The Halifax County School Board took up a number of other matters
Monday night. Among them:
• The high school and middle school activity buses, once a victim of
this past spring’s budget cuts (along with several schools), will be
rolling again this fall.
The buses were sacrificed to protect teaching jobs, Superintendent Paul
Stapleton noted, but both schools have come up with funds to keep them
on the road four afternoons a week, at least for the first semester.
The high school is chipping in $5,000 and the middle school $3,000.
Middle school Principal Gail Bosiger said the money is cobbled together
from athletic fund-raising, clubs and the PTO.
The buses take children home after sports, clubs, chorus, band,
OpArtEd, remediation tutoring and after-school detention.
“Lots of kids benefit,” Bosiger said.
• Student drivers will no longer be allowed to drive their own cars to
and from the high school’s satellite STEM Center several miles away in
Halifax. Principal Albert Randolph complained that several times a day
the school sent three buses over, accompanied by 30 teen-driven cars,
“one person to a car.”
Parking is limited at STEM, and safety and accountability are also
issues, he said.
For the coming year, 211 students have classes there in first block;
172 in second; 173 in third and 128 in fourth. Exceptions to the rule
may be granted in special cases or on senior spirit days.
The School Board unanimously granted Randolph permission to revise the
policy.

• School employee health insurance premiums go up modestly – at least
compared to other areas, like Franklin County, which saw a 40 percent
hike. The Anthem rate increase was five percent – precisely the
increase the school system had budgeted. To insure only the employee,
the monthly premium’s cost to the employee actually decreases a single
dollar, to $74, $85 or $95, depending on the option chosen. Plans that
cover children, a spouse or the entire family see hikes. For example,
coverage for an employee plus family costs the employee $693, $723 or
$747, depending on the option. Last year, the same plans ran $662, $691
or $714.
• Avaris Terry reported on GED testing. Based at the Southern Virginia
Higher Education Center downtown, the program has nine satellite
testing sites. In the past six years, the Halifax testing center (which
sometimes serves people outside the county) tested 1,669 people; 916
passed. The bulk of test-takers are workforce-age people aged 18-55.
Halifax County’s illiteracy rate is about 40 percent, she said, which
is based on lack of either a diploma or GED, among other factors, she
said.
• The Ninth Grade Transition Program held a freshman orientation for
newcomers to the high school last week. In addition, the program now
has a freshman hall were ninth graders take most of their core classes,
a facelift and better furniture for freshman areas, and other resources
to help curb academic, attendance, reading and discipline problems,
said administrators Sue Bagbey and Deborah Griles. Randolph, the
principal, said freshman spend about 30 percent of their day in the
wider school community.
• Trustees Steve Anderson, Arthur Reynolds and Sandra Rister, Joe
Bailey attended the Governor’s Conference on Education.
Anderson reported that he was impressed with Gov. Tim Kaine’s promises
to make next year an “education year.”
Anderson was also bothered by a presentation comparing U.S. students’
academic achievement with their global counterparts.
Rister said she was stirred by sessions on today’s “digitally native”
children who are no longer taught single subjects but interdisciplinary
approaches to problem-solving.
• Trustee Sandra Rister was nominated for the position of vice chairman
of the southern region of the Virginia School Board Association.