The Blue Ridge Technical Academy will fade into history tonight if the Roanoke School Board declines, as expected, to renew its charter.

The academy opened four years ago as the state's first employer-linked regional charter school.

The school board action will be a mere formality, as the board voted unanimously last month to close the academy and move its career and technical courses into Patrick Henry High School for the upcoming school year. But it will bring to an end an idea that was well-intended - to prepare students to work in quickly growing job segments - but that was fraught with troubles, most notably the lack of participation from neighboring school systems.

What went wrong?

Blue Ridge Technical Academy opened in the Higher Education Center in downtown Roanoke in 2001, two years after receiving its charter. The academy's mission was to provide technical degree programs for up to 200 students, ages 15-19, who were at risk of dropping out of school.

"It was to try to encourage those students to stay in school" with career offerings that would appeal to them, said Richard Kelley, who served as assistant superintendent of operations when he pitched the idea of a charter school to administrators and the school board.

"We saw this as another way to enhance the development of our young people," said Roanoke City Councilman Sherman Lea, who served on the Roanoke School Board when the school was proposed.

Blue Ridge was to be a regional school, so Roanoke school administrators lobbied other Roanoke Valley school systems for support. Letters of endorsement came from Bedford and Botetourt counties and verbal support came from other school systems, but none took their support as far as becoming part of the charter.

State law requires that regional charter schools be operated by two or more school boards and chartered directly by those boards. The Roanoke School Board did not have that kind of regional participation.

Virginia Department of Education spokeswoman Julie Grimes said "there definitely is a need" for other school divisions to be involved in a school that enrolls their students. Asked if the Roanoke school system would be sanctioned in any way for failing to have that regional cooperation for Blue Ridge, Grimes said, "They're no longer operating as a charter school so that's a moot point."

Still, some believe Blue Ridge - which suffered from low enrollment and a lack of funding - would have fared better with more support from other school systems.

"They just wanted to see how the school proceeded," Lea said. "They just said, 'Let's wait and see.'"

City Councilman Brian Wishneff, who served with Lea on the school board when Blue Ridge was proposed, offered a different perspective, saying other school systems were envious of Blue Ridge.

"It could never overcome that jealousy," he said.

The strongest resistance came from the Roanoke County School Board. In 1999, board members said they were concerned about the effect Blue Ridge could have on Arnold R. Burton Technology Center, the county's vocational and technical school.

When the Salem school system was asked to support Blue Ridge, a representative was appointed to be part of a planning committee, Salem Superintendent Wayne Tripp recalled.

"Simply put, that never happened," Tripp said. The Roanoke school system never initiated any discussions, and Salem didn't pursue the issue.

Failure of marketing

Having other school boards involved in Blue Ridge's operations could have helped the school attract more students, some say. Blue Ridge never met its goal of enrolling 200 students. Ninety-six students attended in the 2004-05 year, including those in a General Educational Development program.

"People didn't understand it," Lea said. People thought Blue Ridge was another alternative school, like the Noel C. Taylor Learning Academy. Had stronger marketing efforts been in place, the school might have thrived, he said.

Kelley said enrollment may have been low at first because students were reluctant to leave their classmates and attend a different school.

Plus, average daily membership money "goes with the student. That also caused a little resistance," Kelley said. "To actually have a program that takes students and sends them to another locality" is not something other school systems wanted.

"The region never really bought into this," said Lloyd Enoch, acting director of career and technical education for Roanoke schools and a former director of Blue Ridge. "It was not a true regional program."

Kelley said students outside Roanoke weren't actively recruited, but if they wanted to attend, they could. The school attracted just a few regional students during its four years, including two this year - one boy from Roanoke County and a girl from Salem.

"We felt it was exceptional and didn't want to keep it to ourselves," Lea said.

A matter of money

The participation of neighboring school systems might have helped the academy succeed not only in terms of enrollment but in terms of dollars and cents.

Blue Ridge "probably would have" fared better if it had garnered more support, said Enoch, who is also a member of the school's advisory committee. "Funding for one thing. That's a main issue." Blue Ridge's charter application lays out the school's original plans for funding, which include charging tuition to neighboring school divisions for students enrolled at Blue Ridge. That plan failed when the state said charter schools can't charge tuition.

The school system originally applied directly to the U.S. Department of Education for $270,000 in start-up funds for Blue Ridge. It later learned that funds would have to be channeled through the state, which received $637,579 in federal grants for the establishment of charter schools.

The school system then applied to the state for $99,938 in federal money. Waiting for that application to go through caused the school's opening to be delayed.

Some parents, including Alita Ashe of Roanoke County, head of Blue Ridge's parent organization, charge that the school system applied for the funds with no intention of having a viable school. Ashe said school administrators wanted to "grab the federal money and run."

"They have known since day one that funding was going to be an issue," Ashe said. "So why didn't they stop it? They basically used our kids."

Kelley and Wishneff say that wasn't the case.

"I was there and that wasn't even on the table," Wishneff said. At the time, he said, there was a lot of talk about getting students ready to enter the work force upon graduation, and school officials saw Blue Ridge as a way to accomplish that.

Although Blue Ridge didn't meet its original goals, Wishneff said, "it evolved and became something just as good in its own right."

Wishneff said that if it were up to him, the school would still be open.

"Maybe Roanoke city needs to revisit the issue of elected school boards. Maybe ... it would have been a different decision" if school board members had listened to the school's highly vocal parent organization, who said their students were succeeding at Blue Ridge, he said.

"My sense is the school system kind of did what it had to do," said Wayne Strickland, a member of the school's advisory council. Strickland is executive director of the Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission and secretary of the Fifth Planning District Regional Alliance.

"We're disappointed that Blue Ridge Technical Academy didn't make it," he said. "I think they were on the right track. It takes a little while to build up your credibility.

"Maybe that concept will be revisited again."