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Students at Blacksburg High might have to wait until their homecoming to play in the new Bill Brown Stadium, according to the latest report to the Montgomery County school board.

The school system had hoped to open play at the stadium on Oct. 3, but school facilities director Dan Berenato said Tuesday that fencing around the property and other construction projects aren't likely to be finished until the next home game on Oct. 24.

It's up to the Town of Blacksburg to say whether kick-off can take place without the outer fence, Berenato said. He said he plans to work with the town and the school system to see if both are OK playing without the four-foot high fence.

It's mostly for safety, and has nothing to do with playing.

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Floyd County school superintendent Terry Arbogast said the investigation into a porn video shown to students at an assembly last week should be finished by the end of this week.

You can read more about it here.

It was curious to me that no parents spoke of the incident to the school board yesterday.
Parents, had this happened at your child's school, would you be upset?

School board members are saying they don't plan to have any special conversation today about the incident at Floyd County High on Friday.

Still, a public comment period is scheduled and board member Margaret Hubbard said she expects people will talk then. Hubbard's granddaughter was in the school assembly, but Hubbard said she still hasn't heard the details from Superintendent Terry Arbogast. Arbogast was our of town at a wedding this weekend, Hubbard said, and he told school board members he wanted to complete his own investigation.

Neither Arbogast or Hollandsworth is talking so far. Stan Hawkins, who leads the SADD group, was not in school today.

The board meets in two hours.

The Floyd County school board is slated to meet today. You can see what's on the agenda here.

We'll see if anyone brings up the porn sighting at the high school or not.

Internal investigations often are kept fairly quiet. This isn't uncommon throughout the country, as hard as that might be to believe. At least, it's supposedly happened before.

What do you think of the incident?

I spoke with Montgomery County school board member Phyllis Albritton, who had some concerns after she read about the latest controversy with the Old Blacksburg Middle School.

Albritton, who wasn't at the meeting because she was out of town, thought we should have listed what the resolution the school board passed actually said. Therein lies most of the confusion, she said. To her, the resolution, passed in 2005, not 2004, is clear that the school board must wait to see it no longer needs the property before they hand it over.

Well, here's the resolution (in two pieces). Read it, and let us know what you think. Is the resolution clear?

Thumbing through a magazine last night, I came across an ad for this T-shirt, which apparently helps raise money to support teachers nationwide. The T is part of an ongoing fund that gives to a series of nonprofits that do things like help teachers take sabbatical or let donors "adopt a classroom."

The idea is that support will help dismal teacher retention rates.

Teachers, what do you think? What kinds of support do you need most?

As fellow reporter, Tim Thornton, pointed out earlier, the new regional jail in Roanoke County and the design of Montgomery County's newest elementary school do have some common themes.

Check it out below.

I strolled around Eastern Montgomery High School on Tuesday waiting to hear about this and this, and I ran across a tidbit that, perhaps, would make only a journalist chuckle.

Let's see what you think.

In a row of stacked vocabulary workbooks and three levels of "Reading for Proficiency" books in the Consumer science (revamped Home Ec), was a book aimed at teaching students how to read advertisements, newspapers and more.

Newspapers? Here I thought they were a dying industry

So, the education reporter got the best of me, and I flipped to the front of the paper-back book.

Sure enough, this third-edition text was copyrighted 1994.

Here's a look at what the new elementary in Elliston will look like, according to a presentation from Spectrum Design. It's the same plan for the Price's Fork school, too, although land for that property still is elusive.

The new consolidated elementary school in the eastern part of Montgomery County will have separate wings for younger and older children, outdoor classrooms, different drop off points for parents and buses and at least four play areas.

Tonight, architects from Roanoke-based Spectrum Design showed residents, school board members and administrators a slew of views for the school, which is scheduled to open the fall of 2010.

The project will go to bid in the next few weeks, with a final bid scheduled within six weeks, they said.

The building, situated on 20 acres, has a modern look, which the designers called futuristic. The look includes sloped roofs and pod-style enclosed classrooms.

Parents on hand said they were happy with the design, but that they still had concerns about the consolidation. Some even asked questions about the name and suggested using, "Eastern Montgomery" in the title.

You can read more about the design, and see some pictures in Thursday's Current.

In the mean time, tell us what you think of the consolidation and what it should be named.