Principal rejects closing school

Teresa Hinds

Tuesday, Sept. 16, 1997 | 10:53 a.m.

Unfinished work at West Middle School has made for a frustrating opening but the principal says it does not warrant a parent's call for closing the school.

Principal Lois Venger acknowledged that bells and intercoms are not working and that the kitchen is inoperable. But under the circumstances, Venger says, the staff has done an excellent job of dealing with the inconveniences.

"Do you let kids sit at home and get no education while you put the final touches on a building?" she asks.

Marzette Lewis, who has two children attending West, says yes.

"I want them to either give us a specific date as to when this school will be completed or to shut this school down until it is completed," Lewis said.

Venger said closing the school would be counterproductive.

"We have adequate classrooms, we have adequate seating, and we have children who are thrilled about being here and are eager to learn," she said. "And we have teachers who are sensitive and dedicated and eager to be here.

"That's all you need -- children who want to learn and teachers who want to teach."

But that's not enough for Lewis.

"When you've got 30-40 kids and a fight breaks out in the classroom, and you know it will, and a teacher has no intercom or panic button system, that's very dangerous," Lewis said.

Venger admits working without an intercom or bell system is inconvenient, but says, "There are people here daily to make this work properly." She said she is confident the system will be up and running before the week's end.

In the meantime, school personnel have been using megaphones to announce the beginning and end of class periods.

Lewis claims the school still has not received computers, orchestra and band instruments, library books or textbooks.

"None of the equipment of what these kids needs to work with are there. They don't even have the basics for the kids," she charges.

Venger did concede that the library collection would not arrive until the end of this week and that the computers would not be delivered and hooked up until Sept. 26.

As for the band instruments, she claims the school has 70 percent of them delivered and says the accusation the school does not have textbooks is untrue.

"We have adequate textbooks," Venger said. "They were ordered on time and arrived on time."

Lewis also claims there is a disparity between West, a predominantly black school, and Lied Middle School, another new school that opened at the beginning of the school year.

Lewis claims Lied opened with no problems, and has charged that the school district worked harder to complete that school than it did West because of pressure from the predominately white school population and the Lied Foundation, which donated $5 million and the land to build the school.

But Paul Oisboid, principal at Lied, said that the contractor was still working on "nuisance" items during the first week of school, including balancing the air conditioning, responding to false fire alarms and making sure doors closed properly.

Venger claims Lied had more problems than Oisboid admitted to and said Oisboid was just more "positive about things" when he spoke to the media than she was. "When someone asked me what was wrong, I told them," Venger said.

"I just don't see it as a racial issue," she continued. "I see it as a new-school issue. It's an issue for Palo Verde and Mojave (high schools) and it is going to be an issue for Keller (Middle School) and it is still an issue for Lied.

"It's not some slap in the face of West Middle School or the parents or students in this area."