Two people were airlifted to UK Medical Center with serious injuries following a violent one-vehicle collision Monday, October 17 on Ky. 76, according to Deputy Sheriff Clete McAninch.

The wreck happened just before 1:30 p.m. when Tory Ryder, 43, of Russell Springs, lost control of his 2001 Ford pickup while traveling eastbound. Ryder’s vehicle then left the roadway, struck a culvert, became airborne and struck a concrete storm cellar before finally coming to rest on its top.

Ryder’s passenger, Amber Thomas, 33, of Russell Springs, was flown from the scene while Ryder was later flown to UK from the Russell County Hospital.

The Russell County EMS and Russell County Fire Department also responded to the accident as did Deputies David Cain and Lee Smith.

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The October meeting of the Russell County Board of Education offered an opportunity for concerned parents and teachers of the school system to voice their concerns over a recent sexual education class taught for mixed class middle and high schoolers.

Tina Begley, a substitute teacher for the school system, did most of the addressing to the board, representing those who were dismayed over the content of the sex education class presented by the Lake Cumberland Health Department to a mixed class of ninth graders on September 22. There may have been as many as a dozen parents present in support of her position.

Begley, and a parent or two, said that the presentation entitled “Reducing the Risk” was a part of a week long sex education class that she said was “quite embarrassing” and “shocking.”

She passed out to the board members what she had heard presented during the class and addressed two specific problems she had with the presentation of the sex education class: that there were no parent permission slips that had to be signed for the student to be involved in the class, and whether the discussions that were presented in the class were a part of the curriculum approved for teaching, contending that information presented with the information was not appropriate.

“I think after you read the information, I think you will agree that it needs to be toned down,” said Begley. “There were things in there that were just shocking.”

Superintendent Kenny Pickett addressed the matter saying, “This is not a board decision. The curriculum is done by a ‘site based council’ at the high school.”

He told the concerned parents that, “the high school made a mistake…it will never happen again without permission slips,” but that the curriculum is set by the state of Kentucky through the health department.

Pickett went on to say that he had sat in through the entire day and that his experience was that it “got out of hand” when the students asked questions, but that the instructor was honest and straight forward in her responses.

Emotionally responding, Begley contended that the instructor “offered information” and that though she is aware of Russell County’s high teen pregnancy rate and that some parents do not look after their children as well as others, that concerned parents are monitoring their children’s behaviors, friends, access to TV, and computer materials.

In the meeting only discussion of “rubbers” or “condoms” was brought out but Begley said, “That’s a mild scenario,” of other things discussed.

“Who you parents need to go to is the site based council in the school,” vice-chair Wayne Gosser said. “As a parent myself I’m against teaching this in a public school system because it removes it from the responsibility of who is actually supposed to teach it, and that’s at home.”

Gosser went on to say that, “some things are dictated to us that has to be done that we have no control over.”

Parents were encouraged to visit the site based council to seek a resolution.

The Kentucky Site Based Council is a development of the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act that puts certain responsibilities that were once under the auspice of the board of education into the hands of a team from each school consisting of at least six members; three teachers, two parents and a school administrator which is almost always the school’s principal.

The site based council is tasked with hiring for positions within their school, choosing textbook and instructional materials, and reviewing testing and determining steps for future improvement.