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Kids Fine With Grave Find: Palm View Students Learn About Discovery, React With Interest, Awe

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By Erica Rodriguez, The Bradenton Herald, Fla.

Mar. 28--MANATEE -- Third-grader Sean Davis learned something "cool" his first day back in class from spring break.

He and fellow classmates at Palm View Elementary School learned that 31 unmarked human graves are buried under campus.

"I think it's cool," said Sean, 9. "I was surprised."

But aside from watching a short slide show about the recent discovery of grave sites that could date back more than a century, students and teachers at Palm View went on with their classes.

"Everything's normal," said Palm View principal David Marshall.

School officials found the graves a few months ago through ground-penetrating radar while preparing for the construction of a new classroom building. They decided to use such technology because of a possible overlap of property boundaries with the school's longtime neighbor Palm View Cemetery, according to school board attorney John Bowen.

Classes continued as usual, without the notification of parents, for months after the graves were located.

But the information surfaced last week in The Herald, which prompted the preparation of slide shows for students and the delivery of letters to parents and guardians.

"We ask for your patience as we work through this issue and that you share this information with your student," Marshall wrote in the letter.

The response: understanding and interested, he said.

"What can you do? You know. It just doesn't bother me," said Lynn Davis, Sean's mother.

Marshall said most of the graves are beneath areas of the school that have little-to-no student traffic. About a dozen of them are underneath a school parking lot that was filled with cars Monday afternoon.

Still, Barbara Skidmore said the find didn't surprise her and that she and her 10-year-old daughter, Rebecca, are taking it as a learning experience.

"She thinks it's cool," Skidmore said. "I think it's kinda cool myself that there's so much history out here."

Marshall said he hopes students and teachers will have a similar reaction to the new information.

"We're just going to take it as an opportunity for them to learn about their surroundings and the community," Marshall said of his students.

Erica Rodriguez, Herald reporter, can be reached at erodriguez@HeraldToday.com [mailto:erodriguez@HeraldToday.com] or at 745-7095.

HeraldToday.com

Go to the Special Coverage area to:

-- View the PowerPoint presentation shown to the students

-- Read a letter sent home to parents from school officials

-- View a plotting of where the school grave sites are located

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Bradenton Herald, Fla.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Bradenton Herald (Bradenton, Fla.)

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