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nal progress of the children in that school.
We need an additional math teacher at the high school. The focus today is on academic challenge and excellence and to that end, the State Department of Education, following the recommendations of the Presidential Commission of Education, has imposed tougher math requirements for graduation. Without the new teacher, those requirements will not be met at Rappahannock County High School.
We need to reward—and keep— our experienced teachers. The proposed index salary scale is designed to do that. Supervisor Nelson Lane maintains that the index scale will stifle our chances of attracting the best of the crop of new teachers. He ignores the fact that Rappahannock is already much more competitive in atarting salary than it is in pay for teachers who have polished their talents during a few years in the classrooms. And by focusing on starting salary, he apparently assumes that any new teachers hired by Rappahannock to replace less than satisfactory or retiring personnel will be fresh out of college ahcfstarting at the bottom of the experience scale. We need to attract the best of veterans, as well, to fill our vacancies.
We need a building program at 1 the high school. A few years ago, the School Board studied the offerings at RCHS and after much deliberation, voted to add new courses, such as academic English and additional math. But the curriculum expansion was scrapped. There was no room to squeeze even one more class into the overcrowded building.
Youngsters must try to learn laboratory science without a science laboratory. There are no language lab facilities. One boys’ bathroom and one girls’ bathroom—with no accomodations for handicapped students— serves an enrollment of over 420. There is no clinic space where sick children can wait to be picked up by parents, no music room for aspiring singers or musicians. Young actors rehearsing their lines must compete for space with young athletes practicing their jump shots in the combination gymnasium/auditorium. The library is jammed, limiting both books and the number of students who can use this resource. The cafeteria holds less than a quarter of the youngsters who attend RCHS; the rest must eat outside or in classrooms after waiting in line for almost half their lunch period just to be served. Teachers move from room to room for classes, hauling their materials with them, unable to stay at their desks where they can more effectively use their planning periods. And the list goes on...
The supervisors have made a good start by listening to school needs. We urge them to make a good finish by approving the proposed 198485 school budget as submitted. Our children deserve no less.
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