Education

For the past several months, a school-wide project at Forest Middle School has been uniting all of the students together with one goal. The result: a 9-foot-tall tetrahedron that the students put together last Wednesday.

    “We began to look at building this giant tetrahedron and tying it in with the math SOLs that (the students) were learning,” stated Nancy Young, a library media specialist at the school. “Every student in the school has actually made an individual tetrahedron to put into this project.”

Last Thursday the Bedford County School Board got its first look at a proposed budget from Schools Superintendent Dr. Douglas Schuch and at least one board member was surprised at what he saw.

    “This is very frustrating to me,” stated District 2 board member Dave Vaden.

    Following its regular meeting Thursday night, the Bedford County School Board planned to talk more about the proposed 2011-12 budget. That never happened; comments made by Bedford Mayor Skip Tharp stopped any further discussion in its tracks.

    “I think we need to get more clarification,” stated District 4 board member Gary Hostutler.

You can hand it to the parents of students from Bedford Primary School: They’re doing their homework.

    They’ve come to meetings to challenge a proposal to close the school armed with studies, alternate proposals and even, possibly, a legal loophole.
    They’ve used the tried and true — good old footwork to get hundreds of names on petitions opposing the closure—and new technology to research and spread their message through the social media.