ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 25, 1997 TAG: 9704250075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: JOANNE POINDEXTER THE ROANOKE TIMES
It sounded at times like a sports event, with the Bedford County audience cheering and applauding the speakers.
More than 800 students, parents and teachers packed the Bedford County School Board meeting Thursday night at Liberty High School, calling for the reinstatement of a practical nursing program and sixth-grade band and opposing rezoning the Otter River Elementary School district.
It sounded at times like a sports event, with the audience cheering and applauding the speakers. Many people stood along the walls of the auditorium, which seats about 850. Few vacant seats could be seen as School Board members sat listening - mostly to critics.
They were asked to think about the long-term implications of their budget cuts; and, as many in the audience did this month with the Board of Supervisors, residents asked the School Board to be wise in its spending. They asked school officials and the board to consider meeting with a mediator to work out the personal and political problems they are having with the supervisors.
A public hearing was scheduled on the Otter River proposal, and a least a dozen people spoke, including two seventh-graders who had collected 96 letters and 1,276 signatures on petitions to keep the elementary school pupils in the Jefferson Forest High School district rather than send them to the Liberty High School district.
"We wanted to voice our opinions and let people know we are concerned," Randy Dearing said after giving the petitions to Superintendent John Kent.
"We think the rezoning is not fair to all students," Mark Dix said.
The two Forest Middle School students became friends in elementary school and want to graduate together from Jefferson Forest. They said the rezoning proposal would send some of their friends to Liberty.
Although several parents said they had bought homes in the area so their children could attend Jefferson Forest, one said it would be closer for her children to attend Liberty, and she urged the School Board to make the schools equitable.
Recent graduates of Bedford County's School of Practical Nursing applauded loudly as speakers told the School Board eliminating the program would in the long run hurt all medical facilities in the county.
The nursing program, sixth-grade band and elementary arts are among the programs to be cut as the School Board tries to reduce its 1997-98 budget to meet the appropriation from the Board of Supervisors.
The nursing program ``is really an investment in the community," said Mary DeWald, whose daughter graduated from the program. She said it enabled her daughter to stay and work in Bedford County, thus becoming a taxpayer.
Parents and students said band students are among the top students, score higher on SATs, are creative and learn teamwork.
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