| Anna L. Mallory

anna.mallory@roanoke.com, 381-8627

Blacksburg High School again made Newsweek magazine's America's Best High Schools list. BHS is ranked No. 556 among 1,734 public schools across the country.

It is the only school in the New River Valley and among only about 100 in Virginia on the list.

The magazine has ranked the nation's schools nearly every year since 1998.

Washington Post education reporter Jay Matthews created a mechanism used to rank schools -- the Challenge Index. The index assigns schools a ranking based on the number of advanced placement or international baccalaureate exams the school gives. It does not rank them based on the number of students who pass.

However, the news magazine does provide a ranking called the Equity and Excellence, which measures the percentage of seniors who pass such college-entrance exams. Blacksburg's E&E percentage is 52. A school must have given at least one test to each graduate to make the list.

"This is just another example of the excellent education that students receive at Blacksburg High," BHS Principal Michael Hurst said. "Our pass rate on advanced placement tests further solidifies our standing as a top public high school. On average, 90 percent of students at BHS who take an AP exam score a three or better."

Advanced placement exams are scored on a scale of one through five. A score of three or higher is considered passing and qualifies the student to earn college credit for the course.

The list was released in June.

RESEARCH

Virginia Tech seek children to study

Researchers at Virginia Tech are looking for families whose children have been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive behavior to participate in a five-day intensive treatment program, according to a news release from Tech.

"Examination of intensive treatment programs for pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder has only occurred within the last five to 10 years," Kristin Canavera said in the release. Canavera is a clinician for the department's Child Study Center coordinator of the program.

People with OCD experience unwanted or persistent thoughts, perform repetitive behaviors and feel compulsions. Common obsessions include worries or fears about contamination, harming themselves or others, infection and feeling responsible for unfortunate occurrences, according to the university.

MIDDLE SCHOOL

Teachers look for help unpacking

Blacksburg Middle School teachers are seeking volunteers to help them unpack materials as they settle into the old Christiansburg Middle School building. The teachers are expected to begin unpacking Monday.

TECHNOLOGY

Foundation helps fund whiteboards

When school starts, Shawsville Middle School students will be able to use SMART Boards in all but one of their core classes.

The school has 11 of the interactive whiteboards, according to Principal Dave Dickinson. Last school year, the Mountain Valley Charitable Foundation awarded SMS with a $3,978 grant to purchase three boards.

The grant was the first award given out of the foundation's Loraine Ryan Educational Fund, established in 2009 to fund projects, programs and services for eastern Montgomery County public schools.

The SMART Board is a large, interactive whiteboard that uses touch detection for user input. A projector is used to display a computer's video output on the whiteboard, which then acts as a large touch-screen.

The Mountain Valley Charitable Foundation is a nonprofit organization that works to enhance the quality of life in eastern Montgomery County. It has raised the funds to build the Waldron Family YMCA, coordinates services within the Meadowbrook Center, awards educational scholarships for deserving students and sponsors EastMont Transport, EastMont Tomato Festival, Shawsville Farmers Market and EastMont Arts Association.