INSIDE Assistant Warden Joan Kerr retires > page 8
Volume 57, Number 44 • November 4, 2010
GMS program goes after bullies Goochland Middle School starts bullying prevention program By Ken Odor jodor@goochlandgazette.com
Photos by Ken Odor
Members of the Goochland High School Marching Band, above and below left, practice last week in preparation for their last home football game of the season.
GHS band gears up for competition By Ken Odor jodor@goochlandgazette.com
Goochland High School Marching Band director Jay Sykes is proud of the 40-plus members of his group, which performed at the school’s last home football game of the season Friday night. “It takes a lot of patience, which these kids are rock stars at,” said Sykes. The band has one more competition coming up this Saturday at Mills Godwin High School; their last appearance will be in the Richmond
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Calendar Classifieds People News Letters
16 17 - 19 8 5 6-7
Education Opinion Sports TV Listings Feature
2 6 12 - 13 14 - 16 4
Christmas Parade December 4. Sykes said about 20 bands will compete in six categories at Godwin: Color guard, music, marching, percussion, drum major and general effect. For someone who doesn’t play a musical instrument, it may appear deceptively simple when the band takes the field for its performance. But it’s not easy at all. “They have to learn some pretty difficult
SPORTS Benedictine upended by FUMA > page 13
see Band > page 3
Goochland Middle School is taking on bullies. The school has introduced a new prevention program and some new anti-bullying rules. Students and staff kicked off the program October 8. Assistant principal Christin Ciminelli said that although there is not a big bullying problem at GMS, the goal is to be “proactive rather than reactive.” “You hear about it in the news,” said Ciminelli. “Kids don’t want to come to school, their grades drop, they get depressed.” She recalls getting a phone call from a parent whose child didn’t want to come to school because of bullying. “I want the kids to know that they have people to talk to,” said
T H E
Ciminelli, who said she had been thinking about the problem even before she attended an antibullying conference in 2008. After receiving information from School Superintendent Linda Underwood, Ciminelli applied for and received a $7,000 grant from VCU to start the program, which is based on the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, a widely used program that is a proven way to reduce bullying incidents, said Ciminelli. Trainers came out to work with the faculty in October 2009. And this year the school formed their Bullying Prevention Coordinating Committee composed of students, teachers and staff and
L O C A L
west SERVING EASTERN GOOCHLAND AND WESTERN HENRICO
Photo Realism exhibit opens at Cultural Arts Center in Glen Allen
see Bullies > page 2