Trejbal: The Blacksburg High School debate
Build two high schools
Christian Trejbal
Trejbal is a Roanoke Times editorial writer. He is stationed in the New River Valley.
Montgomery County residents who oppose building a new high school in Blacksburg after the collapse of the gymnasium typically cite two reasons: Blacksburg is spoiled and taxes are bad. Neither excuse is very persuasive.
The school board recommends building Blacksburg’s new school plus a new Auburn High School in Riner. The county could then renovate the old Auburn High School to house the middle school.
The board of supervisors has the power of the purse, though, and therefore has the final say. Building two new schools and renovating an old one would cost $124 million.
August 29, 2010 - 8:53 AM
Have there been any estimates on the time frame to construct and occupy a new high school in Blacksburg? Forgetting the unfounded hype that the current high school is a death trap, how long to complete the repairs needed to place the building in service? Does everyone agree that busing middle schoolers to C-burg. for three or four years is a good idea?
Without repairs the current high school is worthless. What’s the plan, tear the structure down rather than repair it? Is that a prudent use of our tax dollars? Some posters and editors have alluded Microsoft chose another site based on Montgomery County’s actions toward the school. Really? One has to be naive, or intent on validating their agenda in any way possible, to think the school entered into the decision.
This is a perfect time for making the right kind of investment in our future. Without committing to build both high schools, this area will turn around in about 7 years and wonder why there is no positive growth. Both high schools are absolutely necessary and the best investments I can think for my tax dollars.
I have looked at all of the arguments that have been presented so far and am puzzled by one option/argument that has not been made. The School Board states that they have about 9.5 million left over from a previous bond. They will also get about 5 million from the insurance company for the gym collapse. They speak of using this to offset construction costs so it will only be necessary to borrow 110 million instead of the full 124.5 million. However, the School Board has never acknowledged that the amount they already have from the previous bond coupled with the expected insurance payment is almost exactly the same as the estimated cost to repair the old Blacksburg High School. The county also already had a plan and timeline for replacing Auburn High School, Auburn Middle School (renovating the old Auburn High) and building a new Blacksburg High School. If they had a plan and a timeline for this new construction, it also seems reasonable to assume they had a plan for paying for it over next several years. The insurance payout couldn’t possibly have figured into the financing plan.
My question is this. If the county already has access to the money necessary to repair Blacksburg High without having to borrow more money or raise taxes, and already had a timeline for replacing and paying for the schools in question over time, why can’t they just repair Blacksburg High with the left over bond money and insurance payout and stick to the school replacement plan that was already in place? Why is having the County violate its own debt policies by borrowing up to its eyeballs and then instituting massive tax increases so everything can be done simultaneously suddenly the “fiscally responsible” choice?
It seems quite the opposite to me. It seems like the responsible choice would be to make emergency repairs to Blacksburg HS with the funds they already have and then stick to the original funding plan and timeline for school replacement. And Christian, if you don’t think a large part of this newfound urgency results from whining and clamoring of the “elite” Blacksburg parents, then you either didn’t attend any of the public meetings on this issue or you just didn’t pay attention. Even the posters here with whom I regularly disagree noted a distinct difference in the tenor and civility levels of the Blacksburg and Christiansburg meetings.
And don’t even get me started on the $800,000 in bonuses. Wat Hopkins revealed alot about motives and priorities when he stated that he couldn’t see asking for a large increase in real estate taxes to fund construction without also asking for raises for the teachers. Talk about never letting a good crisis go to waste!
The MCPS administration and/or the school board has not been doing a very good job of selling the reason for the need for a new high school in Blacksburg. Whether that is by design or incompetence is not known. Of course, the Roanoke Times has been silent on anything about the high school while it has poured out lots of ink about the plight of the poor middle school students and the displaced teachers and the put-out parents.
Last year after the gym collapse, the high school teachers became nomads without a room or a desk to call their own. They had to teach with what they could gather from their rooms at the high school in about an hour or two and move by themselves (if there was county help, it wasn’t visible in the TV shots). They were scattered around the middle school instead of being in departments like they were at the high school and it took several weeks before they got a work room, mailboxes, and computers. Despite the public face that was put forward, the behind-the-scenes view of acceptance of the high school students and teachers at the middle school was not all sweetness and light — they were seen as intruders and pests.
Move to this summer — there was a great outpouring of help to pack up the middle school teachers for their move to Christiansburg, where just about all the school maintenance people and contractors have been working around the clock to make old CMS into a wonderful and welcoming place for the displaced BMS students and faculty — oh, those poor, poor things. Meantime, not much is being done in the other schools to get ready for opening day. What about the Blacksburg High School teachers? Who is helping them? Well, no one, because access to the building is restricted to MCPS personnel. Even if parents wanted to help, they can’t unless they themselves are a teacher somewhere in the county (and some did pitch in during pack-it-up week). It wasn’t fun, since the building has been pretty much closed up since last February, so it is musty with the odor of mildew (read Karen Finch’s commentary from last Sunday about the place). Has there been any mention about showing up to help the high school teachers unpack at their new location? Well, seeing as how the mobile units that are to be used at the high school haven’t even been installed, that could be tricky. But at least the teachers will have a place once again they can call their own, for a while. Of course, there will be adjustments, since the middle school teachers took all the computers with them (but left behind a lot of the middle-school sized furniture).
