as in those localities, tend to improve school performance. Elementary schools of about 650 to 675 are considered ideal from an education standpoint, school officials said.
``Schools can be too large,'' School Board member William L. Whitley said, reminding everyone that he pays taxes, too. ``When you have something too large to control and manage, you have chaos. You don't have education.''
If high schools grow to 2,500 students, Whitley said, ``We'll have to have the National Guard in there to control it.''
Adding to and renovating existing schools can be difficult or costly because of outdated, unsafe building materials, inadequate utilities and central facilities such as restrooms, and inaccessibility to people with disabilities, the school people said.
Brown said that hindsight shows the city should have planned better in the past, should have built more schools along the way since it knew the children were coming with the explosion of new houses - particularly in the northern part of the city.
School enrollment has jumped an unprecedented 5 and 7 percent in the past two years - 1,100 students or two elementary schools' worth - to almost 11,000. Another 7 percent jump is expected this fall, adding another 700 to 800 students.
But Brown also said that when he sees mobile classrooms at relatively new schools, he sees ``bad planning'' by school officials. Chairman Croston bristled at this, saying the council couldn't deny school officials what they say they need, and then blame them for not accommodating everyone who shows up at their schools.
``We have a crisis on our hands,'' School Board member John B. Riddick Sr. said. ``But we have bickering back and forth, and looking at next year's election. . . . We need to find a solution to this problem. It's not going to go away. The thing about it, it's going to grow.''
The two sides agreed to meet again within a month, or as soon as new cost estimates could be totaled for bigger schools and renovations.
Afterward, School Board Chairman Croston agreed that a new urgency surrounds a task force his board is forming to explore alternatives to building new schools, such as year-round classes, split half-day shifts and eliminating programs.
Croston said school officials will do the best they can with whatever financial parameters the council gives them, but he felt that the board's first obligation was to present what they saw as the city's legitimate school needs.
``I shouldn't come in, in my mind, and show you a low-cost alternative,'' Croston said. ``I shouldn't ask you for an inferior education.'' ILLUSTRATION: JOHN H. SHEALLY II/The Virginian-Pilot
Construction workers labor on the roof of Oakland Elementary School
in Suffolk's Chuckatuck section. The school, one of many needed to
meet growing enrollment, is slated to open next fall.
KEYWORDS: SUFFOLK SCHOOLS TAX INCREASE