When The Doors Close

It's great that you work and contribute or such but you also, rather you choose to believe it or not, do not have much of a perspective on things. Nobody is comdemning you for working and such but again, Mountain Empire and the quality of education it 'in general' provides is not equivalent to a 4 year college. It is in most forms, a technical school. You see people going to 2 year schools to get there general stuff out of the way before going to a 4 year school. There is a difference and it doesn't go the other way around, you don't go to a 4 year school to prepare for a 2 year school. Not everybody is cut out for a 4 year school, and not every field is it necessary for a 4 year school, but the number of jobs and the quality of jobs in regard to that is going down, both in number and quality. There is too much competition. Sure there aren't many people who will work a fast food job, like has been said on here before, there are plenty of people who don't work who think that is beneath them. Great more power to you that it's not beneath you. That doesn't change the basic argument on the quality of education. It's great that there are some good teachers in Pound. I'm sure there are some good ones. Maybe even some good classes that prepare you for college, but since you have not completed college or what the main point that was made, at a 4 year school, you really can't say how prepared you were by your teachers. I had a math teacher who was great and did prepare me for college, actually saved me after 2-3 horrible ones and I was good in math, always was but the one good teacher, while it did a great job helping to straighten me out, basically just got me caught back up, not ahead. We have people who graduate in our top 10s in local schools, who are viewed as the smart kids, who go to college and crap out, who end up taking classes the first semester that are equivalent to remedial. Now a new school being built isn't going to fix all that, but the more options you have, the more options you provide, and the more fairness you provide, the better you are. Not every student is going to want more advanced classes, but for this area to not just survive, but thrive, they are going to have to improve the quality of people available to be in the workforce. Most of the ones who do graduate from a 4 year school do not return or stay here, so they aren't here to sit and debate or discuss why the schools and education are lacking. You're stuck with the ones who, more often than not, worked hard for things and too often have a tendancy to believe that they made it by working hard, so can everybody else. Hard work is great, but you're not going to have thousands of people working in the mines around here when a machine can do the work of 50 men. You have to try and improve things. We can sit and talk about a sense of community but our communities are gone and going. Everytime we graduate 40 students or 60 students and half of them have to move for jobs, you lose that much of your community. Appalachia used to be a thriving community. Now its a small community, and its understandable that those there want to keep it, but they need to actually open there eyes and see that most people had to leave it, maybe not by choice but just to live. We all would love to have our schools, have wonderful jobs around here, and anybody that wants to be here, can stay here and live, not just exist. You, or one of yours, made the reference to a car becoming a classic earlier. That's very true. The way those cars become classics is by putting care and time into them. Most of them aren't drove daily. They aren't used as a daily vehicle. Your schools are. You talk about living in a house with parts being 100 years old. Great. Now if you have several hundred people a day coming into your house, then maybe you have the wear and tear that goes into a school building. If you can worry about sueing yourself for something that goes on in your house than you have an issue, but the school system can be sued for things that happen in it, due to negligence, or fairness and equality. If you have an old car, it isn't a classic just due to its age, its an antique or an old piece of junk. The care and limited use of it is what makes it a classic. There isn't one of these schools in the area that classify as having been cared for or slightly used.

I'm sorry, you can be as mature of a 20 whatever year old you are as there is. That's great but you still are lacking the perspective until you're out there competing with people who are ahead of you. I mean Mountain Empire doesn't give you that, hate to tell you, the people you're competing with there are generally in the same boat or close to the level you had. They are all commuters and all from this area then. UVA-Wise, you get it somewhat, but even then not as much as other places. The workplace when its you and someone else in competition for a job, thats when you can see it. When you apply for say grad school and someone else, same age, etc is picked over you because the classes they took had them so much ahead of you that even being equals in 90% of everything, the other 10% beats you. I'm sorry to say that working in a fast food enviroment doesn't exactly put you in the 'battling for a position spot' that most are talking about here.

I fully expect you to make a smart comment about falling into the traps, or not knowing what I'm talking about or something else, and then of course, a message or two later you'll say nobody has answered the questions. The problem is, you don't want to read the answers or immediately choose to say we're wrong or just wanting to consolidate. It would be wonderful to keep our schools as is. This area and the people in it, are generally good people. It's also, no matter what you may want to think, a poor area. The old saying applies, Rome wasn't built in a day. Building new school is not going to fix Southwest Virginia in a day. However providing not just a good eduatiojn but a top notch education and then having those people stay in the area and try to improve it, will fix it. You can't have people running the local governments who aren't much beyond reading and writing, forget arithmetic. I have little doubt that Pound did prepare you for a fast food job and Mountain Emprire and probably any job field that they prepare you for. The question is, while you may have a job due to that, are you really prepared to not just exist but thrive.

