Video: Community Tours New Middle School

About 600 students will walk through the doors next month to begin their 2012-2013 school year in the county’s newest school. But faculty, staff and community members were given the chance Tuesday to tour P.B. Ritch Middle School before the facility opens Aug. 1 for its inaugural school year.

The school, located on Old Country Trail in Dallas, is named after longtime educator Paul Brown Ritch, whose family was on hand Tuesday to tour the new facility.

The new school bears his name to carry on , which opened in 1985 and most recently operated as an elementary school up until this May. Paulding County School Board members in January to keep the school operational; the board that month also .

See highlights of officials’ comments, the ribbon-cutting ceremony and tours of the facility in the attached video.

The middle school, which will be the district’s ninth, has the capacity for 900 students. Those set to attend the school were put there by ; the plan and drew to the school board’s Feb. 14 meeting a sizable crowd of opponents—.