Voice for Community Schools 

St. Paul, VA

"Large and mediocre is NEVER better than small and excellent"
- Judy Pate Abbott, SPHS Class of '63

 Look for our billboard!

JOIN US IN OUR FIGHT TO SAVE OUR LOCAL SCHOOLS!

Voice for Community Schools is a satellite organization of the St. Paul High School Alumni Association. Our organization pledges to address the ever-growing threat of consolidation of Wise County schools.  Such a move poses a direct threat to St. Paul High School, other community schools in our area, and initiates a domino effect that threatens our elementary and middle schools, our businesses, our homes, our towns, our communities, and ultimately our lives.

  VCS Steering Committee:

• Debbie Baca, SPHS Alumni Association, Chairperson
• Jim Short, St. Paul Town Council
• Terry Vencil, SPHS Teacher
• Drew Mullins, SPHS Student
• Diane McReynolds, Parent
• Walt Padgett, SPHS Principal
• Carla Shepherd, Concerned Citizen

All those who are working to see that St. Paul and Wise County's other schools are left intact urge you to attend the next regular Wise County School Board meeting on October 13th, 2008 at 6:00 p.m. in the Education Center, Conference Room A. Proudly wear PURPLE and/or GOLD. If you would like to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting you are welcome to do so. Whether you choose to speak or not, please be there in support of those who do speak for the survival of our community schools.

WE NEED YOUR ATTENDANCE AND SUPPORT!!!!

In order to keep this page somewhat organized, the minutes, notes, and other information from VCS meetings have been moved here.

We get letters:  Here is a sample of the letters we receive which includes both pro community schools and pro consolidation.

PLEASE NOTE:  Due to the amount of letters we receive, we are asking that you post your letters, both pro and con, to the SPDEACS.org website.  Click on the LOGIN link at the top of the page.  Next, click on the MESSAGE BOARDS link that will appear in the middle top of the page.  From there you should go to the MESSAGE BOARDS section, where you can post a new comment or reply to a previous comment.

In the news:  This page contains links to news related to our cause.

The US Department of Education has come out squarely against consolidating smaller schools into larger schools -

Why do some local leaders continue to pursue this direction?

What YOU can do to help -

·       Attend the Voice for Community Schools Town Hall meetings.

·       Attend Wise County School Board meetings.

·       Contact one of your SPHS Alumni Board members to learn what you can do.

·       Write letters to the School Board,  Board of Supervisors,  your local and state representatives,  and others who can help.

·       Voice your concern by logging on and posting a letter to the MESSAGE BOARDS at the top center of the HOME page on spdeacs.org. 

Posts on the MESSAGE BOARDS are available to SPDEACS.ORG members only  - posts on the VCS site are available to the public.  We will copy various letters from the MESSAGE BOARDS to this page from time to time. Please let us know in writing if we can use your name should we decide to post your letter to the VCS website.

Follow the links below to educate yourself on this vitally important issue, and help us in the fight to save our local schools! 

Jack and the Giant School - The New Rules Project

In May 1999, ...Vice President Al Gore criticized the practice of "herding all students into overcrowded, factory-style high schools"

Exploring Alternatives to Consolidation - ERIC Digest (US Dept of Education)

"...there is no comprehensive information to prove that consolidation has met the problems for which it has been advocated--those of finance, staff, facilities, and curriculum. Reorganization has, in fact, not succeeded in several districts..."

Affective and Social Benefits of Small-Scale Schooling - ERIC Digest (US Dept of Education)

"...decades of research show that student achievement in small schools is at least equal--and often superior--to achievement in large schools ... although it is often assumed that large schools are cheaper to operate and provide richer curricula than small schools, studies show that neither of these things is necessarily true ... a large body of research in the affective and social realms overwhelmingly affirms the superiority of small schools..."

Lessons on Assessing the Costs of Small High Schools - Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

"Certain analyses also have suggested that small schools are more effective and thus amount to lower costs per graduate and/or reduced short term and long term social costs."

West Virginia has closed over 300 schools in the past 10 years.  This is a broad base for a study.  The results have been disastrous:

Slow Motion: Traveling by School Bus in Consolidated Districts in West Virginia - ERIC Digest (US Dept of Education)

"Consolidation in West Virginia has resulted in significantly longer commutes for many high school students. Not surprisingly, students who have these long commutes tend to participate in far fewer extra-curricular activities, if any, than students who live closer to school. ...Long distances to reach schools may present other problems as well. We suspect that parental involvement, for example, declines as the distance and time to school increases. We also wonder whether dropout rates tend to be higher when kids are forced to endure extremely long commutes to school." 

Broken Promises: After rural school closings: more administrators, scant savings and advanced courses cut - The Charleston Gazette

"School administrators across West Virginia have reneged on promises to provide students with advanced classes and save taxpayers millions of dollars through school closings and personnel cuts..."

Broken promises: Consolidation sputters - The Charleston Gazette

"Benefits of school consolidation touted by former state officials were almost limitless as they tried to convince reluctant parents that closing nearby schools and busing children to far-off consolidated schools were in the children's best interest.

Bigger schools would offer more Advanced Placement classes to prepare students for college. The curriculum would be far broader, with more foreign languages and electives like drama and computer programming to enrich students' academic life.

And because of 'economies of scale,' all this could be offered at a huge savings of tax dollars, with fewer administrators and teachers and lower maintenance and operating costs.

That was the schtick, anyway.

But when reporters Eric Eyre and Scott Finn investigated, they found that almost every one of those promises has been broken."

Small School Study - The New Rules Project

"Small schools in Vermont cost more to operate than larger schools but they are worth the investment because of the value they add to student learning and community cohesion."

Lessons from Good, Cost-Effective Small Schools - goodsmallschools.org

"Thirty years of education research, summarized by Dollars and Sense: The Cost-Effectiveness of Small Schools shows that small schools graduate a higher percentage of students, have lower rates of violence and disciplinary problems, and send more students on to postsecondary education than larger schools."

Rural School Consolidation Report - ERIC Digest (US Dept of Education)

"Students from low income areas have better achievement in small schools"

An Evaluation of the Impact of Rural School Consolidation - ERIC Digest (US Dept of Education)

"When small schools have closed and dollars migrated to other priorities or locations in our culture, there has normally been a corresponding loss in dollars to local businesses and other social institutions. It is now the time for America's rural schools and communities to reconsider a much related old saying about hanging together or closing separately."

School Inflation: Did the 20th-Century Growth in School Size Improve Education - Hoover Institution

"The author found that smaller schools had a significant positive effect on students' wages as adults. The findings suggest that increasing a state's average school size by 100 students was associated with a decline of one-third of a standard deviation in the rate of return to education for students educated there. This would amount to a 3.7 percent decline in earnings for a high-school graduate."

There will be much more information to share as we develop this website and we continue to WORK TOGETHER to preserve our small schools.  Please check this website often for updates.