Members of the Vance County Coalition Against Violence on Thursday night decried school overcrowding and demanded the construction of a third middle school.
Sheila Kingsberry-Burt’s review of Monday’s Youth Speak-Out-Reach-Out, which drew few young people but set the stage for a coalition push into the schools, quickly turned into an impromptu referendum on the need for a school bond or other means to meet Vance County Schools’ pressing capital needs.
“There’s just too many kids in there” in each of the middle schools, said Marolyn Rasheed, citing statistics that show the negative effects of overcrowding. She said the lack of space forces administrators to suspend troublemakers instead of finding alternative places for them within the schools, and suspensions put those students hopelessly behind.
Plus, “it’s not a penalty to sit at home and play PlayStation all day,” the Rev. Todd Hester said.
She said the coalition can make a difference by supporting the proposed school bond that would build a third middle school, erect a new elementary school to replace Clark Street and make other improvements.
James Green asked Board of Education member Margaret Ellis about the status of the bond proposal.
She said it’s up to the county commissioners, who have been sent half a dozen variations of capital improvement plans for the school system in the past four years, ranging in price from $24 million to more than $40 million.
“I’ve been on this board since 1990, and what they’re asking for, we were asking for in 1990,” Ellis said.
The Board of Commissioners has yet to take official action on any of those proposals, even though school board attorney Jerry Stainback said the commissioners are legally obligated to respond to the school board’s specific request in December for a bond referendum.
The commissioners oppose the proposed $28 million bond referendum in the belief that they would have to raise the property tax rate by 16 cents per $100 of value to pay off the debt over 10 years, but Ellis said that’s not the only way to handle the debt.
“Even if they go ahead and say, ‘You have a bond referendum,’ what they’ll do is say to the community, ‘We’re doing this against our will. We’re going to do it, but we will not support a 15-cent tax rate (increase),’ and we’re dead in the water,” Ellis said.
Elnora O’Hara, the chairwoman of the coalition, said the group needs to do something to boost the bond issue.
“We have a serious overcrowding problem in our middle schools. We have nowhere to send kids because the closets and everything are being used for teaching,” said Bill Edwards, the president of the Henderson-Vance County Chamber of Commerce. He said teachers and administrators are asked to do “an almost impossible task.”
But Edwards said the county can’t afford a 15- or 16-cent property tax increase or even half that much. He said the commissioners are rightly looking to the state for funding because Vance is such a low-wealth county.
Unfortunately, the state also is facing a budget deficit, Edwards said.
“We can’t afford to sit back and not build a middle school and not build an elementary school,” he said. He also pointed to the necessity for multipurpose rooms at the elementary schools without them, such as E.M. Rollins. Those rooms serve as gyms for the children and as gathering places for the community.
It remains to be seen whether the county or state will do anything more this year than in the past four years. porn movie free lesbianmovies lexington steele freelolita sex duck movies freemassivecock movies freeclips movie bdsm freehot clips free movie babes oflane chasey movies free forfree huge movies titsfree of movies fucking coupleswith free sex movies