Patrick County Public Schools

Dr. Roger N. Morris, Division Superintendent

July 1, 2009

To The Community:

I begin by saying what an honor and privilege it is to continue as your Division Superintendent for Patrick County Public Schools for another year. We take this opportunity to thank the community, the students, the parents, the staff, and the School Board for their support as we have successfully met all of our goals and challenges this past year.

We have accomplished a great deal this past school year. We continue to receive the academic honors that were once goals, but now have become expectations. All of the schools are accredited and meet the federal standards of Adequate Yearly Progress. The graduating class of 2009 earned over 1.5 million dollars in financial assistance for college and postsecondary education. Over eighty percent of our graduates will attend college, beginning this summer or fall! We also started the D2 Program, which will have over 70 students enrolled in a college degree program this fall. In the Class of 2010, we will hopfully have 40 college graduates as well! I have no doubt that Patrick County Public Schools is the best school system anywhere.

We are currently beginning the construction of the additions and are working on several renovation projects. Much of the work will be completed in 16 months. During the school year the students and the staff will see some significant changes to the buildings, with some changes already being made before we start this fall. We continue to update our Facilities Projects web page to keep the public informed on our progress. In general our web pages are an excellent tool for citizens to stay informed of our activities. We encourage individuals to look us up.

Most of our accomplishments cannot be done without the dedication and hard work our our staff. I encourage parents, students, and others to take the time to thank our staff for the hard work they do to educate the children of Patrick County. As I stated last year and I will state again - "educating children is not a burden of society, but an investment in Patrick County’s future." A high-quality education is a small monetary investment for the taxpayer of Patrick County, and like any investment, it must develop and grow to become worthwhile. But investing in children is more than just economics, it is an investment of life and love. In these interesting economic times, it is so important for the school system to receive the appropriate amount of resources and to be a wise steward of these resources to prepare our children for the 21st Century workforce. This new workforce is no longer dominated by manufacturing, but is driven by entrepreneurship, finance, health care, renewable energy development, and a reclamation of "American ingenuity".

To put it succinctly, we need you! If you are a citizen of Patrick County and whether or not you have a direct connection to a school, I encourage you to contact either a school or this office to volunteer to read to a child or participate in other worthwhile activities. You may e-mail me at supt@patrick.k12.va.us. I am experimenting with a new way of communicating with the community and that is through Facebook. So if you use Facebook, please look me up.

If you wish to tour a school, please contact that school’s principal and set up an appointment.

Together we make a difference!