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.