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Wise school board slates special session on consolidation

Published November 24th, 2009 | 1 Comments

WISE — The Wise County School Board will meet in a special session at 6 p.m. Monday to discuss the school division’s next moves involving high school consolidation.

While agreeing to the special session, the board also directed School Superintendent Jeff Perry to look at a “wide variety of options” including more information on a merger with Norton City Schools even though the Norton School Board declined to join the county’s consolidation program earlier this year.

On Tuesday, Perry said Big Stone Gap’s Betty Cornett recommended another look at the Norton scenario and Appalachia’s Mark Hutchinson urged the board to take up the possibility of going to one or two new high schools, rather than the three new facilities in the current plan.

“So we have a couple of different things to look at for whatever options we’ve got to make this thing a doable project,” Perry said.

A series of 5-3 votes by the board beginning one year ago this month put the school division in pursuit of closing all six of the counties six high schools and merging the student populations into three new schools. Site locations for the three proposed facilities are west of Coeburn near the Tacoma community off U.S. Route 58, just outside the town of Wise off U.S. Route 23, and behind Powell Valley High School in Big Stone Gap.

Projected total cost estimates to build the three new schools approach $100 million, or about $33 million per new high school. The Wise County Board of Supervisors recently approved a $42 million commitment in 20-year bonds to the consolidation program.

Perry said the current three-school plan remains the board’s course unless the board decides to craft a new plan reflecting the county’s commitment of $42 million. A decision to go to another course of action would require another public hearing on the issue.

“The thing we have promised people if there is a change, we will throw it on the table and let people take a look at it,” Perry said. “We think in these current budget times that we’ve got to explore every single option we can to better serve our students. I think it is irresponsible not to look at every option that would exist. That doesn’t mean you have to do it, just do due diligence and check into it.”

In an unrelated matter, the board also discussed potential state budget cuts that could impact K-12 education. The state projects another $300 million to be cut from the current fiscal year budget and around $2.5 billion from the next biennium budget that begins next July. State officials have held K-12 education harmless in past budget cuts during Gov. Tim Kaine’s administration, but legislators indicate that may not hold true during 2010 deliberations of the Virginia General Assembly that begin in January.

“We anticipate maybe some shortfalls” in the school division’s state funds for the 2010-11 fiscal year, Perry said Tuesday. “We don’t want anyone concerned yet because we think we can handle retirements. We’ve got some flexibility because in many of our schools we have pretty low student/teacher ratios, so we can probably absorb some reductions.”

During the last school year, the board launched a retirement incentive to begin a reduction in force, without layoffs, in anticipation of consolidating high schools. Incentives to get teachers at the top of the pay scale to retire — to a maximum of a $40,000 payout — will be offset by filling slots with beginning teachers and reducing other positions where possible via the retirements.

About 30 school division employees, mostly teachers, took the school division up on its offer at the conclusion of the last school year. The incentive plan will remain in effect through 2012 or as long as the school division has the financial means to implement the program, whichever comes first.

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Just build new schools in Big Stone Gap and one in Wise. That way the folks in Coeburn who were planning on having a new school can then join the folks from Appalachia, Pound and St. Paul on the short end of the stick.............

annie nonimus | 11/25/2009 - 6:39 AM - ( Comment

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