| News |
Teresa Mullins, Staff Writer
Dickenson Star
Once the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completes a detailed flood-protection report, the school board can finalize a plan to restructure county schools. Four of the county's nine schools are included in the study, including Haysi and Ervinton high schools. The school board could use the money it would require to rebuild those two high schools and apply it toward building one consolidated high school to serve the whole county.
The funding announcement comes at the same time the county school board is resuming serious discussions about high school consolidation. It also comes when the school division is facing massive cuts in state funding. However, the federal money can only be used for the flood-proofing project.
In a Monday press release, Congressman Rick Boucher said he had "extensive discussions with senior White House officials to urge the President's budget include funding for the Dickenson County flood protection plan.
"This provision of funding will enable Dickenson County, in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the County's School Board, to design and construct a project to address the flood protection needs of the County's schools," Boucher stated in the release.
"This is a huge boost for Dickenson County," Roger Stanley, chairman of the Dickenson County Board of Supervisors, said. "This funding will allow the county to do things for our kids that we couldn't otherwise do. It allows us to do the impossible. It is a chance in a lifetime."
Stanley added that Boucher had worked very diligently to obtain funding for the project. "He has really worked hard on this. It has been one of his top priorities and I give him a lot of credit for obtaining the funding," Stanley said in an interview Monday evening.
School Board Chairman Dr. Jewell Askins said she is "cautiously optimistic" about the funding announcement. "My hope is that the budget will be approved. I'm as excited as everyone else but am going to be cautious," Askins said.
Askins also wants the public to be aware of the process.
"I think it is very, very important we not leave the public behind," she added. "We need to let the citizens know about the condition of our schools and any plans to restructure them."
In a presentation to the school board last week, Superintendent Haydee Robinson addressed the issues of declining enrollment, aging and deteriorating high school buildings and the need to move some county schools, including Ervinton High School and portions of Haysi High out of the flood plain.
The $19.5 million appropriation to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Dickenson County School System will provide partial funding for a 2003 Corps of Engineers $67 million plan to flood-proof four county schools. That proposal included the relocation of Sandlick Elementary School and Ervinton High School, as well as Haysi High School's band, home economics and agriculture buildings. Also recommended was the installation of a flood wall at Clinchco Elementary School. Had it been implemented then, the federal government would have paid 95 percent of the project's cost.
But the plan stalled because of a lack of funding and was virtually forgotten until the school board began a comprehensive study of county schools more than a year ago. The school board will decide exactly how the $19.5 million appropriation will be used once the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completes a detailed flood protection report, which is expected to be finished later this year.
In addition to funding through the Corps, the county industrial development authority has applied for a 40-year, low-interest loan through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Authority to help pay for high school consolidation. The application was made on behalf of the school system because school divisions are prohibited from applying for Rural Development funding.