Keep dreamin.Originally Posted by dawgman
Dr. Perry said once the wise co board of supervisors voted to go through, they expect to see ground broke next spring.
Hey, I am from Appy, born and raised in Derby. I think that consolidation is the only way to go. Just look at it from the educational points. New curriculum, i.e. (no more need to pay MECC any more tuition for the A.P. classes the kids take there now). A.P. classes will be moved back to the schools. Language classes will increase, by this, I mean that more languages will be offered. And, how many times in recent history, has the county been able to celebrate something new that doesn't involve prisoners and guards.
Keep dreamin.
Dr. Perry said once the wise co board of supervisors voted to go through, they expect to see ground broke next spring.
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." -Thomas Jefferson
I am as big as of a sports fan as they come but my kids education outweighs that as reality is that less than 1% of the kids in Wise County have a chance of making it in the pro ranks like the Jones brothers -- that is why you are so right about it really being a shame --
And this argument of it killing their towns with consoldiation -- if anyone has seen the crumbling buildings of Appy and just how vibrant Pound is in its downtown -- then many people have a warped sense of things -- I have nothing against the people of any of the towns of Wise Co. but come on and think of what truly is best for all the future of the kids and get over this all and get on board with what will happen in the consolidation.
Ok finally snuck back on. Not sure why this in the sports, but I'll try to move it here if I can get 5 minutes after I rant what's on my mind.
The argument of community. It would probably be a good thing if someone finally said to them, look at your **** communities. There is nothing in Appy, there is nothing in Pound, there is nothing in St. Paul. And for as much as they love to try and turn it into an us against them war, there isn't really much in Wise, Coeburn or Powell Valley. We can throw in ****enson County if you want but since this about the Wise County vote, I'll keep it on topic. The biggest reason is that the freakin outdated way of thinking still rules the roost here. The 'that person sucks they are a Democrat' or the "I can't vote for that person they are a Republican" thought process. The them ****ed 'Indians', 'Bulldogs', 'Vikings', 'Wildcats', 'Blue Knights' or 'Deacons' or whatever the respective nicknames are is something from our past. Yes the people from one town pretty much hated each other 40 years ago or whenever because nobody travelled much, there was no real interaction except during ballgames between the kids and in a lot of cases the communities. There was actual communities, because there had to be. Look around there are no communities now. The community is Walmart. The community is Kingsport, the community is the internet where everybody talks, socializes, visits, hang out, double dates, parties, golfs, fishes, camps, or whatever else they do. What community are you gonna destroy in Pound, Appy or anywhere else? There is no real community gathering except for sports and in case nobody notices, most of the people don't go to them anymore unless they have family or they are the people who would go no matter what because costs are up, and mosts of the teams don't win that much or on any level that's not local. Yeah when you have the Wise/Pound matchup some people drag themselves out who might not go the rest of the year and yes there is a fair amount of pride fests, but very few think about it 5 minutes later, because they then go out to eat at the same place, run into each other at Walmart or something along those lines. It's great to have the rivalries but there is no logical reason for small ****ing contests to matter in the big scheme of things. The big scheme of things should be preparing the children of this area for a different world than what their parents had. It used to be that a lot of them finished school and went to work in the mines. It used to be that a lot of the women became stay at home moms or housewives. Unfortunately that is the exception, not the rule anymore. The majority can not do that and while you may say that not everybody is going to college, you need to improve the education system and try to prepare more to go to college and improve the others for more vocational training. Now are new schools going to fix everything? Heck no they are not, but you see the problem, if they try to fix something now, the argument is of it not being fair to the dirty 3 dozen at St. Paul that they don't get treated the same way. It's the argument right now on the location of the school, some people can only see what they want to see, what benefits them. I don't really give a flying fig where they build the schools, honestly you're not going to increase travel time that much for anybody if they put them on or near the main roads. Yes, it will take a few minutes for a bus to run up in Booger Hollow and get down to the 23 and run up the road to the next school and yes it may take longer than it would if the school was 2 minutes away instead of 10 minutes away but key part is the people who live up in Booger Hollow still had to get out of Booger Hollow to go to the school, the majority of their travel time is the point that they already are on, if the routes are done right, the additional time should be on 23, and yeah you may increase it a few minutes but you're not driving up the road thats big enough for 2 mule carts, you're on a major road, and maybe in time the roads can even be improved. The outdated way of thinking isn't cutting it and that's why this area gets left behind. I forget where I read it or was even told about it, but the majority of the land up 23 towards Pound, when it could have been built up and Pound probably could have been saved, the people who owned it, owned business in town and didn't want to do that to themselves, so they thought they could force traffic into the town. How's that going? The majority of Pound traffic is people going through Pound, not stopping at Pound.
Yeah its going to suck, yeah its going to be a growing pain and do I honestly see how they can build 3 schools all identical? No I don't. Unless they bring Norton into it, there is no logical reason for the Coeburn/St. Paul school to be on the same plan as the other due to numbers. If you bring Norton into it than you can rationalize that and split the cost some.
It's time for everybody to stop throwing their town defense squad attacks, and work as an area. Honestly its scary that Walter Crouse probably was right when he talked about regional schools being done like regional jails but if you can't get people who in the same county and live 30 seconds away from each other to work together, good luck on getting multiple governments to work together.
