19 minute read
see SUMMER SCHOOL
Contributed Report
Seventy-nine campers from Powhatan, Hanover and Goochland counties traveled to Jamestown 4-H Center in Williamsburg for the weeklong 4-H Junior Camp. Despite high temperatures the week of July 4, youth stayed cool by enjoying many of the water classes offered to campers - canoeing, kayaking and the pool.
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Along with the water sports, campers took part in a variety of other classes such as art/maker, woodworking, archery, marine science, rifl ery and much more. Traditional camp songs around the campfi re, a pool party, evening games, talent show and ice cream social rounded out the week.
Along with the campers, 22 teen counselors from the three counties enjoyed the residential overnight camping experience of four nights, fi ve days. For many, this was the fi rst time away from home without a parent. According to a Virginia Cooperative Extension publication: Benefi ts of 4-H Youth Camping, “Citizenship is taught and practiced at 4-H camp. Youth campers have individual and group responsibilities that teach them to take care of themselves and to contribute to the benefi t of the camp community by helping others.” In addition, “4-H camping provides youth with multiple opportunities to make choices and decisions about their educational experiences, from selecting 4-H camp classes to involvement in afternoon and evening activities.”
The week wouldn’t be a success without the following adult and teen volunteers from Powhatan who spent the week away from families and jobs: Shelby Akins, Frankie Barham, Anabel Bichsel, Hayden Blisick, Jordan Booker, Bre Gillespie, Reagan Hansen, Tim Kidwell, Jack Lamm, Jack Laroche, and Rachael Wade. Congrats to Chase Babb for fi nishing the training but he unfortunately missed camp due to an injury. The 4-H teen leader program prepares the youth year-round for their role as counselors during camp. Interviews for 2023 begin in October.
Thanks to the generous donations made by Powhatan businesses and organizations this year, fi ve local youth attended camp through full or partial scholarships. Local supporters included: Powhatan Christmas Every Day Committee and Powhatan Farm Bureau. For more information about the local 4-H program, contact Cathy Howland, 4-H Extension agent in the Powhatan Extension Offi ce, at 598-5640 or email chowland@vt.edu.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS
From left, adult volunteer Tim Kidwell works with a camper to learn skills involving the use of a hammer and saw at the 4-H camp; Alexander Fife learned how to fish at 4-H camp and caught a nice catfish from the James River; and campers maneuver kayaks along the James River during a class session.
STUDENT NEWS
Continued from pg. 4 an, Bachelor of Business Administration in Management;
Anna Hilton of Moseley, Doctor of Physical Therapy in Physical Therapy;
Kara Rose Pohlmeier of Powhatan, Doctor of Physical Therapy in Physical Therapy.
Radford University is a comprehensive public university of 8,998 students that has received national recognition for many of its undergraduate and graduate academic programs, as well as its sustainability initiatives. Well known for its strong faculty/student bonds, innovative use of technology in the learning environment and vibrant student life on a beautiful 211-acre American classical campus, Radford University offers students many opportunities to get involved and succeed in and out of the classroom.
Landon Neal awarded Miami University degree
Landon Neal of Powhatan was among more than 3,700 students from Miami University who received degrees during the in-person spring commencement May 14-15, 2022.
Neal graduated with a B.S. in business degree, majoring in supply chain and operations management.
Nationally recognized as one of the most outstanding undergraduate institutions, Miami University is a public university located in Oxford, Ohio. With a student body of nearly 19,000, Miami effectively combines a wide range of strong academic programs with faculty who love to teach and the personal attention ordinarily found only at much smaller institutions.
SUMMER SCHOOL
Continued from pg. 1
half-day session but also makes sure students have plenty of fun activities to brighten up their summer, she added.
“It went great. The kids are having fun. They are enjoying themselves. I have heard from parents. I have heard from teachers and I hear from the kids that they look forward to coming. They look forward to the camps. They have really enjoyed the summer reading program shows. They are enjoying their time,” she said.