As to the Blacksburg High School, the collapse of the gym was not an end result, but just another symptom of how bad the building has been since it was built. Anyone that has been associated with the building, as a teacher, parent, or student over the years knows that the place has many problems. Students who were in band 10 years ago had to deal with the bucket in the saxaphone section to catch the water from the leak in the roof. Respiratory problems and headaches were a way of life for anyone who spent any amount of time in that “sick building.” A lot of students rarely bothered with heavy coats or winter clothes because they would be overdressed for the building because the temperatures could never be regulated correctly because of the rat-maze layout — a result of putting up walls when the open-classroom fad construction failed. The building has also been overcrowded for the last 10 years.
The bottom line is that Blacksburg, like Auburn, is actually behind the curve in getting a replacement building. It is too bad that the county didn’t take care of things back in the ’80s when it should have. There were attempts, which is why there was a revolving door on the school superintendent’s office. It finally took Harold Dodge to get things moving — but here we are two decades later and we still have some buildings that should have been replaced years ago, along with resistance to doing so. It’s time for people to realize that Montgomery County is not the agrarian utopia it was in the ’50s and the one-room schoolhouse won’t cut it anymore.
Christian, rarely do I agree with your position on things but I have to say this is one of the best opinion pieces I’ve ever read in the Roanoke Times. You covered all the bases. Well done.
Blue John, one cannot, without debate say Microsoft spurned Montgomery County over this one issue, but this issue is one that simply shows how the county does things.
It has a long history, well documented here, of lapses in school construction, and not doing things when needed. The Blacksburg Middle School, for example, was 10 years behind when it SHOULD have been done. Riner’s school situation should ALREADY have been addressed.
Who is to say, that once the county landed a Microsoft, it wouldn’t go on the cheap on infrastructure issues and not maintain things as promised or expected. This was just a very relevant, recent example of past history that doesn’t seem to want to change.
As to the timeline, it’ll likely take as long to repair BHS as it would to build a new school, simply to ensure that everything that is needed has been done, because sinking the kind of money into fixing it – and it WILL be more than expected, there is too much uncertainty as to what needs to be fixed – will require it to be a viable building for another 10-12 years, given the costs sunk into it.
@2,
Dawn, I agree completely.
@5,
Rick H., I agree that we are not sure Microsoft spurned the county over this issue, or if Microsoft was the “whale” in question. I can assure you the repairs to BHS will not take as long as building a new school. The MCPS website has copies of all engineering reports and recommendations to repair the structure. There is no reason the school could not be ready in time for the next school year. I’m surprised no one has addressed this issue in the public meetings. I realize the school has not been to everyone’s satisfaction, but to not repair the structure is ridiculous. I don’t know when school buildings became throw away structures, but if that’s the case, we should be erecting army surplus tents for the students.
I would like to know how long the students and teachers will be displaced waiting for a new school to be constructed. How about the busing of middle schoolers for several years? These are all questions that need to be addressed. This is clearly one of those situations that what you want may be not what you need. Uh oh, I hear the Stones singing “You can’t always get what you want…”. There goes the evening!
@4,
We haven’t been the “agrarian utopia” you referenced for years, if ever. Tech’s agriculture program is one of the best, but we are and have been a very nice college town to live in. I personally don’t know anyone that is resistant to new schools, but everyone should be concerned with maximizing the return on our tax dollars.
No offense, Blue John, but apparently you haven’t been paying attention to just about every public hearing on school budgets and county budgets over the past decade or so. There is usually a parade of folks who comment on how big the budget is and how they can’t understand why so much money has to be spent on education and on teacher pay. I still remember from a few years ago the old fellow who stood up and wondered “why we needed to spend so much money on art and music because I don’t know that we have any Leo Davinci’s or Elvis Presley’s in our schools.” There are also people who carry on about how taxes are a burden and they might have to sell off some of their property, which has been in their family for generations (big tears).
As to the “agrarian utopia” thing, one doesn’t have to look too far into the past to see this — like this year and the rationale for the opposition to the intermodal terminal in Elliston. The handful of people who got that suit going claimed that Norfolk Southern would ruin the idyllic rural beauty of that area.
Yes, the fiscally responsible thing to do is probably repair the Blacksburg high school building to some usable state. The fear is that just enough will be done (based on past experience) to get by, but then Blacksburg will be stuck with its band-aid building for the next 10 years. After all, good money was spent to repair the place and it has a brand new gym, plus the county has to spend down its debt before it can consider new construction. Plus, the Blacksburg strand just got a new school in Prices Fork and things must go in turn, so Christiansburg is next. So far, there is no assurance that that won’t be the scenario.
Christian,
“crumbling schools in Riner”
Have you ever even set foot in any school in Riner? Really, I thought even you could do better than such hyperbole.
@8 Yes, I have. Have you? Those schools are in dire shape and long past the date at which they should have been replaced or at least overhauled.
@7,
No offense taken, and you are correct, I haven’t been to budget hearings in a while. From your description of the meetings, it appears nothing has changed over the years, only the players. Your description could have come from meetings twenty years ago. There has always been a divide, and probably always will. The intermodal site is a good example, especially with the Rowe Furniture plant across the street. I wish the state would upgrade I-81 before truck traffic is increased, but again, “you can’t always get what you want”. Amazing how that song is appropriate for these discussions.
I don’t know what the construction schedule is for a new high school in Blacksburg, but the county has completed a new school for Shawsville/Elliston, a new school for Auburn is in the works, and with the appropriate public involvement I don’t see why a new high school for Blacksburg could not be fast tracked. Regardless, the lack of maintenance on these schools needs to be addressed and rectified or the new buildings will soon fall into disrepair.
@9.
Yes, I spent 13 years in those buildings.