News Hounds Primp for Nothing

Dateline: October 11, 2007

Event: A regular meeting of the Roanoke County School Board

Location: Central Office Board Room on Cove Road

Thursday night’s meeting was a bit unusual. The news hounds were all there, and I frankly didn’t know why until later. Apparently, the School Board, in their closed afternoon session, discussed the unfortunate building collapse at Hidden Valley High School. I wasn’t there to hear the statement after the meeting, but it’s covered well in the newspaper account.

The regular session kicked off at 7 pm with cameras blaring, Justin McCloud strutting around and grabbing a front row seat for News Channel 7. The News Channel 10 hounds were not to be outdone. The Channel 10 cameraman kept setting up his camera in places where cameras were not allowed. So new public relations staff member Chuck Lionberger kept shooing him away.

While the big-time media giants were disappointed that the building collapse story wasn’t addressed at the regular meeting, they did receive one “Sink Your Teeth Into” story. A representative from Honeywell demonstrated a new Instant Alert security system. Parents can sign up for a service that will allow the school system to send instant communication to their cell phones in the case of some important announcement or event. As a geek guy, I was impressed by this system which the board approved later in the meeting at a first year cost of $26,200. The money will come from the Superintendents Discretionary Fund this year. The system will be able to handle 150,000 calls within 15 minutes which will more than be adequate for our system needs. So now situations like the MRSA scare or the asbestos scare earlier in the year at Northside can be better managed with information instantly available to all who need to know. If I had access to this system, I’d probably use it to try to find Virginia Tech/ Duke basketball tickets. :)

In other news, Steve Dalton was named as the new school system security officer. He is responsible for how the entire school system plans for and responds to security situations. Mr. Canada, long time board member, charged Mr. Dalton with studying the security situation at Northside. He’s concerned that with such an open campus (outside trailers and fence gates that cannot be closed due to fire regulations) we need some sort of security plan in place that addresses those realities.

Funding was approved to perform environmental testing on an unnamed future school site. Also, approval was granted for the HVHS school band to travel to London later in the year. The anticipated cost per student will be about $2,000 which the band and students will need to raise.

LaVern Davis was brought before the board to update administrative policy regulation 9.18 specifically to address terminology issues with the section on communicable infections. The changes simply add some more appropriately defined terminology and direction for various situations. While she was standing there, the board members entered in to a spirited discussion regarding the whole MRSA issue. One of the key points in the new regulations was that students should take showers after participating in athletic practice or events. The board members wanted to know from the school board attorney if they could mandate showers in such situations. His answer seemed unclear. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Mr. Stovall mentioned that simply having the athletes sanitize their hands before and after practice would go a long way to reducing the impact of skin infections. He provided a testimony to the effectiveness of such practice with the WBHS baseball team. One intriguing point that was discussed was whether bus drivers should spray down the vinyl seats of buses that are used to transport sweaty players after games. Again, this was just an item for discussion and no action was taken on those two points.

In her Superintendent's Report, Dr. Lange mentioned several items. Most notably was that Governor Kaine has initiated a Career and Technical Academic School as a joint partnership between the state and local community colleges. These new schools will be similar in concept to the current Governor’s School model but will be geared toward career and technical education. Students will be able to take dual enrollment classes and pursue career and technical certifications at VWCC. I can’t wait to see how this program is developed, marketed, and implemented.

The subject of foreign language in elementary schools was brought up by Mr. Barrineau. He asked Dr. Lange to report on that. She reported that each elementary school is required to provide some type of foreign language instruction, and they’ve been given the freedom to develop their own programs and curriculum. Some schools are providing instruction in several different languages while others are providing instruction in one. Most of the programs involve children learning basic words and phrases.

After a stimulating evening of policy discussion and school issues, I went home.