Trouble ahead in Montgomery
The county’s schools have a budget they can work with, but not without sacrificing some muscle. Even that does not appear sustainable.
With no good choices left, the Montgomery County School Board last week chose the Governor’s School over school sports and teachers’ pay over teacher staffing to close an intractable $4.2 million budget gap.
And the board chairman warned of hard choices ahead for next year, including the possibility of closing one or more schools.
May 21, 2012 - 7:54 AM
$100 for a child to play sports is reprehensible. It sounds like more of the “Let them eat cake” mentality of the limousine liberals in this area. The poor kids will have to go without so the fortunate kids can play in the Governor’s Playground.
Henry should look before he leaps. There will be a provision for low-income students (free and reduced lunch)bur I actually agree that the Governor’s school allotment could have been cut.
The plan has a safety net so that those who are on free and reduced lunch don’t have to pay the fee. The “poor kids” won’t have to go without, they will still get to play football and, sorry to be blunt, Mom won’t have to give up her beer and cigarettes so her darling can stand on the sideline on Friday nights (you know it’s true, so don’t be offended). Even at that, I’ll bet the booster clubs will pony up the funds to make sure everyone gets a chance to play and there won’t be much pain. Who will put up extra money for classroom supplies so there is enough paper to print tests and worksheets and provide the other things that teachers pay for out of their own pocket?
I am “offended” that it happens, not that you feel the need to comment on it Joe Hokie. What possible good does your attitude do for a child? Or that parent? People complain about the “PC Police” but seriously, that parent has the “liberty” and “freedom” to be a selfish jerk, and while we as a society also have the right to let their little kid rot, we don’t. And we won’t. Most of us just refrain from stating the obvious out of futility, not lack of knowledge.
Henry, you really should do a little research before you let fly your judgmental vitriol. As these other posts have clearly stated, there will be provisions for lower income students. And there are already movements to create a “scholarship” fund of sorts for these students.
We are down to the bone in Montgomery County. There is little left to cut. The Board had to show that academics come before athletics.
Your disdain for “liberals” is laughable. Liberalism built this great country, provided your personal freedoms, including the freedom to criticize that which protects your freedoms. Irony defined.
Here’s something I’ve yet to understand about Montgomery County and how they run the school system. Drive down Prices Fork Road from Blacksburg, and you pass 2 relatively new elementary schools (Kipps – 2003, and the new PFES) within right about 1.5 miles of each other. Then, keep going down Prices Fork just a bit further, and there’s Belview ES right near the intersection of Prices Fork and SR 114. 3 elementary schools in about a 5-mile distance. And then, going the other way from Kipps, are Linkous and Harding elementary schools, less than a mile from each other and 2 miles from Kipps. Are that many schools really necessary? Why not construct a slightly larger school and consolidate a little bit? Sort of how Shawsville and Elliston-Lafayette had their schools consolidated into a larger Eastmont Elementary?
But, the whole debacle in Montgomery County just further demonstrates why I moved out of the county in 2007, and have not regretted that decision, especially now that the tax rate for the county alone approaches what some independent cities charge their residents…oy!
#6 – To answer (at least partly) your question: “…Then, keep going down Prices Fork just a bit further, and there’s Belview ES right near the intersection of Prices Fork and SR 114. 3 elementary schools in about a 5-mile distance…Are that many schools really necessary?”
Belview is in the Christiansburg HS district. Kipps and Prices Fork are in the Blacksburg HS district. Belview (before the new Forest Hills was completed)was sitting at 105% of capacity. It was built prior to the explosion of housing on that side of town and is landlocked and has no room to grow. Kipps was built mainly for the Hethwood neighborhood. I agree that it should never have been built. Again, that school is already overcapacity.
Prices Fork was originally built in the 1950′s (I believe). It was added to and trailers were brought in over the last couple of years to aid in classroom size being more realistic. The new school was built for a capacity of (again I believe) 600 kids. It has half that now.
Montgomery County has a problem in that Blacksburg kids, read parents, don’t want to have to go to Christiansburg. Christiansburg kids don’t want to have to go to Blacksburg. Auburn wants to remain their own little community.