The all-day elementary program was made possible in 2021 and 2022 because of federal ESSER grant dollars, but Omohundro said the school division is looking at possibilities of how to continue offering it moving forward, such as a Title IV grant. While the number of students participating is lower than 2021, it is higher than 2019, she pointed out.
“While our numbers in summer school are higher than they were pre-COVID that doesn’t mean that more students necessarily needed access to summer school. It means that we made summer school more accessible by having the full day,” she said.
The morning hours were spent exclusively working on the foundation subjects of math and reading, which has been a major focus of the school division to bridge the gap for students, both during the school year and now again in summer school, she said. The classes were capped at 15 to give students the individual attention they need from teachers.
“I think we are going to have fallout from COVID for a few years – just the learning gap that was lost,” Ellis said. “But we have made huge strides this school year; being in school full time last year helped as well. Having full-day summer school last year helped close that gap. Closing that gap was our main focus this past school year. We were giving very explicit instruction. We were constantly analyzing that growth and where that explicit growth needed to be, whether that was through intervention or differentiation in the classroom.”
Cheryl Thomas, director of elementary education, pointed out that the division no longer does pre- and post-testing during elementary summer school. It was decided to use spring and fall assessments for comparison, which allowed staff to focus on instruction for the full 15 days. For prekindergarten students in the Kindergarten Countdown Camp, “there is a pre/post assessment which addresses areas such as color, shapes, alphabet, rhyming, writing name, etc. Students consistently show growth in this program. With a United Way partnership, we were able to add a third section last year and this year.”
But while the focus was on core subjects in the morning, the afternoon sessions allowed educators to explore a wide range of other disciplines. Camps over the four-week program included dance, Spanish, crafts, art, STEM activities, French, Shark Week, Ocean Fun, Tinker Camp, Make a Journal, Cooking and Solar Energy. The students had spirit days every week, such as dressing with a Hawaiian, patriotic or silly hat theme.
The students also had regular DEAR (drop everything and read) time and participated in some of the summer reading programs held at the school.
“We really need to focus on those core two subjects because that is the basis of your foundation, but then to include those camps in the afternoon and hit languages, science, music and art, it is giving them that wellrounded school day. And the kids are loving the camps,” Ellis said.
Ellis also pointed out the incredible manpower it took to make summer school a reality, with 26 teachers and eight instructional assistants for the mornings alone, along with a counselor and the camp instructors.
She also praised the transportation department for helping coordinate door-to-door transportation for students this summer instead of them having to go to hubs and be picked up there.
Christine Phaup, assistant principal at Powhatan Middle School said this summer saw 28 sixth through eighth graders attend in-person classes to recover math and/or English grades and fi ve students work virtually to recover their history grades. The division also offered the middle schoolers a two-week ‘boot camp’ in English, math and Algebra 1 to sharpen skills or introduce skills to be covered during the upcoming school year that was attended by 10 students.
In summer 2021, the middle school had to run three sessions of math, Phaup said. Not being in the classroom really impacted students last year and this year.
“At the beginning of the school year through February/March, we had students missing instruction due to quarantine. To help keep them current, teachers added a ‘while you were out’ section to Schoology to help guide students through classwork,” she said. “We developed ‘Quarantine Task Lists’ for students and parents to see assignments in one place. We also had a staff member per grade level available to Google Meet with students during ACCT for check-ins.”
The school also held after school academic intervention four days a week with transportation to provide tutoring and support for assignments. “This program really helped get students on track, be successful in the classroom and helped keep the summer school numbers low,” she said of this year’s summer school numbers.
Stacey Cavedo, high school summer school coordinator, said the school offered biology, English, math and world history in person and online as well as other classes available online. Students completing online classes had the option to come to the high school and work with an online coordinator or work from somewhere else. “I think it has been going really well. The students are working really hard and we have a great group of students and a great group of teachers working really hard,” she said.
Cavedo said the students hit the hardest and needing the most support were the ones hit by COVID-19 and/ or the need to quarantine. But she pointed out students also had the option to take online classes to get credits they need to graduate early. Some of them participated in the Aug. 2 summer graduation, which allowed them to either join the rest of their classmates in the Class of 2022 or graduate a year early (See story Page 1A.)
