ChurCh DireCtory

2910GenitoRd.Powhatan, VA 372-9074

WorshipwithusthisSunday Churchservice @ 9:30AM Sundayschool @ 10:30AM

E vergreen C ommunity C hurch (PcA) Proclaiming&PracticingtheGospelofJesusChrist WorshipServiceat10:00AM Meetingat2210BattersonRoad,Powhatan.

Pastor NickKrauss ECCPCA .ORG 598-8844

SundaySchool 10AM

WorshipService11AM

PastorJohnEngle 603-933-0141

3540OldBuckinghamRd. www.pmchurch.net

1801HuguenotTrail

SundayWorship10am

BryanM.Holt,Pastor 804-378-3607 www.EmmausChristianChurch.org https://www.facebook.com/2emmaus/

M ee tingSundays inFar mville, ForkUnio n, M idlothian, PowhatanandOnline. Visitpcc wired.net fo r servicestimes& lo cat ions 598 -1174pccwired.net

MountCalvary

BaptistChurch

2020RedLaneRoad Powhatan,VA23139

Pastor,LarryB.Collins

SundaySchool9:45a.m.

Sunday Worship 11:00a.m.

WednesdayBibleStudy 7:30p.m. Office804-598-2398

Providence Presbyterian Church

“WorshipingandWitnessing inWesternPowhatan since1825”

WorshipService11:00am

AllAreWelcome! 598-4970

Located1950RidgeRoad (Rt.627)

LivingAsChrist’sDisciplesWithinOur HeartsandBeyondOurDoors

PowhatanChristian Fellowship

SundayMorningWorship 11:00a.m.

SundaySchool10:00a.m.

WednesdayNight7:30p.m. 3308 PleasantsRoad, 1/4mileoffofRoute711

RussCress, Pastor 598-0733

St.John Neumann

Catholic Church

Rev.WalterG.Lewis,Pastor

Saturday -5p.m.

Sunday -8:30a.m.&11a.m. 598-3754

Paige Decker, Peter Roberts.

Ninth grade all A/B’s Brian Bodman, Carter Cichowicz, Grant Gilliam, Nick Hickey, Erin Maynes, Aubrey Pool, Liza Watkins.

Tenth grade all A’s Katie Book, Lydia Roberts.

Tenth grade all A/B’s Lizzie Davis, Vee Finnegan, Madeline Goodman, Olivia Purdum, Clare Sheridan, Cole Sutherland, Victoria Sweeney, Sophie Thompson, Cody Trent, Jameson Ward, Ian Weber, Temple Williamson.

Eleventh grade all A’s Makayla Gregory, Callista Kurek, Melanie Snead.

Eleventh grade all A/B’s Hunter Case, Wright Condrey, Kennedy Dowdy, Will Fichter, Parker Gill, Lily Hickey, Cooper Kurek, Colleen Maynes, Elizabeth Norwood, Charlie Potter, Trenten Quinlan, Clare Wood.

Twelfth grade all A’s Jackson Hawkins, Kendrick Sheffield.

Twelfth grade all A/B’s Nathan Barras, Jeb Hatfield, Annie Huynh, David Mann, Bibiana Posada, Berkley Roudabush.

Worship: 8:30&10:30am www.powhatanumc.us WeekdayPreschool(ages2-5) 598-6090

2253RossonRd. JustoffRt.13intheVillage 598-4438 www.sjnpowhatan.org

LocatedbehindFlatRock VillageShopping Center

Company 1 conducts brushfire training

CONTRIBUTED REPORT

Powhatan County Volunteer Fire Department Company 1 recently held two brushfire training sessions using controlled burns in broom straw fields on Mosco Trail and Old Plantation Road.

The training focused on how to use the drip torch for back burns, creating a fire line. Lt. Charlie Holland and assistant chief Pat Schoeffel led the training.

Training was a refresher for current members and for new members to learn the dangers of a broom straw field on fire, Schoeffel said. Members were sent a PowerPoint to review a few days before the class to give them some information. The day of the class one of the senior firefighters gave a 15-minute review of the PowerPoint and went over how to use some equipment such as the drip torch.

The group went over some of the following for the training: how weather affects wild fires; how to prepare and use the drip torch; instructions about dozer operations and basically giving the dozer room, noting that they have the right of way since it’s hard for the dozer operator to see firefighters; back burning a fire line; and during a broom straw field fire, needing to stay in the burned area so firefighters or equipment don’t get caught in a fast moving fire. Broom straw can burn so fast that people can’t out run it when a stiff wind is blowing.

