No solution was found after more than three hours of debate on the future of the county high schools.
The Montgomery County School Board met in a special work session with the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors Monday night to determine a long-term solution to a long-term problem.
The two boards, chaired by school board chairman Wendell Jones and board of supervisors chairwoman Annette Perkins, struggled to communicate concerns over safety of school buildings and tax increases while attempting to come to a consensus on a plan for the construction and repair of Blacksburg and Auburn schools.
Since the gymnasium of Blacksburg High School collapsed on Feb. 13, the school board has worked to find functional solutions to the plethora of problems the loss of a 1,200-student school has brought the county.
However, in the county’s 2006 capital plan, both Auburn High School and Auburn Middle School were identified as critical capital projects in need of repair.
Montgomery County students started school Monday, with Blacksburg High School students attending school at Blacksburg Middle School, Blacksburg Middle School students attending school at the previously unused Old Christiansburg Middle School and Auburn Middle and High School students attending schools in buildings that were constructed in the 1930s. Current solutions have all been classified as temporary.
The two boards considered five possible solutions, ranging from repairing BHS for $14.5 million and addressing Auburn’s needs at a later time to simultaneously building a new BHS, a new AHS and renovating the current AHS to become a new AMS for $124.6 million.
After the three-hour work session, no decision was made and no votes were taken. Instead, individual members presented concerns to one another and a handful of citizen observers who gathered in the auditorium of Christiansburg Middle School.
“We sure spent almost three hours, talking,” Perkins said to end the meeting. “I just want to end things here, we were not to come to any conclusion tonight and we were not to come to any decision. ... I truly leave here with a heavy heart.”
BUILDING CONCERNS
“We must have a long-term solution for Blacksburg High Schools students,” said Brenda Blackburn, schools superintendent, in her opening statement.
Discussion centered on whether the current BHS building could be repaired to safe standards.
Some members of both boards opposed repairing BHS.
“I need to feel, personally, that when someone says it’s safe it’s safe,” said Mary Biggs, a board of supervisors member.
A version of this article appeared in the Aug 31 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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I'm sorry, but all politicizing of this aside, plain old common sense would decide
that with Blacksburg High School LITERALLY partially collapsed and demolished,
the remaining portion of the facility built by the same team that built the collapsed
portion, and the "temporary" multi-million dollar cost of repairing the school would
be a total short-term waste of money.
The good folks of Auburn are just going to have to wait a few more years for
their "dream" facility to be built when the largest community in the NRV has NO
SCHOOL available to them.
It's a complete no brainer and the Auburn folks are just going to have to step up
and concede. EVERYONE CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING THEY WISH FOR - that's what
got us into trouble nationally in the first place. All this "talk of priorities" means,
rough decisions. And building BHS first is the only right choice.
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I simply have to disagree. It sounds more like the good folks in Blacksburg always get what they want no matter who it effects. Case in point, the big box that was suppose to come in but didn't because a small portion of the wealthy population just didn't want the hassle of driving around a busy intersection and it took away from all the small businesses that thrive on students to purchase over priced items....now the only good thing to do is to give Blacksburg what it wants once again because well we are Blacksburg and we deserve the best. With Auburn High school being the 2nd oldest in the area and Blacksburg High School being merely 38 years old then the logical thing to do is to bring in the big box, who will give money to the community and to the school systems that are in the area, ie Blacksburg High School, and then taxes that are generated by the Big Box store brings in more money thus Blacksburg can get the high tech high its been wanting for years.
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You don't know what you're talking about. The big box, i.e. Walmart, was set to come in, and only pulled out when the economy tanked and they didn't have confidence in the 1st and main project creating enough demand. Yes, people screamed about having a 24-hour Walmart built near an elementary school, but ultimately Walmart won the battle and was planning to come regardless. I personally think Blacksburg needs more commercial development, so please don't generalize to the whole town what you hear from some vocal opponents.
There are over 2000 Blacksburg students displaced right now because of an act of God and some shoddy construction. Nobody planned it this way to screw Auburn out of anything. The students and teachers that turned their lives upside down with that wacky evening schedule in the spring would have loved to have just been back in their own school. The truth is, there is genuine concern over the safety of the BHS building and whether or not it can ever be deemed safe. True, it is not the oldest building in the county, but apparently it wasn't constructed properly to begin with and sits on unstable ground, and parts of it have already collapsed!
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(continued) Instead of looking at this as people being greedy, can't you see that people are afraid for the safety of their children and the teachers?? If the gym had collapsed ONE DAY EARLIER people would have died and I don't think we would even be having this discussion because everyone would understand the severity of the issue and why putting a bandaid on it makes people extremely uncomfortable.
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To me, it seems two things are play here:
1. We have no faith in the safety inspectors and engineers. When they certify old BHS as safe (after repairs), many don't trust them.
2. Many think more expensive buildings = better education.
Prudent alternative is to repair old BHS, spend money on maintaining ALL school buildings (learn from old BMS disaster) and start saving for a new BHS fund. You don't want to join the coming series of town, city and state defaults. US already spends more per pupil than any other country - both in absolute terms (>$10k) and as a percentage of GDP (>7%). The focus should be on improving quality of education and buildings, though nice to look at, contribute very little to quality of education.
One of the reasons for our bloated government spending is the lack of common sense in spending "other people's money".
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I can't figure out if you know what you are talking about or just don't want to face facts. The Big Box was taken out of the equation because of the BURG group who slipped some moohlah to the right people on the board of supervisors which in turn took the matter to court and hence no WALMART and no MONEY for poor pitiful Blacksburg and its town folk...so let's look at what Blacksburg offers as far as shopping no counting the 1st and Main failure...Mish Mish, 3 hippy stores that sell Hemp items, over priced Tech apparel near the campus, 2 clothing shops that also sell out dated items, all natural food store, should I continue or have I made my point clear....I understand that Blacksburg students should get a school but at what cost to the other schools in the district...yest there are other schools in Montgomery County besides Blacksburg.
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Yes, a bunch of hippies took it to court and lost, that is my understanding. Walmart won the battle, and a bunch of toun council members subsequently lost re-election because of it. Not really sure what the point of this argument is though. I would love to have more shopping in Bburg.
You seem to think that children in Bburg should be punished because you don't like some of the politics here. Wow. And btw, what does the metropolis of Riner contribute as far as retail? If your argument is that towns with more shopping deserve safer/newer schools then I'm not seeing the logic.
Some people have a chip on their shoulder about Bburg, that is obvious. Let's just grow up and look at the situation objectively and think about what is the most urgent need, and what is the best use of money. $44 mil for 300 kids or $56 mil for 1200 kids (not the mention the other 1000 or so who are being bussed out of town at the moment).
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I still haven't seen the big box come in...where is it? It must be behind the great new shopping plaza that everyone goes to after going to the movies at the new theater. The point of the discussion is that new businesses (Big Box) that come into areas usually provide money for the area along with the schools. If the Big Box was allowed to come in then Blacksburg would get their school(s) and taxes would not be raised and all the people of Blacksburg would stop shopping elsewhere and donate money to the economy besides higher taxes. That is the point to that comment I think?
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