The Powhatan School Board is seeking volunteers from Districts 1 and 3 to serve on a Book Review Committee that will serve on a five-member committee to assist with the review of specific books from the secondary school libraries that may contain sexually explicit content. Each of the five members of the assigned Book Review Committee will have one vote, and a strong majority vote (5-0 or 4-1) is required to remove a book from the library/media center(s). Applications are due by 5 p.m. on March 4, 2024. School Board members will review applications and make the final selections.
To fill out an application, scan the QR code, follow the link in the first comment, or find the link on the PCPS homepage.
Mrs. Ford’s kindergarten class at Pocahontas Elementary practice sight words. This exercise involves using words commonly seen in their stories to help build word foundations. As a creative side project, Mrs. Okes, a parent volunteer, took individual students aside to do a project making handprint snowflakes using tempera paint. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Just a reminder that Monday, February 19, 2024, is a student holiday/staff work day. We hope our PCPS have a great three-day weekend!
Mr. Payne’s Electricity 2 Honors students at Powhatan High School recently wrapped up a project where they added solar power to the Agricultural Science Department’s small animal barn to add lights to the building. The school purchased a solar panel kit with a recent donation to the Electricity Program. The students learned how it works and how to install it. The program is also looking into the possibility of using the same panels for a future project to heat the barn’s water containers so the water doesn’t freeze in the winter. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Today is School Resource Officer Appreciation Day. PCPS appreciates the support of the Powhatan County Sheriff’s Office and especially our own SROs:
Powhatan High School: Jason Homer and Bridget Withers
Powhatan Middle: Foster Miles
Pocahontas Elementary: Ron Sadler
Powhatan Elementary: Maurice Tovar
Flat Rock Elementary: Tim Wright
Last week, Powhatan County Public Schools embraced the 100th Day of School in a very festive way. We would love to see some of your 100th Day photos! In the meantime, here are some of the images from Powhatan Elementary School, including classes taking photos with a special sign out front and photos in Mrs. Peterson’s kindergarten class. In addition to wearing homemade 100th Day T-shirts and headgear, the class had 100th Day stations such as stacking 100 cups, writing about what they would do if they had $100, drawing a 10-legged monster, cutting and gluing counting-by-ten puzzles, making a pattern out of 100 blocks, and learning about pennies. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Ms. Hathaway’s sixth graders worked together with Dr. Spott in the Innovation Lab at Powhatan Middle School during their English class on a special X Games project. Students made X Game slopes, ramps, and tricks that they correlated with a lesson on figurative language. For their final project, the students described their slopes with figurative language such as “my slope is as tall as the mountains” or “the cotton is fluffy snow.” #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Flat Rock Elementary fourth graders’ STEM Day was out of this world!. The students showed their understanding of the relationship and movement of the sun, earth, and moon. They modeled and explained why we have the seasons, tides, and phases of the moon. Students explained what causes the seasons, including facts such why the tilt and the earth’s orbit around the sun causes our seasons. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
During art class at Pocahontas Elementary, Mrs. Williamson had the fifth graders in Mrs. Yoder’s class working on a paper weaving project. The students learned about Virginia’s state bird, the northern cardinal, which was to be the focal point of the art project. They used paper strips to learn the difference between warp and weft when weaving their beautiful creations. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
@backpacksofloveinc is holding a Food Drive through Feb. 23, 2024. Backpacks of Love, Inc. is a local charity that was formed to provide food for school children over the weekend. Children who need such food receive a small bag of food and snacks on the last day of the school week. Our partners at Backpacks of Love are asking for our help! They need food donations. Below is a list of what they need. Please bring donations to your child’s school through Feb. 23. If you have any questions, please reach out to Kelly Sarkees at 804-598-5700 ext 116. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Mrs. Barnes’ AP Physics 1 students at Powhatan High School study simple harmonic motion with pendulums. They determine the effect of mass and length on the time period of a pendulum to swing back and forth. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
National School Counseling Week 2024 (#NSCW24) is being recognized from Feb. 5-9, 2024, to focus public attention on the unique contribution of school counselors within U.S. school systems. National School Counseling Week, sponsored by the American School Counselor Association, highlights the tremendous impact school counselors can have in helping students achieve school success and plan for a career. PCPS wraps up National School Counseling Week by recognizing the counseling staff of Powhatan Middle School: Amy Conrad, Austen Winkler and Terry Baldwin. Not pictured is Kyla Monie. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Powhatan County Public Schools’ Adult Education spring offerings are listed on our website! Thanks to your attendance and interest, the program has grown, from 9 classes when we started a year ago to 17 this spring. The quickest way to get into a course is to go directly to our website (check the first comment for link) and click on "course listing overview" for times/dates, and then go to "indicate your interest." Spread the word about our tour of Fine Creek experience, our CPR/AED/First Aide training, Serv Safe managers training, plate welding, a brewery business tour, project management training, arbory, painting and more! Feel free to share our website on your social media pages and groups. Thank you for helping Powhatan residents enrich lives and expand opportunities.
Powhatan teacher’s first novel embraces magic and joy
POWHATAN, VA – When Nashae Jones decided to incorporate Greek mythology into her first novel, “Courtesy of Cupid,” she took a special approach.