„ Learning loss: The discussion started off with the subject of learning loss and it remained an issue throughout as a justification for increased spending on instruction.

The school board saw a presentation on Feb. 21 that covered the issues PCPS is currently seeing with literacy losses. It gave an accounting of the elementary schools broken down by school and by grade level (first to fifth) to show where students were identified as below reading level in the second quarter. The overall school numbers were: Flat Rock Elementary, 177 out of 538 students in all grades (32.9%) below reading level; Pocahontas Elementary, 188 out of 608 students (30.9%); and Powhatan Elementary, 79 of 333 students (23.7%).

The presentation had covered several changes being made to address the learning loss, including PCPS currently being part of the revised PALS screening tool pilot for K-3. The division will be participating in the soft launch of the revised PALS screener for K-2 next school year.

As dyslexia has recently been highlighted as a needed focus, in 2024-2025, each elementary school will have an in-house dyslexia advisor based on the requirements listed in the Virginia Literacy Act. All teachers participate in the VDOE Dyslexia Awareness training.

The presentation talked about the other measures that will change in 20242025 because of the passage of the Virginia Literacy Act, which aims to reverse the trends in students reading below benchmark not only in Powhatan but across the state. This is a major reason behind the school requesting an elementary reading coach for Pocahontas Elementary and a secondary literacy coach.

While the budget presentation last week didn’t go into detail about the reading and math scores, which Teigen said are “not much better,” it did touch on the issue and the changes the board is requesting to address it.

When asked about standards of learning tests (SOLs), Teigen said, “Our scores have slipped some through the pandemic in the various educational situations that our families dealt with through the pandemic. We continue to work to make up grounds to close those gaps that we saw during that time period.

I will say that the data also is less than reliable during those years because of who tested and the conditions around the particular testing of those years. We use them with caution. We tend to go back to 2018-19 and compare where we are now in 2022-23, and we are not where we were in 2018-19.”

Identified Flying Object Falls In Powhatan

the Powhatan county sheriff’s office recently received a report of an unusual occurrence when a weather balloon, shown here held by training sergeant david hunt, fell on a home in Powhatan. hunt said the weather balloon, which belonged to the national service, wasn’t a risk to the property as it was “about as a hazardous as a styrofoam box of fishing worms.” according to the national Weather service’s website, weather balloons are released twice a day, every day of the year simultaneously from almost 900 locations worldwide, including 92 released in the United states and its territories. the balloon flights last for around two hours, can drift as far as 125 miles away and rise up to about 20 miles in the atmosphere. as the balloon rises, an instrument called a radiosonde attached to it measures pressure, temperature and relative humidity.

PHOTO BY LAURA MCFARLAND

Teigen said the goal is to have the students reading at grade level by third grade, but that is not realistic in this situation. The hope then is that by the time they transition to middle school, that they are reading and have the comprehension skills they need to read and learn at that level, she said.

„ Heath care costs: When talking about making all school and county employees on the same health insurance rate, supervisors seemed generally in favor of the change – some more so than the requested $2.08 million increase in the budget being proposed. There were questions about why it hadn’t been prioritized sooner with the acknowledgement that Teigen, who only joined PCPS in 2022, couldn’t speak to the rationale of actions of previous administrations.

Within this topic, the board also talked about a program that pays a certain amount toward the health insurances costs of retirees who have not reached aged 65. The school board previously took actions to phase the program out instead of doing away with it altogether, as some supervisors want. Teigen stressed that the program is being phased out, likely over the next four to five years, but also added that it is meant to reward the loyalty of employees who worked many years for the division.

„ Position changes: When the school board met to adopt its budget on March 7 before the joint meeting the next day, one of the biggest points of discussion was three positions meant to focus on students and helping them along as the school division still struggles with aftereffects of the pandemic. The school board voted unanimously to approve changes so that the budget would include a new assistant principal each for the middle and high schools and a dean of students for Pocahontas Elementary. They anticipated an increased cost of these changes at about $65,000. When asked about those changes by the supervisors, Teigen said her staff had worked ahead of the joint meeting to absorb the cost of those changes into the existing budget so it did not require asking for more funds from the board of supervisors.

„ Enrollment: The board had a discussion about enrollment, average daily membership and comparing the projected number for 2024, 4,250 students, to previous years. With the exception of 2021, when enrollment dropped to 4,114, the numbers since 2017 have remained pretty steady, with the farthest outlier at 45 students more. Tied to enrollment, the school board showed charts comparing how much Powhatan spends per pupil to both the state and several comparable localities, including Amelia, Buckingham, Cumberland, Dinwiddie, Fluvanna and Goochland. In FY2021, PCPS’s per pupil cost of $12,140 was less than all six of those divisions of similar size, Halloway pointed out.

