North Cross School sends us the following release about its summer programs and how many children they reached:

As students across the country head back to school in the coming weeks, one thing is for sure. The more than 600 children who participated in North Cross School’s summer programs this year will have plenty of exciting stories to share with friends when they return to the classroom!

School officials believe strongly that these programs should be a resource to the entire region that NCS serves, and should strengthen the School’s relationship with the community. Therefore, programs are available to students from all schools as well as NCS students. More than 60 percent of the record-breaking 600 students who participated do not attend North Cross School.

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For 9-year-old Grace Catherine Burton and her sister Anna Burton, who is quite proud to announce she is 10.5-years-old, watching Michael Phelps swim in the 2008 Beijing Olympics was “so cool”.

“We’ve been watching the Olympics like crazy,” Anna said.

“We were screaming when he (Phelps) won,” Grace said.

“They swim really fast and you want to be like them and work harder,” Anna said about watching the Olympic swimmers. It encourages you to work hard, eat right, and to be healthy.”

And according to Grace, “When you watch and you see how well they swim and they are so happy, it makes you want to strive to be that good.”

Not only was it inspirational but the two sister’s now, more than ever want to strive to be in the Olympics themselves.

Grace, who attends Cave Spring Elementary, has been swimming for four years and her older sister, Anna, who just started her first year at Hidden Valley Middle School has been swimming for seven years.

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We have another first day of school photo. This comes from Stephanie Oertle and shows Emma Oertle (2nd grade-Green Valley Elementary) Madison West (1st grade-Green Valley Elementary) Kaitlyn Tucker (1st grade-Glen Cove Elementary).

Thanks, Stephanie!

Previously, we had first day of school photos of:

* Jayden and Alyssa Mabry at Oak Grove Elementary
* Savannah Wilson at Cave Spring High School

Do you have back to school photos? We won’t even insist they be from the first day! You can share them at news@swo-co.com

We asked for your first day of school photos. We got one from Savannah Wilson at Cave Spring High School. And now Dana Mabry sends us this. Here’s Jayden (3rd grade) and Alyssa Mabry (2nd grade) on the first day of school at Oak Grove Elementary.

Do you have first day of school photos? You can share them at news@swo-co.com. We’ll even take second day of school photos, if you want to share ‘em!

We reported on August 15 that it looked like all the schools in Roanoke County would meet the federal standards under the “No Child Left Behind” act.

Today, the formal report came out, and yes, every school in Roanoke County did meet the standards.

The standards, known as Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, measure students in reading and math. Schools last year had to show that 77 percent of students passed Standards of Learning tests in English and 75 percent passed the tests in math in order to meet the federal benchmarks. The law also requires that students of different demographic groups pass the tests at the same rate. The standards become increasingly difficult every year until 2014, when all students will be expected to pass the state tests.

You can look up information on each school in Roanoke County (or anywhere in Western Virginia, for that matter) on our Datasphere.

For a news story on schools across the region, click here.

Got an opinion? You can click “comment” below.

If you’ve been following the sports pages of The Roanoke Times, you may know the scores of the Hidden Valley varsity volleyball matches. (Hint: The Titans are 2-0, with wins over Patrick Henry and Northside.) But the sports pages don’t typically report on junior varsity scores. However, we here at SWoCo do.

So we can play a little catch-up here and tell you that the Hidden Valley JVs are 1-1.

They swept Patrick Henry last week by scores of 25-16 and 25-13.

On Monday, they lost a hard-fought match-up against Northside — losing 21-25, coming back for a 25-22 win, before finally falling 20-22.

The next match is Thursday at Franklin County at 5:30 p.m.; check here for a report for that game.

More Hidden Valley sports:

* Our most recent post on Hidden Valley High School was earlier today.
* Our most recent post on Hidden Valley sports was our photo gallery of all the fall sports teams on August 22.
* We had a photo from Hidden Valley varsity volleyball practice on August 18.

Friday’s print edition of SWoCo will be devoted to a Hidden Valley sports preview. Last week, we did Cave Spring. For the latest on Cave Spring, click here.

As always, if you have news or photos involving teams or players from Southwest Roanoke County, you can share them at news@swo-co.com

The JV team roster is below:

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More than 6 inches of rain have been recorded at Witt’s Orchard on Bent Mountain in the past 24 hours — and more than 4.68 inches on Sugarloaf Mountain. For more rainfall totals, click here. For more weather news, see Kevin Myatt’s Weather Journal.

So what’s the weather looking like in your part of Southwest Roanoke County? You can click “comments” below — and if you have photos, you can share them at news@swo-co.com

Last week was 94.9 Star Country’s Radiothon and we covered it.

The Cure Kids Cancer Marathon raised $191,302. Congratulations to all who helped make that possible.

Check out SWoCo’s last two posts about the Cure Kid’s Cancer Radiothon on August 25 here and August 22 here and then check out their website for more photos of the event here.

This morning’s sports page has a box score from the Cave Spring’s varsity volleyball match against Brookville — which the Knights swept three games to none. Most sports sections, though, don’t have space for junior varsity coverage. However, we here at SWoCo do. Last night, we posted the score from the junior varsity match as soon as it was over — along with a parent’s brief account of the game.

And now, here’s a more formal report from Coach Moriah Moore:

Cave Spring’s JV volleyball team defeated Brookville Tuesday night, two games to none (21-5 and 21-7). The Knights recorded 12 aces over the two games. This victory marks the second win in as many matches as Cave Spring defeated Rustburg last week, two games to one. The Knights will take on Lord Botetourt on Wednesday, September 3. That match will be played at Cave Spring High School and will start at 6 p.m. The varsity match will start immediately following the JV match.

As always, if you have news or photos of teams or players from Southwest Roanoke County, you can share them at news@swo-co.com

More Cave Spring sports:

* August 26: Cave Spring golfers featured on Varsity Cast webcast.
* August 24: Photo gallery from Cave Spring’s football opener.
* August 22: Cave Spring volleyball defeats Rustburg
* August 20: Photo gallery of fall sports teams at Cave Spring.

For the latest on Hidden Valley sports, click here.

Just in time for the new school year, students in the Roanoke Valley now have more space to learn at Sylvan Learning’s new location at 3634 Brambleton Ave.

The location was selected to provide more convenient access to Sylvan’s supplemental educational services.

“We chose this space for easier accessibility for parents and for the constant traffic flow on Brambleton. It’s much more visible,” said Tina Kitchens, CEO of HoneyTree Early Learning Center, which owns the Sylvan franchise in Roanoke and Christiansburg. “The new space is much more open and provides for a better teaching area. It is bright and well lit and very inviting to the students.”

The new center features one large teaching area, a testing room that’s also used for SAT classes, and several offices. The foyer is set up for parents to be able to have a place to wait.

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