You don't see any better, so you think things are good. I have seen the results of consolidation by looking at some of the new schools like Letcher. I would urge anybody on here who opposes consolidation to take a trip over there and take a look-see. it will take you, oh about 5 seconds to see how sad of shape our schools are in. I wish more than anything that our schools were in better shape. I wish to God things were different, the schools were newer. I love seeing my kids in red and white. They are sons of a Kelly Indian, and will always be Indians regardless of what occurs. My heart and soul is in that school, but God gave me a pair of eyes, a pair that sees cracks in walls, windows that are shot (wont open wont close broken), no proper band room, no proper locker room facilities, tiny lockers, inadequate wiring, school on adjusted schedule because of heat.. and I see it at your beloved Pound High School. To say that you cannot see it would be lying.

I think the issue is that lots of us who 'seem in favor of it' aren't really in favor of it, just understand that things have to change with times. LPD is strongly against having Appalachia gone, you're strongly against Kelly being gone, me Clintwood, Merlin was against Pound being gone, etc etc. The half-baked 2 second fix that Basham suggested was a joke, and anybody with a brain could see that. I mean in the past, schools had every grade in the same classroom, little one room shacks. We got past that, even though I'm sure some people though that was the 'best education you could get'. Now we look back and think well obviously there was better. I think Lee High is/was a horrible example, just due to the distance in the county. Now if there was 2 schools in Lee County, the distance wouldn't have been so bad. They went to far the wrong way. That's a mistake that this area needs to avoid. It's one of the biggest reasons I am and have been against there being one school in Dickenson County. 2 schools would be good, you wouldn't increase the transportation time for too many, and you would have the ability, if this area ever salvages itself to increase without then turning around and having to build a new school or such.

I'm not for consolidation, but I also realize that in our current situation, its a necessary evil. I'm not for increases in taxes, but I understand that sometimes its a necessary evil. Just because you accept that sometimes you have to go through some bad to get to the good doesn't mean you like doing so.

Exactly

Very good post

As long as we all go forward together. If not, I'll move to Dickenson County, they have had the flood money and still haven't made a move. I just wonder what the hold up there is, Clintwood doesn't even field a band.

What's that got to do with the price of rice in China? Have you gone back and read some of your previous posts? I hope you understand what your saying. We sure in the heck don't! [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Yep the flood money because you know there was no federal money used in the last few years (Katrina, Iraq War).

As for the band, that would go to a lack of interest. Clintwood doesn't field a band, I think/thought at least one of the others did. Clintwoods band went from around 100 members to like 15 in the space of a year or two. That purely was related to instruction or lack thereof.

Didn't think you would. The money was there for free. All you had to do was move. They couldn't take it back. Just wondered why you didn't do something for Dickenson Co ,since the big 3 from the next door always stir this pot. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

And one more thing- 'fore the POUND gets to fired up, the first set of upgrades- included Pound and this is what the Board said they were going back to, so what is the group from Pound so upset about? [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]Basham's "Close'em all but 3" plan is gone. The only folks left out in the cold were Appy and St Paul. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Spuds, sometimes you make great points, they are just so durn confusing its hard to find them.

Yes, we know that money is there is always there. No projects ever had funding and had it pulled or money was shifted around and never saw the area. No sir, you know that doesn't happen. *insert loud laughter here* I believe there is a thing that was called the Coalfield Expressway, was budgeted, then it wasn't, then it is, now who knows this week.

The money was there, but amazing as it may seem to you, sometimes there is procedures that have to be followed. I know that may be foreign to you being in Appy and all but I think the Power Plant over near St. Paul would be an example. The money is apparently there, but with procedures and such that have to be done, and then a very typical process that apparently wasn't going to be allowed, things can get very confusing. Same kind of a thing here.

I must have missed the point where anybody said we know what's going on, just know what has came out through the press, not Uncle Ralphie down at the Dairy Queen. I think Counts, who does follow it a great deal and tries to discuss it quite regularly with people who actually should know more, has a hard time getting information.

I'll tell you my opinion, and its probably not much more than that. There is bunch (mainly situation at Ervinton and in the Clinchco area) who are against it, and if they have any pull/stroke/ability, I'm sure that they drag their feet and don't help the process a bit. Hey my hope is that they drag their feet and then if/when they do it, they decide to go the 2 school route. Honestly I think if it happens in Wise County first, it makes Dickenson County make decisions quicker. If it happens in Dickenson County first, it makes Wise County make decisions quicker. Like it or not, those 2 counties are majorly linked. I'll make you a deal, when I can spend most of my check in Dickenson County and buy anything, then I'll not worry about what goes on Wise County. When you can spend most of your money in Dickenson County then you worry as much as you seem to about Dickenson County. If there is tax increases in Wise County to pay/fund schools being built or renovated or just to buy a 2 ton bomb to drop on Appalachia, those costs get spread to everybody who has interaction. Plus, I have some friends (believe it or not, I have friends) who are affected by it and I keep pretty close tabs on it.