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Administrators, teachers and staff were applauded at the Feb. 1 Buena Vista School Board meeting for their response during the Jan. 26 police manhunt in the city.
But one School Board member also pointed out that the incident highlighted the safety vulnerabilities of the schools.
School Board members, the superintendent and principals commended teachers, staff and students for their efforts during the lockdown that followed an attempted robbery just blocks away from Enderly Heights Elementary School.
“The schools did a fantastic job. Everyone involved made things happen … Staff and all of the students did just a great job,” said Superintendent Tony Francis. “This happened at our most difficult school to ensure safety … I was just amazed at how well everyone handled it – it was a stressful day. I was tired by the end of the day,” he said with a laugh.
“I think the law enforcement worked very well with us,” he continued. “I think they kept us in the loop. We consulted, we talked, we made decisions together. I think our staff did a great job and everyone pitched in.”
While board member John Roberts strongly agreed that the school system executed safety procedures appropriately in response to the emergency, he said that the situation pointed up the need for construction of a K-7 school building on the same grounds as the high school. Currently, the district has four school locations spread throughout the city.
“We need to continue our pursuit of getting a K-7 building on the same campus as the high school for the simple fact of what happened last week,” Roberts said. “In my opinion, I feel we spread our law enforcement resources thin due to our four different locations in the city. My other fear as a parent was that this incident happened eight to 10 blocks away from one of our unsafest schools due to its construction. We were very blessed to have law enforcement involved and hopefully moving forward, we don’t experience anything else like that, but it is our duty to ensure we do everything we can to provide the best facility for our students and last week made me realize that.”
- The idea of consolidating grades kindergarten through seven in a single building has been discussed for many years. The most recent round of discussions started in the fall of 2020 when the School Board and administrators acknowledged the need for some radical school upgrades.
At the time of these discussions, the four schools were all showing signs of aging – Parry McCluer High School was 20 years old, Kling Elementary was 44, Enderly Heights was 54 and PMMS was 97.
Partnering with RRMM Architects of Roanoke, the division began developing a plan to build the K-7 school on the grounds of PMHS.
Consolidating the elementary schools and secondary schools onto one campus is significantly more efficient than having four separate school locations, Francis told The News-Gazette. The district could reduce costs on transportation, maintenance, and custodial services. This type of facility would also limit threat risks and allow law enforcement to secure one location in an emergency.
In 2021, the initial estimate for a new school building was $36 million. However, with Covid hyperinflation, supply chain delays, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that construction estimate increased to approximately $53 million last year.
As acquiring funds of that quantity is no easy task, the School Board decided to make minor, urgent upgrades to its school buildings and put the bigger construction project on hold.
The construction committee will be convening in the summer to start developing a new construction plan, Francis told The News-Gazette.
