District lines are again school topic

The topic of district lines was addressed once more by the members of the Alleghany County Board of Education during its monthly December meeting, held Dec. 13.

Alleghany County Schools Superintendent Jeff Cox reminded board members he had been asked to bring back numbers on district lines as though a middle school was already in operation in the county.

"The first thing at the top of this sheet indicates what the incurring enrollment is in each of our three elementary schools," Cox said. "These were numbers that were current as of November head count. That has changed some, not a lot.

"The first column in the table reflects what the numbers would be at each school if we assume we had a six-eight middle school currently," Cox continued. Using the enrollment policy currently in place, the middle school would have 339 students enrolled. In the kindergarten through fifth grade classes at the elementary schools, Glade would have 169 students, Piney, 85 students, and Sparta, 491 students.

Cox explained that he separated the pre-kindergarten numbers from the kindergarten through fifth grade numbers because the state only looks at the enrollment of kindergarten through fifth grade pupils when determining whether or not there are enough pupils to justify having a principal position. Glade has 16 pre-kindergarten students, Piney has 11 pre-kindergarten students and Sparta has 51 pre-kindergarten students.

"The second column reflects what the numbers would look like at each school if we enforced district lines as they exist today. I did take out of these numbers those students who are in the Exceptional Children program at Sparta School. So, these numbers reflect enforcing existing district lines with the exception of those kids we (took) out of Piney or Glade to serve (at) Sparta with our EC program." When enforcing the district lines with Cox's specified exceptions, the number of middle school students remains 339, Glade's numbers increase to 192, Piney's increase to 111 and Sparta's decrease to 442.

Turning the attention to the number of staff's children who would be affected by an enforcement of district lines, Cox said, "As good as I can tell right now, we have six students who are children of staff members at Sparta School, who by districting would be Glade Creek district and nine students at Sparta School who are in Piney Creek district. (The staff) could be a parent, or in some cases another family member, who works at the school or here in the central office.

"I did not get into how many students at Glade or Piney may be actually residing in the Sparta district and going to school at Glade or Piney," Cox continued. "I'm sure there probably are a couple of those as well...That's something we can look at later if the board so desires." The final group of numbers is the number of students at Sparta in the Exceptional Children's program, and their siblings.

"Those numbers include those kids who are from the Glade district or Piney district (who) are at Sparta School because of a need to be served in our EC program, and the numbers include siblings of those children. When you bring in a child (to be) served in that program, we give parents an option to have the sibling(s) come as well, obviously." A total of seven students in Glade district are impacted, as are four in the Piney district.

Looking over the numbers, board member Faron Atwood said, "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out if we start enforcing these lines, it's going to relieve some of the pressure on Sparta and help Piney Creek in particular...It seems to me like a no-brainer. We need to get moving on this and have it in place by next school year." Board member Mitch Franklin stated, "I think this chart does show that by enforcing district lines, we can have the numbers that we need in school(s) without having to re-adjust the districts."

Crouse then said, "One thought that I have that goes with this Pam Sizemore recently was named director of the Family Resource Center in Sparta, a part of the Alleghany Partnership for Children.

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