While she knows the concept of being a demi-god – not just a human but being extra special and chosen for something – appeals to kids, she wasn’t interested in characters completing a grand quest. Instead, she wanted a story about life and relationships that was filled with joy and magic. She wanted a story that would explore the topic of love – crushes, familial love, and friendship bonds – in a way that was appropriate for middle schoolers.
Most importantly, Jones, who is a Powhatan High School English teacher, wanted something she missed all too much while growing up as an avid reader – a heartwarming story centered around a person of color as the main character.
“A lot of my favorite stories were centered around people who didn’t look like me. The first time in elementary school I read a book with a character of color, it was ‘Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry,’ ” Jones said. “I remember being devastated by the story. It was so impactful, but it was so sad. It was very much a story of resilience and violence against this black family. I remember thinking I would really like to see more books of joy with people of color in it. I really wanted something that centered on joy and happiness with characters that everybody can relate to.”
With the January 2 release of “Courtesy of Cupid” through Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, Jones is thrilled she has met all of those goals.
Jones’ first novel centers on a girl named Erin Johnson – an overachiever with lofty academic and extracurricular goals, a quirky mom, and a fierce rival in classmate Trevor Jin. As her 13th birthday unfolds, Erin discovers that her mysterious father is actually the love god Cupid – and she’s inherited his knack for romance! Her new magical powers don’t seem like the most useful abilities at first, but when the girl who doesn’t believe in love starts to embrace her magical pedigree in her race to beat her nemesis, she begins to learn that love is much more complicated than she realized.
“She had to learn magic isn’t the thing that controls these bonds; love and relationships take a lot of hard work,” Jones said.
Hard work is a concept the Powhatan author knows well. She wrote the book in 2021 while juggling writing with taking care of her family and teaching full-time at the high school. A teacher for 12 years, she has been with Powhatan County Public Schools since 2016 and still loves to help shape young minds in the small, rural county.
As much as she adores teaching, becoming a published author is a life-long dream come true for Jones. “Before the internet, I used to write fanfiction for books I loved. I used to rewrite the ‘Boxcar Children’ and ‘Nancy Drew.’ I always imagined it would be something I would be able to make a career of out of someday.”
Despite getting a pre-empt publishing offer two weeks after taking the novel out for submission and going through about 19 months of the editing and publishing process, Jones said the situation didn’t feel real to her until two days before Christmas, when she opened a box holding the first 25 published copies of her book.
“That is when it really hit me. Actually holding the book and knowing it was going to be on bookshelves, that is when I really hit me,” she said with a huge grin.
The book launch for “Courtesy of Cupid” was held January 2 at Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, where Jones noted an incredibly supportive group of PHS co-workers showed up in specially printed “Courtesy of Cupid” sweatshirts to buy her book and cheer her success.
“That is what Powhatan is really about. That is what this school system has been about – the love and support I get from my work family and the community,” Jones said. “It is not just people at work – the Powhatan community itself has been so largely supportive.”
Nashae Jones lives in Powhatan with her husband, T.J., and her children, Chase and Nia.
“Courtesy of Cupid” is for sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, Books-A-Million, and Fountain Bookstore.
National School Counseling Week 2024 (#NSCW24) is being recognized from Feb. 5-9, 2024, to focus public attention on the unique contribution of school counselors within U.S. school systems. National School Counseling Week, sponsored by the American School Counselor Association, highlights the tremendous impact school counselors can have in helping students achieve school success and plan for a career. PCPS continues National School Counseling Week by recognizing the counseling staff of Powhatan High School: Doug Reimondo, Sarah Baltimore, Chrissie Holley, Kelyn Captain, Kyla Monie-Huss, and Caryn Rehme. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Mrs. Williams’s fourth-grade class at Powhatan Elementary learned about prepositional phrases by tossing airplanes around the room to identify where they landed and creating prepositional poems about the airplanes' movements as a finished product. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Last week, Miss Morton’s kindergarten class at Pocahontas Elementary talked about shadows and how they are created. Students learned three things are needed to make a shadow: a light source, a surface, and an object to block the light. The students also did an activity where they traced their own shadows and did another one where they took groundhogs they drew, put them on sticks, and took them outside to measure the groundhogs' shadows in the sun. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
National School Counseling Week 2024 (#NSCW24) is being recognized from Feb. 5-9, 2024, to focus public attention on the unique contribution of school counselors within U.S. school systems. National School Counseling Week, sponsored by the American School Counselor Association, highlights the tremendous impact school counselors can have in helping students achieve school success and plan for a career. PCPS continues National School Counseling Week by recognizing the counseling staff of Powhatan Elementary: Peggy Jenkins and Taileah Rich. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
National School Counseling Week 2024 (#NSCW24) is being recognized from Feb. 5-9, 2024, to focus public attention on the unique contribution of school counselors within U.S. school systems. National School Counseling Week, sponsored by the American School Counselor Association, highlights the tremendous impact school counselors can have in helping students achieve school success and plan for a career. PCPS continues National School Counseling Week by recognizing the counseling staff of Flat Rock Elementary: Elizabeth Davis-Crane and Annmarie Horne. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
During Mrs. Wasosky and Mrs. Garner’s Civics and Economics class at Powhatan Middle School, the eighth graders were assisted by Mr. Nutt, instructional technology innovator, in taking a virtual tour of Washington, D.C. While learning about the branches of government, getting a virtual tour to see the monuments and key government buildings was a hands-on way to see the nation’s capital, where so much of the federal government operates. Some of the sites “visited” included the Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, U.S. Capitol, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
