BEDFORD CO., Va. – If you have students in Bedford County, the school board wants to hear from you. Possible changes are coming to the district and all the proposals include closing an elementary school.
The Bedford County School Board is hoping the community will be a part of the conversation. After a special called budget work session, they released four options to address capacity concerns and opportunities across the district.
“We have to talk about facilities, and we have to talk about budgets but at the end of the day our main talking points are what will this do to our kids will this bring them more success, will this hurt them,” Karen Woodford, Deputy Superintendent said.
Hundreds of community members are commenting on social media about the options given, options range from rezoning, changing the grade levels at some schools, relocating students, and closing some preschool programs.
I talked to one mom over Facebook Messenger about her thoughts. She said, “My 3-year-old is supposed to start pre-school next year so eliminating pre-k affects us heavily and would mean we had to put him in a private.”
While other community members are saying, “This is solely based on money nothing positive for our children. I don’t know how to approach this with my 4th grader …”
School board members are addressing challenges with current aging buildings and for Stewartsville Elementary School, the 112-year-old building is planning to close.
“Decommission the use of Stewartsville Elementary building because of its capacity, its age and its need for repairs that we are seeing. In doing that we would need to look at relocating students to neighboring schools,” Woodford said.
There will be several opportunities in the coming weeks for the community to address the school board members and provide input on the four options. The next town hall meeting will be on February 29 at Liberty High School.