Henry,
I find it very telling that you believe that poor children do not attend the governor’s school. Care to explain? NVM, we get who and what you are.
#1 I’ll let somebody else argue about who attends governor’s school, but Henry obviously doesn’t know or realize that at many schools quite a few of the sports are dominated by kids whose families are either rich or at least fairly comfortable.
@7, then it seems that Montgomery County, like my home school district of Virginia Beach, has trouble in prior proper planning for future school needs and population growth patterns. All too often, the VBPS system would anticipate the need for a new school, spend a couple years securing funding and getting the school designed, and then another year or two under construction. The end result was that while the school they planned for would have accommodated the population maybe a year or 2 after the need was identified, by the time the school would open, it was already overcrowded, even with shifting district lines…so a trailer park of portable classrooms had to be mobilized on day-1 for almost every new school down there.
I don’t quite understand the difficulty in building a school to house more students to accommodate either substantial future growth, or the consolidation/re-districting of the district to reduce the number of physical campuses that have to be constructed and maintained. Unfortunately we’re no longer in a flush financial time where ample money exists in the government sector through tax revenues to build smaller community-oriented schools, or really to even maintain what was built in the past 30-50 years for that matter. So given that, I have a hard time understanding why the county continues to spend so much money on so many schools, especially when with all the tax increases foisted upon the citizens, they still can’t meet their stated obligations.
Henry and Joe Hokie — our household income is low enough for my “poor kids” to qualify for the free lunch program, but my husband and I don’t smoke, and besides a glass or two of champagne on New Year’s Eve, I rarely drink alcohol (he doesn’t drink at all.) My son is in the gifted program, and if he continues to do well in his classes and SOLs, will be attending the Governor’s School in a couple of years. Oh, and we’re hardcore liberals who live in a trailer park (there are several such neighborhoods with kids who attend Blacksburg schools) and don’t have a limousine. I’m glad to hear that there will be income-based fee waivers to play sports, as my son has expressed an interest in playing football when he enters high school in the fall, and if he does, I will not be smoking or drinking beer on the sidelines, just cheering the same as the “normal,” middle-class moms. I hope this clears up the misinformation spread by the judgemental stereotypes that have been voiced in this thread.
P.S. Just to get in front of additional poor-shaming assumptions, I’ve been married to my kids’ dad since before they were conceived, and he works full-time, often over 40 hours a week — hard, backbreaking work — but farmworkers aren’t paid much. I’m now physically disabled, so our household income puts us in the ranks of the “working-poor.”
Thanks Laura Hernandez and please know that not all of us think like some of the folks who post here. Best of luck to you and your family. The assumption that liberals don’t have values, a work ethic or any morality is perpetuated by people with no conscience. And yet they whine when we expose their agenda.
#10 – I agree. The clique-ish behavior that Blacksburg exhibits is bordering on the ridiculous. I don’t have any numbers in front of me, but a town of 35k-40k people and only 1,400 elementary students should not have the need for 5 elementary schools. When the rest of the entire county (Christiansburg included) has only 6.
Bless you, Laura, because you and your family are EXACTLY who these programs should benefit. You work hard, do what you can to provide, and through no fault of your own, are in a situation where you need some extra assistance to get through a situation — which perhaps you may not really want to ask for but have no choice. And as you said, you will be there to support your child on the sideline. My problem is with those who milk the system for all it’s worth, who buy a couple things with their food stamps to get the cash change so they can turn around to buy the beer and cigarettes, but don’t have the money for school supplies or field trips. Ask any teacher, he or she will tell you which child got himself up and dressed that morning because Mom was passed out or still out with her latest boyfriend (not that child’s father) and didn’t have any breakfast because there way no food in the trailer. So, yes, help those who really and truly need the assistance but weed out the sponges if we only could.
