Dozens of parents, teachers and residents expressed frustrations to the school board Tuesday night over the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors’ sudden vote to repair the old Blacksburg High School building instead of constructing a new one.
Last week, the board of supervisors decided in a surprise 5-2 vote to repair the BHS facility at an estimated cost of $14 million instead of approving the Montgomery County School Board’s proposal for a $124 million new BHS along with a new Auburn High School and a renovated Auburn Middle School.
The issue has split county residents since the BHS gym collapsed on Feb. 13. Now that the board of supervisors has decided, the only people who can bring the issue back to the table would be one of the two members who voted against the decision, chairwoman Annette Perkins and board member Mary Biggs.
After the vote, many residents expressed anger that their points of view were not heard at the meeting before the vote was taken. The vote was not on last Monday’s agenda and was taken at the end of the meeting.
Tuesday night, parents and residents urged the school board to try to challenge the board of supervisors decision.
“As a taxpayer, I support the concept of building a new facility for all Auburn secondary schools and a new Blacksburg High School,” said Stanley Mathis, a Blacksburg resident.
BHS teacher Matthew Repass said he believes investing $14 million in the old BHS building would only create further problems down the road.
“We’re in an area that wants to invent the future, but we’re trying to repair the past,” Repass said.
Some parents expressed concerns for their children’s safety.
“My child will not go back in that school,” said parent Barbara Brady.
Virginia Tech chemistry professor Felicia Etzkorn is concerned about losing businesses and faculty members in the area.
“We have great people, we need to give them good facilities,” Etzkorn said.
School board members also discussed worries over losing students and funding.
“We’re losing them already,” said Joe Ivers, county school board member.
Between both BHS and Blacksburg Middle School enrollment numbers, the county has lost about 75 students from the last academic year to the current one.
The budget for next school year will reflect enrollment changes. School board member Walt Shannon said the county would lose $4,200 per student lost.
A version of this article appeared in the Sep 23 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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Oops. Might want to check your Robers Rules. Only those who voted "yea" for the motion can bring it back to the table, which means Perkins and Biggs are not the ones who can act. Otherwise it would be back up for a vote in a heartbeat.
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Dang keyboard keeps dropping characters -- that should be "Roberts Rules" as in "Roberts Rules of Order" about how meetings run and motions are made. Cooperative Extension had a nice little "cheat sheet" that condensed the basic points into about two pages, if you can find that.
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The School Board could refuse to proceed with construction in the Auburn strand until there's a final engineering report on the cost to repair the old BHS building. How can a good decision be made without all of the information?
Has there even been a county wide vote to fund the Auburn projects through a bond issue? Blacksburg town residents could always vote against the bonds.
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It is absurd that the Montgomery County School Board (I use the term loosely, as they are simply amateurs) have made this decision for the largest population concentration in the county in the face of ALL evidence that this school is not safe. That the existing (or should I say remaining) support columns are at a minimum 45% faulty and need replacement. Fact being, that most of the school still needs to be examined and I assure you close to 70% will be found faulty. This 'quick' fix is irresponsible, dangerous and now that Monco KNOWS about the issue, once they 'repair' and should anything happen they are 100% legally responsible. Foolish. Just plain stupid. And utterly disgusting.
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Not sure you should be blaming the Montgomery County School Board. They would like to replace BHS and Auburn and renovate AHS as new middle school.
Five of the Montgomery County BOARD OF SUPERVISORS voted to repair instead of replace BHS.
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A majority of the tax revenue comes from Blacksburg VA TECH, if it wasn't for blacksburg auburn christiansburg, the rest of mont. county wouldnt have the services they do today. By not building a new school property in blacksburg will lose value and in the long run taxes will have to be increased to compensate for that lost revenue. Oh and not to mention the 5 tool bags that used chicago style politics to sneak the vote through leave out is that 124 million is not an accurate figure and new school could be built with ground breaking in 3 monthes around 80 million.
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...and just beginning to illuminate how miserably foolish and uninformed the Montco School Board really is, first estimates to 'repair' BHS are now a minimum of $25 MILLION (not $14 million) equating to more than 50% of the cost build a safe new school. And I assure you, when the final estimate is tallied Montco will be looking to shell out roughly $28-33 MILLION to repair a building that will be torn down in 10 years to build a new BHS. The incompetence of Montco School Board is seismic!
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I think today's Roanoke Times states that the cost to repair AND improve BHS (better HVAC, etc) was $25 million. The repairs to support structure are supposed to cost $14.5 million.
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Let's not forget the BMS students and their shameful placement in the subpar facilities at OCMS. A vote by the Board of Supervisers condemns them to a minimum 5 year stay in a nightmare of a building deemed unfit for BHS use. In the meantime, BHS will hunker down and abuse the new BMS facility as they had started to do last year, and wait for a new facility to be built. Phew, that is tough duty... This is a travesty to the middle school model of education as well as the students who must bear the brunt of poor decision making in the district. Blackburn and the both boards should be replaced.
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Concerned Parent,
I feel for you and your child(ren) who are getting sent to Christiansburg. I know the transportation issues have been hard on the kids and parents.
Can you be more specific about the building abuse that occurred at the Middle School last year? I hadn't heard about any damage? Would it be enough to justify changing things around so the high schoolers go to C'burg instead of the middle schoolers?
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LOL, that post was sarcastic, B'burg Resident. "Poor BHS students forced to go to horrible OCMS school. The horror."
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The high schoolers were hard on the building. The abuses took the form of dinged walls, abused tables and smartboards, bathroom stall scribblings, and the like. That is secondary, however, to the larger issue at hand. The middle school model of education has been sacrificed in all of this. It is a model that relies heavily on teaming----an intentional physical characteristic assisted greatly by the BMS building. The OCMS facility was deemed inappropriate to meet the needs of Christiansburg's middle schoolers some 8-10 years ago. Not much has changed. The building is inappropriate for our kids. So yes, allowing BHS to inhabit the extremely upgraded facilities while they wait for new ones to be built is a little hard to swallow.
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Well Barbara Brady, if they decide to repair the high school, you'll have no choice but to send your child back there. Noone will buy your house in that school district. Buy your child a hard hat.
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