Education

The Shelby County Board of Education and Finance Corporation approved during its meeting Thursday the funding for the new Southside Elementary School.

Because school districts are not allowed to carry debt for more than one year, the board’s Finance Corporation must issue the bonds, with a 1-year lease agreement, for the exact amount of the annual bond payment, and the lease agreement automatically rolls over each year.

Newly elected U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie’s opening bill since taking the District 4 seat – to repeal the prohibition on guns on school campuses – has gained some attention but not necessarily support from the leaders of the institutions his bill purports to support.

When the U.S. House and Senate convened last week to begin the 2013 session, a flurry of bills were filed in response to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Conn., and President Barack Obama’s mandate for tougher gun control restrictions.

When Seth England took off for Eastern Kentucky University in 2011, he already had set his sights on a degree in computer science with a focus on programming, but at that time he couldn’t have known he would-be designing a game in Redmond, Wash., a year later.

A 4.0 student at Shelby County High School and in that first year at EKU, England decided to apply for admittance to DigiPen Institute of Technology, a prestigious school focused on computer science, engineering and art, with an emphasis on creating video games.

In the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Friday in which left 26 dead, including 20 students, Shelby County Public Schools Superintendent James Neihof was quick to let parents know that SCPS has been and is continuing to do it all it can to keep students safe.

“We sent an E-mail to parents last night [Sunday] and to staff,” he said. “We also put a statement on our Web site.”