As to WV Mountain Man, I get tired of repeating this over and over — just because a school says “Blacksburg” does not mean it only serves the Town of Blacksburg. The Blacksburg attendance zone covers pretty much the northern half of Montgomery County and is just about the largest attendance zone of the four stands. It includes Merrimac, Prices Fork, Longshop/McCoy, Brush Mountain, Ellett Valley, and out Mt. Tabor Rd. almost to the Roanoke County line. I do accept that the School Board screwed up, though, in the recent attendance zone study by not doing much of anything. It wasted the time of a lot of people and $85,000 on consultants to just decide to move basically a handful of kids from Kipps to Prices Fork (much to the dismay of the PF people). NOTE: Prices Fork and Merrimac are both IN THE COUNTY — NOT BLACKSBURG, so it was COUNTY residents complaining about who was being moved into their school, not Blacksburg “elites” as some have contended. Sheesh, at least get that right.
#14 – Those elementary schools feed the Blacksburg HS. That is why I lumped them in with the Blacksburg crowd. I would contend that Merrimac, Brush Mtn, Ellett and towards Catawba have a minimal (in comparison) amount of children. Harding services the portion of the county towards Roanoke. Harding is the smallest elementary school in Blacksburg.
As an aside, I do live in Prices Fork and am forced to pay for town utilities that I did not request and did not wish to receive. So, I’m well aware of which precinct is in town limits and which lies outside of them.
I live in the Merrimac area of Montgomery County. There are 2 buses that pick up kids out here and they are the 121 students that will be moved from Kipps to Prices Fork elementary, according to a recent RTimes article. If the 1400 number is accurate for total Blacksburg elementary students, then the Merrimac area accounts for almost 10%, not too shabby, and combined with the others mentioned who are outside Bburg town limits, I think that number, while a minority, would be more than minimal. But all of the non-townie county kids go to BMS and BHS, whatever form those may take.
I’m appalled that most of you have forgotten the WORKING MIDDLE CLASS WHO IS THE MAJORITY. AND IF YOU WOULD ATTEND SPORTING EVENTS, YOU WOULD KNOW MOST OF THE FAMILIES OF THESE PARTICIPANTS ARE NOT RICH. You have forgotten about single parents who are just above the “free/reduced line” who have to supplement their incomes with second jobs. I am one of “those” people. AND I’M A STATE EMPLOYEE OF 20 YEARS. I have two children, one of whom has already graduated and played multiple sports. My younger is middle school age. How dare you ignore the fact that for many children, who are of the working middle class, sports is the motivating factor for keeping their grades up. A sport may be the ONLY reason he/she chosen to remain in school! I supervise convicted felons for a living and most had no mentor, no band director, no debate team coach, and no sports to turn to as an outlet and motivation to BE MORE and DO MORE. For your information, we are fund-raised out and tapped out on equipment for our children to participate. Our booster clubs are doing the best possible, already, to fund these teams. And since when did you all forget this Pay to Play is not just for sports? It’s for the band and debate team-anything VHSL governed! Maybe the Governor’s School, which is for a select few, can do their own fundraisers…just a thought! Since the rest of us can practically consider fundraising as a second job these days. BLACKSBURG CITIZENS, IT’S TIME YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY VOICE HEARD IN THIS COUNTY! There are a few others called SHAWSVILLE, ELLISTON, RINER, AND another called CHRISTIANSBURG. WELCOME TO MONTGOMERY COUNTY!
Leigh, while your passion is compelling, you are off-the-mark on a few things. Schools require only a “Take 5, Pass 5″ standard for student athletes. This means, for instance, at BHS, students only need to pass five of the seven classes in which they are enrolled, and “passing” means maintaining a minimum 59.5% average. This hardly qualifies as “the motivating factor for keeping their grades up.”
And as for your mini-diatribe against the citizens of Blacksburg…that has been demonstrated to be so much garbage in so many ways, it’s hardly worth replying but: Why are there new two new schools in Shawsville, one new elementary in Riner with a new high school and a revamped school for the middle schoolers on the way, and a new middle school in Christiansburg? Oh, is it because B’burg is the “only voice heard in this county?” NO. Is that why the School Board bent over backward in the face of the Riner Whiners complaining about temporarily relocating Auburn Middle School students? NO.
Get off your high horse. Good day to you.