Powhatan County School Superintendent Dr. Margaret S. Meara has asked the School Board to consider a plan to change the way County students are transported between schools.

According to a memo sent to the Board, funds are no longer available to provide the shuttle service that currently allows students who attend one of the County’s two elementary schools to be transported to the other elementary school site.

The program was put in place originally to allow students to take buses that could drop them off at the child-care provider of their parents’ choice.

The school system is currently running two shuttles in the morning and two in the afternoon.

“We are faced with serious economic problems,” Meara detailed in her letter. “We can no longer afford to provide the same services as before. The taxpayers, through their elected representatives, chose not to fund us at a level in which we could maintain the same services as we have until this point.”

The proposal from Meara comes in the wake of what the Superintendent has previously described as the most difficult budget process she can remember.

The upcoming opening of the new Flat Rock Elementary School, combined with a shortfall in state funds, have sent the school system scrambling to tighten its collective belt.

While teachers are expected to get their annual raise, some programs and positions have been cut or scaled back.

Another issue, Meara noted, is that the schools have been transporting students to and from day-care centers after school.

While Meara has suggested that it will still be possible to drop students off within the specific attendance zones of each school, she has asked the Board to consider curtailing the practice of transporting students across attendance zones.

Meara’s memo on the issue, which the Board is expected to consider at the next School Board meeting in June, includes a proposal to allow the Powhatan YMCA to provide before and after school care at each elementary school.

While the proposal would appear to be a cost effective solution—and would be provided free to those families who could not afford to pay—a number of parents in the County have expressed concern both about the timing of the proposal and the impact it may have on day care providers in the Flat Rock Elementary School attendance.

A group of concerned parents and business owners held a meeting Monday at Martial Arts World to discuss the issue and are expected to present a list of their concerns to Meara this week.

At least a few of the parents have expressed concern that the plan was only recently made public, and they say they wished they had been made aware of the fact that the plan to revamp the after school transportation situation was in the works.

Meara said in an e-mail Monday that she has been contacted by a number of other childcare providers and she insisted she is open to any suggestions that might be beneficial to all parties.

As for the timing of the decision, Meara says she had not intended to catch parents by surprise but rather to allow them to have the summer to make any necessary arrangements for children who would be affected by the change.

School Board members heard from Powhatan resident David Mansolino, who explained why he and others feel the current grading scale used by the Powhatan County school system should be changed.

Mansolino said he and other parents had been meeting regularly over the past few months, examining the policy and compiling a list of eight specific reasons that the current grading scale puts Powhatan students at a disadvantage.

The grading scale used in Powhatan offers students less room for error than the grading scales used in other surrounding counties, and a number of parents have expressed concern that it hinders students’ chances when competing for college admission.

Changing the grading scale would even the playing field for Powhatan students, Mansolino told the Board, and would cost the already strapped school system nothing.

The Board is expected to take up the matter next month.

The School Board also agreed to move the monthly Board meeting to the Powhatan High School Auditorium, where the Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission already meet once a month. The high school has more seating and better parking, said Board member Rick Gideons, and is easier to find than the current Pocahontas Elementary location.

The day of the meeting will also be changed to the second Tuesday of each month. The time will remain 7 p.m.

Some Board members also took a few moments during the meeting to remember PCPS employee Wanda Hagy, who passed away last month.

Danny Emory, the father of a Powhatan student, recently donated a picnic table to the Central Office, inscribed with the words “In memory of Wanda Hagy.”