Published: February 20, 2008 10:35 pm            

The future of Pocahontas High...

Tazewell public hearing vital for school officials to make difficult decision

POCAHONTAS, Va. — With only 28 seniors currently enrolled at Pocahontas High School, officials are being forced to make difficult decisions about the future of the historic school, Tazewell County School Superintendent Dr. Brenda Lawson said Wednesday.

Lawson said the school system has not received any complaints about the March 3 school consolidation hearing for Pocahontas High School being held at Tazewell High School as opposed to Pocahontas High School. Lawson said the 7:30 p.m. public hearing will be a part of the regular March meeting of the school board.

While the board normally meets at the student center at the Tazewell County Career and Technical Center, Lawson said the meeting was moved to Tazewell High School to accommodate a larger crowd.

“The board requested that we change the meeting place to Tazewell High School to accommodate the public hearing,” Lawson said. “This is to accommodate the folks who want to address the board.”

Lawson said as of January, only 105 students were enrolled at Pocahontas High School. That includes 28 seniors, 22 juniors, 26 sophomore and 29 freshmen. Lawson said the combined Pocahontas Middle School facility had an enrollment of 80 students as of January.

“There are a lot of programs and services the students are missing out on that are at other localities,” Lawson said. “As classes and populations decline, it gets harder to provide these types of programs. I think we have to look at what is available to the students, and we feel as the numbers continue to decline — this past year it was band they lost — next year it could be something else. It’s not fair instructionally to these students. Everybody I can tell you on our school board have just been optimistically waiting for good things to happen in the town of Pocahontas. We felt from all of the information we had that there would be an increase in population with the prison.”

However, the school system has seen only one additional student enroll at Pocahontas High School since the opening of the Pocahontas State Correctional Center six months ago.

Lawson said the current proposal being considered by the school board would consolidate the students at Pocahontas with their choice of schools in either Bluefield, Va., or Tazewell.

“If the board votes to close the school, then those students that are currently attending Pocahontas Middle School and Pocahontas High School would be given a choice of either attending a school in the Bluefield area or the Tazewell area. It would be up to the parents and the students to decide where they want to go to school.”

If the school board votes to close Pocahontas High School, Lawson said the existing schools in Tazewell and Bluefield would be more than capable of handling the additional students.

“I can assure you that if Pocahontas High School is closed that every effort will be made to accommodate those students in the best way possible,” Lawson said. “I know the administrators at all of our schools are talking and thinking about it.”

Lawson said Tazewell High School has a current student enrollment of 619 students. Lawson said the current enrollment at Graham High School is 503 students. Graham Middle School has 409 students and Tazewell Middle School has an enrollment of 486 students.

If the school board does vote to close Pocahontas High School, Lawson said all historic photos, documents and trophies would be preserved.

“If that happens, some of these things will be maintained and preserved by Tazewell County Public Schools because of the tradition and history that is there,” Lawson said. “We will certainly weigh everything and put it in a place where it is always going to be valued and preserved.”

Lawson said the school board will listen to and consider every citizen who speaks at the March 3 closure hearing.

“Our school board listens,” Lawson said., “They always take great pride and effort in hearing and wanting to know what people think, and people that attend the public hearing will certainly be given the opportunity to speak.”

— Contact Charles Owens at cowens@bdtonline.com

        

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