Laura McFarland may be reached at Lmcfarland@ powhatantoday.com.
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What last-minute summer activities are you trying to fi t in before school starts? E-mail answers to editor@powhatantoday.com or share them on the Powhatan Today’s Facebook page.
Page 7A
Local girl squeezes fun into a good cause
A 10-year-old Powhatan County girl recently offered a perfect example of the power of paying it forward.
My awareness of Kaylee Mawyer’s generous heart started with an evening phone call from Al Patel, owner of Dorset Market. He called me on July 21 to let me know that Kaylee would be doing a lemonade stand outside of his store the next day to raise money for the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU. She would be out there all day that Friday with hot dogs, lemonade and cookies all available for a donation. He asked me to come.
When I think about how “perfect timing” works out some days, it really couldn’t have gotten any better. Already on the calendar for that morning was an interview with Art Chadwick to recount his fantastic experience gifting a namesake orchid to Dr. Jill Biden. When I left that interview, I only had to go a mile down the road to visit the lemonade stand, where I wanted to put a post on Facebook and hopefully drum up some extra business for the little girl.
Kaylee was in great spirits, greeting everyone who walked up. She was surrounded by family and friends wanting to help her and grateful for any show of support anyone – stranger or friend – showed her little lemonade stand that day.
Not long after that day, I got the opportunity to speak with Kaylee and her mom, Jacqui Mawyer, about how the stand did and why she wanted to do it in the fi rst place.
You see, Kaylee’s connection to the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU is a very personal one. She was born with a congenital heart issue called Tetralogy of Fallot, which had to be surgically repaired with open heart surgery at the hospital when she was 6 months old.
Fortunately, 10 years on, Kaylee is doing great. She has annual checkups, but her mom said she is in perfect health. While she may have been too young to remember what the doctors and nurses did for her, she was always aware she is alive today because they did it.
So when Jacqui got an email about the Anthem LemonAid campaign, which was designed to have individuals or groups raise funds to help children with cancer at the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, Kaylee saw it as an opportunity to live out two dreams.
“I have always wanted to do a lemonade stand and I always wanted to donate to charity,” she explained.
The family are regulars at Dorset Market and visited to ask Al if they could set up a lemonade stand in the parking lot for two hours. He went a step further, telling her to make it an all-day event; suggesting she hold it on a Friday, which is his busiest day of the week; getting several people to help work the stand, and even donating the hot dogs they cooked for donations. Al explained he knows the Mawyers and how down to earth and helpful they are, so he didn’t hesitate to help. He said it would be good for Kaylee and for the community to support her.
After learning what Kaylee was doing via a sign at the market, Jennifer Engle, owner of Jae’s Cakes, also donated 45 cookies to the stand to support what the little girl was doing.
So that is how I found Kaylee on July 22 running the beautifully decorated lemonade stand, trying to do something good for others. Kaylee said the lemonade stand had steady traffi c all day and people were extremely supportive. They were so supportive that she not only raised $2,578 on the day of the lemonade stand; she currently had raised $7,468 through additional online donations made at https://give. chfrichmond.org/fundraiser/3990962. Donations will be accepted until Aug. 12.
The family has been blown away by the Powhatan community’s support. Kaylee’s
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Kaylee Mawyer works a lemonade stand she held July 22 to benefit the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU.
original fundraising goal was $300, so knowing she helped raise that much more for the hospital to help other children was incredibly exciting for her.
“I wanted to do something for the children’s hospital because I was a patient. They helped me, so I wanted to help them,” she said.
Jacqui said she and her husband, Kevin, were reminded all over again why the place they have called home for the last 26 years is so special. And while they hope that impression is also made on Kaylee, they want her to recognize her own part in helping make it happen.
“I hope she understands how special she is and what she did with this lemonade stand – just a basic lemonade stand – of how much money she raised to give to kids that have cancer at a hospital that also helped her along the way,” Jacqui said. “I also want her to know about the county she lives in and how generous people are. When people are in need and people are trying to raise money for things, Powhatan doesn’t stop. They are just always giving and always caring about each other.”