„ Growing costs: After hearing about the relatively flat enrollment when compared with the large jump in the requested county transfer over the last decade, Bill Cox, who represents District 4, pointed out it is not sustainable to keep increasing at this escalating rate. He said the “reality for the board of supervisors is our financial model says that transfers at this level are not sustainable.” need to continue going beyond ourselves and that the actions that we take in our community, the care we show in our community, reflects the love of God and we need to be very intentional about that,” he said. “We have continued to increase our capabilities since our foundation over 20 years ago at PCC and this is just the next level for us. Our people love to serve, our people love the communities we live in, and we want to make sure not one single person who has a need doesn’t have a need met if we can do something about it.”

In addition recognizing that the school budget is a subset of the county budget, which has other departments and areas of need, it is also all the result of taxpayer money, Cox said. He talked about the approaching choice by the board of setting a tax rate while knowing assessments have increased dramatically and taxpayers are facing an even heavier burden if wise choices aren’t made about how the supervisors approve spending the county’s money.

Cox’s concerns fed into further discussion about the $2 million increase in the local country transfer, which the schools said will primarily go to instruction. However when asked how that breaks down, Teigen pointed out that instruction is a broad category, encompassing areas such as school counseling, homebound services, instructional support, library media, copiers to print out materials, STEM programs, and more.

There was discussion within the issue of growing costs of unfunded mandates from the states and promises of increases for standards of quality (SOQ) positions that then have to be filled in for other employees outside of the SOQ numbers at the local level.

„ Buses: This is a topic that county and school division will be working on further. The boards discussed it because there was confusion about why PCPS was requesting money for buses when it was awarded a grant for 10 electric buses. Staff realized there was confusion on the topic and they would be better served sitting down to discuss the place of buses in the CIP and how those funds, if not used, would be reallocated.

„ Legal expenses: When asked to explain high legal fees the school division has experienced, Teigen pointed out the school division does not have an in-house attorney, as the county does. The attorneys the school division uses are for items such as legal actions that arise, contracts or memorandums of understanding that need to be reviewed, and personnel matters, she said.

Pope also wanted to stress that although this program is run by PCC, doing good is not exclusive to people who go to the church – or any church for that matter.

“One of the most important things for us as a church is to realize everybody is invited to do this with us – whether you go to our church or not. Regardless of what you believe, everybody has the capability to help somebody. So we invite anybody to join us in the efforts we do,” Pope said. “There are so many options and capabilities. What we want to do is encourage everybody to help somebody in the way they can, and in doing that our community will be stronger.”

Part of the perspective that is in PCC’s makeup is that it was formed for people who don’t go to church and simply tries to show people about a life following Jesus by example, said Ralph Finch, PCC Do Good coordinator for the Powhatan campus. That combined with the Powhatan community’s willingness to help each other means he is expecting great things.

“It is just such a beautiful, friendly community. A lot of people know each other but a lot of people do not know that we have some people that sleep in their cars behind Walmart sometimes and they don’t know that there are a lot of hungry people out there,” he said. “The bottom line is we are not trying to go out and get people to go to church; we are trying to go out and show people what we think God and Jesus would do in hopes that the people out there would want to have the happiness and the things we have there at the church.”

The church created a list of volunteering opportunities as well as just ideas of things people can do to help their community at https://pccwired.net/ your-journey/connect/ do-good/. On the site, people can also sign up to receive notice about volunteer opportunities through the program. For more information, people can also call 804-5981174.

Going beyond just their own communities, the program has involved sending volunteers to help with disaster relief efforts.

Teams have responded to disasters in Kentucky, Southwest Virginia and Florida since the beginning of the year, he said. It also supports feeding programs for schools in Belize and Tanzania, where volunteer teams will be building extra classrooms this summer, and partner with another program in Moldova. Whether it is a small act of kindness or a big gesture of help, ultimately PCC wants to have a ripple effect in all of the communities it serves, Pope added.

“This is true – if you help somebody they are encouraged to help somebody else. Then that person is encouraged to help somebody else. That is the kind of movement we need in our world right now,” he said. “It is people showing up for each other, caring for other people and being willing to do something that might put them out of their comfort zone.”

Later this spring, the church will run a coat drive for the fall. PCC will also be scheduling impact days in all of its communities to do critical repairs, so people with needs or project ideas may contact the church seeking assistance.

Laura McFarland may be reached at Lmcfarland@ powhatantoday.com.