Editorial: Montgomery County school attendnace
A high price for so little school redistricting
Montgomery County School Board members did county government no favors last week when they voted to change school attendance zones. Despite months of work by dozens of people at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, they found only 121 students to move.
April 8, 2012 - 8:02 AM
Point of clarification — If in this quote, “Some Blacksburg families fretted about their children having to attend classes with students from the rural parts of the county.” you are referring to comments from some parents of students in Prices Fork Elementary, please check a map before writing such drivel. Yeah, PFE is in the Blacksburg Strand, but the school and its attendance zone are in the county. In fact, ALL the Blacksburg schools have students from the “rural parts of the county” and it hasn’t been a problem. We really don’t need the Roanoke Times trying to stir up problems with “elitist” comments.
As to the rest of the editorial, yes, it is correct. The school board shot itself in the foot by wasting a lot of peoples’ time and $85,000 just to bring the new Prices Fork school up from 35% capacity to 50% capacity. That big avoid-the-tough-decision non-decision was made to dodge hurting feelings and upsetting anyone who might have to change schools. Too bad, those people were elected to make tough decisions and look out for the best long-term interests of the county and its taxpayers.
Perhaps the better course would have been to close Belview School and move those students to Prices Fork, thus saving money by eliminating one administrator, taking care of the teaching and other positions that have to be cut from the budget, and removing the utility bills for an older and less energy-efficient building. That would demonstrate to the supervisors, taxpayers, and county residents that the board is serious about dealing with tight finances.
“Despite months of work by dozens of people at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, they found only 121 students to move.”
It appears the school board is being blamed for the results of the study. Would 500 students being moved justify the cost? Where is the dividing line? It’s easy to second guess after the results are in, but to criticize the board in an attempt to “make news” is poor journalism at best.
“http://blogs.roanoke.com/roundtable/2012/04/editorial-montgomery-county-school-attendnace/”
attendnace?
@3 Our blog software sometimes generates the url while the piece is still being edited. The headline was corrected after the url had been generated but before it went live.
@4,
Thanks CT, I shouldn’t have mentioned the spelling. As I get older I find myself spending more time with the dictionary. I second guess myself on words I never questioned the spelling of a few years ago. Getting old is for the birds!