What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach, so you get what we had here last week which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it.
I always said that if Powell Valley offered German that I would have taken. Not that I didn't like Spanish because I did.
Before we stray, if I had a child, I'd jump at the opportunity to let my kids have better schools if the school board voted for it.
After I moved back here, the reason I was told ****enson County schools were not consolidated was because the 26-28 million that was appropriated to build the school went to the hurricane rebuilding fund. I believe the hurricane was Katrina if I remember correctly.
As far as ****enson County goes, I do not have any problems with the consolidation there either. The traveling would be harder there though for the students. If they built the school in Clinchco, which I believe is the center of the county, that would be a hump from any county line to get there.
Just me but I think the best thing to do for the county would be to have two high schools and shut Ervinton down until the time was right to build a quality high school.
I am sick of the small school argument and what a great job St. Paul does. They should do great with a school with less than 200 kids. I guess the folks at Wise and Big Stone should be screaming to divide their schools into 2 smaller ones so that they could have the same small numbers and get the same education as the St. Paul folks and give the county 8 high schools. Oh yeah and I have not heard this mentioned about all of the students going to Norton, Castlewood, and Clintwood. Unless the student moves into that attendance area then they will be ineligible for sports for 365 days. Even if they do live in the attendance area and choose to go some where else and come back (ex. live in Castlewood and go to St. Paul and then transfer back) then they are ineligible for 365 days. And do you really think that some of these parents are going to get up and drive their kids to school and go back and get them for 180 days??? I know that there are some that are hard headed enough to do it but that will get old pretty quick.
That would have been free money- federal cash to move out of a flood plain. That storm was one of the worst timed events in DC School's history.
We'll keep the lights on for you.
Spuds
Alot of dead horses being beat up today but I'll offer a few opinions anyway.
Instead of using mean words like consolidation, I'll just be a little more general.
First, I think everyone is in agreement that new buildings would be nice and better technology in the classrooms would be nice as well.
Money wise, Im hearing that to build 3 schools in in excess of 90 million. Ok, whether it happens or not, I really dont care, but taxes will go up and budget decisions beyond the building of schools will have to be made.
If we are talking about higher education and a broader range of classes, Im really not sure. As it is right now, Wise County Public Schools is doing everything they possibly can to limit personnel and cut back on their budget. Yes, we are in a recession, and thinks can change, but right now, money wise, they are strapped for cash. Like I said before, half of the personnel didnt get paid on June 30th like they were supposed to. They have the money but obviously they would have had to pay a penalty for pulling the funds out of a specific account before the matriculated due date.
When we talk about a broader range of classes and a higher education, Im just really uncertain about this. Ok, for example, we are talking about adding new classes which arent tought to the curriculum. There are a few problems here and one being that there arent any new students, just new buildings. So you give some students more options but youre taking students out of other classes to do so. That means youre going to have smaller class sizes which could be good, but it also means youre going to have to have more collegiate professionals which means a larger budget. Lets be honest here, Wise County Schools isnt about higher education first, they are about being able to maintain a school system. They still have to make solid business decisions whether kids are getting a higher education or not. So you have 500 kids taking 4 classes(for example) so thats 2000 classes. Before with 2 schools, it was still 2000 classes. Students might want to take classes that would better them but the reality is, for every student that is interested in the betterment of their education, there are 5 that want to take general classes to get them through their high school lives before they move into the real world. Having a wide variety of classes would be great, but 500 kids for each school still isnt very much and it would come at a high price in the long run for 6 kids to be able to take German and 4 kids be able to take Mandarian each year. Im not saying thats wrong or that they dont deserve to take those classes but the main point Im trying to make is, with budget contraints already, I think we are just building buildings with no real short term educational improvement. I cant prognosticate what would be the long term ramifications because the global economy is too unpredictable.
Lets use for example St Paul and Coeburn. Youre probably looking at about 500 kids total which is about the size of many of the schools in the late 80s around here. Theres really no problem in terms of "too large of class sizes, etc" which is a common misguided complaint. You could easily house all of St Paul's students in Coeburn High School as it is with increased personnel or the transfer of St Paul personnel to Coeburn. The problem is, many of these towns feel hoodwinked and bamboozled as it is because they havent been getting the complete truth. Youre already hearing about the board having problems with the sites that were primarily selected for buildings. Now, you are hearing rumblings that the schools might go at the sites of JJK and PVHS. Then you hear that if Norton City Schools comes into the mix, the St Paul/Coeburn school site is now being looked at in the Tacoma area. I dont think that these are just rumors either, but thats not really the problem. Its hard for communities like St Paul, Appy, and Pound to be trusting when they probably have a gripe about being left in the dark on certain decisions.
Im neither for or against consolidation. It really doesnt matter to me. I just feel that education wont change that much because of it and the cost is going to be substantial. Again, I'd love to see new buildings and better technology. If it does go through, it will be nice to have those new buildings. Just dont expect Charles Collins and the Lee Brothers to reinvent the wheel.
Last article in Cornfield paper said that their was no way Wise County could afford that much debt, and this was from the BOS guy married to a SB member.
We'll keep the lights on for you.
Spuds
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