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Schools

Carson Reading Room Opens Friday at Pikesville Middle

The reading room is part of an ongoing effort supported by Baltimore surgeon, Ben Carson, and his wife.

There’s going to be something new opening at Pikesville Middle School this week, and children who enjoy reading will be happy campers.

School officials will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 9 a.m. Friday for the  Carson Reading Room that was built last month but hasn't been widely used yet.

The reading room, formerly a teachers' lounge, was transformed into a place for students to read, relax and learn. It will be used to encourage students to read for fun.

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Librarian and English teacher Laura Getty was a driving force in getting the project going and approved.

“I think it’s perfect,” Getty said of the room. “There have been some students that have been in there, and they loved it. There’s been rave reviews.”

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The school received the funding for the room from the Carson Scholars Fund in Baltimore, a program named for Dr. Ben Carson, a nationally-known pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Carson has promoted the importance of reading and academics, both locally and nationally, through the program, including sponsoring reading rooms.

For the project, employees of renovated the existing room and helped create another faculty room for the staff.

It took Home Depot only three days to take care of business—one day for painting, one for building shelves and another for painting them.

Getty said the reading room has been kept pretty much off-limits until the ribbon-cutting Friday, but the few students who have gotten a look have given it a thumbs-up.

Pikesville Middle School is going to be Baltimore County’s first secondary school to start a Carson Reading Room.

There are 55 of these rooms in seven states, including at nearby in Pikesville.

“Being able to provide our school community with a Ben Carson Reading Room affords us an opportunity to engage all of our students in the wonders of reading for pleasure,” said school principal Mia Talarigo in a statement.

Candy Carson, co-founder of the Carson Scholars Fund and Ben Carson’s wife, will attend the Friday ribbon-cutting, along with room sponsors Louis and Phyllis Friedman and others from the area and school system.

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