Laura McFarland may be reached at Lmcfarland@powhatantoday.com.
No one answer when planning for the future
By Jim Ridolphi
Contributing Columnist
With three kids currently enrolled in Virginia colleges, I’ve become sensitive to the many discussions regarding the real value of a college education. Some fi nancial experts have contended that the rising cost of higher education has priced it out of the market, and argued the price of a four-year degree doesn’t always pay off.
I’ve often thought that those espousing that type of view are probably folks who do not have college degrees, but I recently read an article by someone with far more degrees that I possess making the argument that college has out priced itself and is no longer a guarantee to future increased salaries or career stability.
Comparing the predictable benefi ts of a land investment or a money market is far easier than evaluating the benefi ts of something as abstract as a college degree and is risky task to begin with, but placing a monetary value on the college experience is even more diffi cult.
I will certainly admit that college is no longer the default position for all graduating high school seniors, and what was once considered the only path is now properly compared with other career choices.
And, there’s no doubt that technical educations provide valuable services and offer those who pursue a career in service of trade fi elds viable reward for their work. Skills and experience are something that cannot be taken away, and we are fortunate to live in an environment where educators recognize the importance of training students to receive certifi cates and pursue career goals other than college. High school seniors have more options today than at any other time.
The College Board reported that the average total cost of attending a public school for in-state students is $27,330 per year, while the total cost of attendance at private universities averages $55,800 per year (Forbes Advisor).
While career and technical positions offer well-paying jobs with good benefi ts, studies indicate college graduates still earn considerably more than their counterparts with a high school diploma.
That’s no longer the case. Georgetown University predicts that 70% of all jobs will require some college education by 2027 (Forbes Advisor). There is also evidence that college-educated citi-
see FUTURE, pg. 8
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Resident questions reasoning for raises
Dear Editor,
If you saw my Letter to The Editor from last week’s Powhatan Today, you learned about several substantial alleged missteps by the county administrator, including huge raises he bestowed upon certain county employees. You learned that he allegedly did that in violation of county HR policy. You learned about the sweetheart deal given to that same administrator by three members of the BOS, namely raising his salary to $190,000+. Maybe you responded as I did, with skepticism. What’s going on in Powhatan County government?
All of this gave me pause to wonder … Why? Why was the administrator allegedly comfortable with violating HR policy? Where was the HR manager in this scenario? Why were only a few select employees given such huge raises? Most importantly, why did three of the board members reward the administrator’s alleged missteps with a sweetheart deal?
My pondering led me to several possible scenarios. Perhaps three members of the board are protecting the administrator in order to use his position later to further their seemingly unpopular agenda. After all, the county did use your money to purchase a piece of property that allegedly cannot be used for its intended purposes. I’m willing to bet you and I run our own home budgets better than that! Perhaps the administrator gave big raises to certain employees in violation of County policy to ingratiate himself with key employees in each of the main county functions. Our Powhatan County employees work hard. We appreciate their faithful service. They all deserve to be paid fairly. But a raise in excess of $25,000 to a select few employees in a moderate-sized county like Powhatan raises eyebrows. In my 20 years serving in government and 21 years working for Fortune 500 companies, that level of raise without any added responsibilities or a promotion doesn’t happen.
It says a lot about the contentious nature of the board when three members are giving the administrator a huge raise, while Mr. Cox and Mr. Williams questioned his actions and called for his resignation! Of course, three won out over two. Our county administrator now makes $190,000+. I suspect one of those three board members knows deep down that this was wrong. As for Mr. Byerly’s comments in Powhatan Today that the previous two county administrators also violated rules regarding raises is a poor excuse. Three wrongs do not make a right! I still wonder what the county attorney thinks about the administrator violating county policy.
So I decided to put myself in the position of those three board members who supported these actions. I asked myself could a board member make these raises look legitimate now – after the fact? I came up with an interesting scenario. At the next BOS meeting, one of the three could motion that my colleagues and I had already been in discussion with the county
see LETTERS, pg. 8
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