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
In Mrs. Henley's Computer Resource class at Powhatan Elementary, Mrs. Cable's kindergartners rotated between stations for some interactive learning. The stations saw the students working with a Robot Finch, with Pop Its learning sight words, with a Robot Mouse to create a maze they had to program the mouse to go through, and using Code Buddies. #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
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
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. Powhatan County Public Schools wants to start National School Counseling Week by recognizing the counseling staff of Pocahontas Elementary. Shown here with Katie Wojcicki, Director of Student Services and Interventions, (left) are Jennifer Lavimodiere, Zanna Ferdous, and Amy Kastelberg. Thank you for all you do for our students. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Mrs. Lewis' fifth-grade class at Powhatan Elementary used the @birdbraintech Robot Finch to review math skills. They used block coding to code the finch to match the fraction with the correct decimal form. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Mr. Stocker's World History I eighth graders at Powhatan Middle School spent time in the Innovation Lab researching and building 1:200 scale models of ancient monuments. Some of the monuments included Stonehenge, the Parthenon, Roman aqueducts, and the Coliseum. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Mr. Robertson’s Culinary 1 students at Powhatan High School made yeast rolls during a recent class. More than just making a yummy snack, this lesson taught the students about how yeast reacts - how it creates carbon dioxide and makes the bread rise. Before this, the students had made quick breads such as pumpkin bread and cheddar biscuits. This was the students’ first time working with yeast and making something that rises before it goes in the oven, so it also involved exercising their patience skills. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Pocahontas Elementary kicked off the American Heart Challenge on Friday with grade-level assemblies. Students learned about eight character traits to support healthy hearts. They were also encouraged to complete Finn’s mission by learning about Hands Only CPR to be prepared to help others in a cardiac event. All three elementary schools will participate in the coming weeks in the American Heart Challenge. Families can find more information on the app ‘AHA Schools’ by searching for your child’s school by name. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Ms. Amorese’s fifth-grade class at Flat Rock Elementary divided into groups and rotated between three math stations – two small group stations focused on word problems and dividing decimals and a third group working on problems that reviewed previous skills. Ms. Fleming and student teacher Ms. Whalen helped Ms. Amorese work with the student groups. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Mrs. Morris’ kindergarten class at Pocahontas Elementary did group work that saw them dividing up to do activities such as work on their Chromebooks, enjoy book time, and “Write the Room,” where they have to find objects throughout the classroom and practice writing the words. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Ms. Daniel’s first graders at Powhatan Elementary worked on a booklet about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that included reading and answering questions about his life. The class also did small group work learning about determining a word by using clues to infer the answer. #wearepcps #teampowhatan
Mrs. Arnett took her sixth-grade math class at Powhatan Middle School to Dr. Spott’s Innovations Lab to work on a project using integer operations to program robots. The students would solve the problem and then program the Finch Robots 2.0 to check their answers. #wearepcps #teampowhatan #elevateeducatorsva
