DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 1997            TAG: 9708270572

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY PAUL SOUTH, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: MANTEO                            LENGTH:   84 lines

RECORD ENROLLMENT, NEW STANDARDS MARK OPENING DAY IN DARE SCHOOLS

Faced with financial problems and crowded classrooms, the Dare County School system opens to a record 4,513 students today, the first day of classes.

``It's not a detriment, it's a challenge,'' Superintendent Leon Holleman said. ``We have to be as creative as possible in terms of doing things differently.''

Manteo High School, for example, has moved its band program to the auditorium to make room for two teaching stations.

Classrooms throughout the county are bursting. At Kitty Hawk School, 701 students are enrolled, while 1,051 are registered at Manteo High. Student population systemwide has increased by 900 in the past five years, Holleman said.

The tight times will hit students the minute they leave home. Holleman said the district will enforce a policy limiting school bus stops to one every two-tenths of a mile. In previous years, buses picked up students door-to-door.

Higher fuel costs prompted the change, Holleman said.

Holleman said the bus policy is only one of several cost-saving steps. Earlier this summer, the Dare County Board of Commissioners approved a $305,012 bailout to cover spending overruns by the system.

Holleman acknowledged that some of the measures to save money may meet resistance.

``We want to err on the side of safety,'' Holleman said. ``We're trying to address everything we can. The real problem in that is, none of the decisions are going to be popular. These decisions are going to affect people.''

In the past, the district has shouldered the cost of using school facilities after hours for nonschool activities. That may change, Holleman said.

``If we have to pay someone to be in the building when it's being used, it's impossible to cut costs,'' he said.

The schools will continue to work to establish standards of excellence in the sciences. Statewide standards have been set through the state's ABCs of Public Education initiative. Now in place in elementary and middle schools, ABC standards will be applied at the high school level this year.

``The board will be establishing criteria for standards of excellence,'' Holleman said. ``We'll also be in the second year of our reading adoption program.''The adoption effort combines a whole-language approach with phonics. Four years ago, Dare County began efforts in vocabulary-building as well, which paid dividends on SAT scores released Tuesday.

``Each student learns in different ways,'' Holleman said. ``For example, if I had had to learn to read only phonetically, I never would have become a reader. There are certain phonetic sounds I can't hear. Through the balanced approach, we can reach individual students.''

Grants have helped the district work with the North Carolina Aquarium to encourage middle school girls in the sciences, Holleman said.

And the elementary schools will see a new, practical approach to science.

``We'll establish laboratories at the K-5 level to give a more hands-on approach to science,'' Holleman said.

A debate over national standards for education could also affect North Carolina. The Clinton administration supports national testing beginning at fourth grade.

Critics of national testing say testing occurs too late. Holleman supports the idea of national testing, with some modifications.

``The big fear with all that was that there would be a national curriculum that would take authority away from local school districts or states, even,'' Holleman said. ``But as things have gone on over the past few years, the nature of our society has so dramatically changed because of so many people moving from place to place, that people need some reassurance concerning continuity of the educational process.''

The seasonal nature of the economy in Dare County presents similar problems, Holleman said.

``We have students who enter the system in August, only to withdraw in November, and then return later in the year. I don't have the exact figures, but it's a concern for us.''

Holleman favors an earlier evaluation of reading ability, as well as continued testing throughout elementary and middle school. Now, Holleman said, formal instruction in reading in most schools ends in the second grade.

``I probably would like to see some testing at an earlier level and at least three times during the school career,'' Holleman said. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

EMERGENCY MEETING

The Dare County Board of Commissioners has called an emergency

meeting for today at noon in the Dare County Administrative Annex.

The subject is Board of Education funding.

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