| Anna L. Mallory

anna.mallory@roanoke.com, 381-8627

CHRISTIANSBURG -- While the Montgomery County School Board asked the board of supervisors to support nearly $125 million in future school capital projects, it doesn't mean those projects couldn't morph, Superintendent Brenda Blackburn told the school board Tuesday.

A resolution the board approved 5-2 Tuesday put into writing what the board already asked supervisors to consider. It called for the replacement of Auburn High School, Auburn Middle School and Blacksburg High School.

Those projects -- initially proposed during public meetings as building a new Auburn High School for $44.6 million, renovating the current high school to Auburn Middle School for $22.5 million and constructing a new $57.5 million Blacksburg High School -- would fulfill space needs in Auburn and end community fears that Blacksburg High, closed since the Feb. 13 collapse of its gymnasium, is unsafe.

The resolution does not specify renovation as a solution for Auburn's middle school. Rather, it calls for replacement of all three buildings.

One school board member, Joe Ivers of Blacksburg, said he would favor looking into building one secondary school in Riner, instead of funneling money into 72-year-old Auburn High School for renovations.

"If we go and renovate that ... building, then the life of that building is limited. Then I think we're just chasing our tail," he said.

Instead, he said, perhaps the county should look at a combined middle and high school.

Blackburn said the Auburn projects were addressed because they were on the 2006 capital improvement plan, but that didn't mean they couldn't change with approval from the board and support from the community.

Preliminary figures show the student population in Riner's secondary schools -- 280 at the middle school and 387 at the high school -- could support a combined school.

However, doing that would counter a philosophy to which the board has long subscribed, said Walt Shannon, assistant superintendent.

The board has a standard for each of the county's four school areas, called strands, to have a separate middle school and high school, he said. Each strands falls in that category. However, because a consolidated school opened this fall in Elliston, a precedent may have been set, he said.

During community meetings last year, Riner residents said they would support building a new high school. The consolidated school was not favored.

Board members said they wouldn't make any changes to their plans without first consulting the residents in the community.