Will the madness ever end?

**NotSoSilentBob** · January 18th, 2008, 11:36 PM

There were a couple of articles in Tuesday's Coalfield about Appy, Pound, and St Paul people having meetings to oppose consolidation.

The same crowd as usual. I sometimes find myself wondering if Larry and Marlene have a desire to bring the rest of the county down to Appalachia's level. It seems as such. They oppose any sort of progress for the county. Both have been outspoken on the consolidation issue and now Larry is becoming quite vocal in his opposition to the Virginia City power plant.

I think I'm as sick of this [censored] as I've ever been.

**sup-rbeast** · January 18th, 2008, 11:45 PM

IMO, Wise County will NEVER consolidate..It's like pulling teeth to even get a motion on the floor without a dogfight.

**NotSoSilentBob** · January 18th, 2008, 11:53 PM

Someone on the school board needs the balls to propose and vote for it.

It makes absolutely ZERO fiscal sense to maintain and operate 6 high schools when 3 would suffice.

One of the worst things in the article was the comment that kids in Appalachia are different than any other kid in the county.

**Monkeyhead** · January 19th, 2008, 12:00 AM

They are!!! They live in Appalachia.

j/k before someone goes quackers

**Unchained** · January 19th, 2008, 12:00 AM

Now you know as well as I do that you can tell if a kid is from Appalachia just by looking at him. You just can't hide that bulldawg pride! The kids from Appy are much more special than any on Earth.

Seriously though,that woman needs therapy.

**NotSoSilentBob** · January 19th, 2008, 12:02 AM

Well, I would somewhat share that sentiment. Having to deal with that kind of BS from your parents on a daily basis must be exhausting.

Going by the comments in the article, it is quite obvious that many of these people are delusional. All that matters is sports.

**NotSoSilentBob** · January 19th, 2008, 12:02 AM

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Indian_Dad</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Now you know as well as I do that you can tell if a kid is from Appalachia just by looking at him. You just can't hide that bulldawg pride! The kids from Appy are much more special than any on Earth.

Seriously though,that woman needs therapy. </div></div>

Did you read the article? I damn near threw up three or four times.

**Unchained** · January 19th, 2008, 12:11 AM

Every time folks like her speak,it furthers the urgent need to make sure that consolidations does happen. I read the article (she fails to amaze me anymore)

**pvfan** · January 19th, 2008, 01:23 AM

I would fully support consolidation of the schools if it was done the right way. I'm not sure if Wise Co would do it the right way, which imo would be to build three new high schools and have top of the line technology and classrooms. The schools could still be Single A and compete in the VHSL very similary to what they do now. I see both sides to it, I really wish we had enough money to operate all the schools the way they should be ran. Go to St. Charles or somewhere today and they have nothing, the towns in Wise County don't have much now but at least they do have some pride about their schools. Appalachia is going to fight this til the end though, and from their point of view I can see why. They have good SOL Scores, the gifted students at the school can go to Mountain Empire and they have a sense of community pride.

Whatever they decide to do, do it now. When I was in high school 3 years ago I had to take a class in a janitors closet, no high school student should do that. If your planning on going to college you lose connection to your school your senior year, I personally was a slightly above average student had like a 3.4 gpa and my senior year I took 3 classes total for the entire year in the high school. Ecology, Desktop Publishing, and Astronomy at the high school and the rest of the time was up at Mountain Empire, and you pretty much have to do that to go to college and be on par with eveyone else.

**centennialdawg** · January 19th, 2008, 12:40 PM

If you watched the school board meeting on tv the other night, you would have really gotten a kick out of it. The Bush woman practically accused the new school board of collusion in that Ted Thompson got the nomination and election to the chairman of the board. She accused people on the board of having their own little meetings to bring this about and to talk of consolidation.

As far as consolidation, there is really no right way or wrong way to do that. Everyone in the county, and that includes people from Appalachia, Pound and St. Paul that the main purpose of school is for the education of our youth. Everything else is considered as extra-curricular and could be done away with. Just look at Dickenson county. The band and music program have been done away with. Wise county tried to make a step toward that direction this year also, but thankfully, it was met with widespread opposition.

Larger schools mean more classrooms. More classrooms mean more teachers; therefore, the teachers who think their jobs are at risk shouldn't worry too much, mainly because of the "cap" that the state of Virginia puts on how many students can be put in a classroom. You basically keep the same amount of students in the county whether you consolidate or not.

It is time the county moved forward into the 21st century and let the past go.