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Parents whose children will be affected by the redistricting of Williamsburg-James City County schools should be receiving an email this week confirming the move, the school board was told Tuesday night.

Next year’s redistricting will impact 16% of the school system’s 11,012 students.

Staff working on communicating changes to students, families and school employees told the board at its work session that affected students and their families will be invited to tour their new schools in January.

Principals will send ‘save the date’ emails in December to families whose students will be moving to new schools, inviting them to the tour. Families of rising seniors will also be expected to let the schools know next month if they want to finish their high school careers at their current schools.

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A group of parents concerned about excessive screen time at Williamsburg-James City County schools has launched surveys to gather input from other parents and teachers.

The surveys are a project of Mindful Tech, a group of local parents who formed six months ago to better understand how local schools use technology and express their concerns about excessive screen time for students.

The group has its own Facebook page.

A group leader sent an email to school administrators and the school board Monday explaining the group created its own survey because members believed an earlier survey the school sent parents last month was not comprehensive enough to capture all concerns. The surveys are open to parents, teachers and community members, the group said.

They created one survey for parents of current and former students,

and another for teachers.

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A group of parents concerned about excessive screen time at Williamsburg-James City County schools has launched surveys to gather input from other parents and teachers.

The surveys are a project of Mindful Tech, a group of local parents who formed six months ago to better understand how local schools use technology and express their concerns about excessive screen time for students.

The group has its own Facebook page.

A group leader sent an email to school administrators and the school board Monday explaining the group created its own survey because members believed an earlier survey the school sent parents last month was not comprehensive enough to capture all concerns. The surveys are open to parents, teachers and community members, the group said.

They created one survey for parents of current and former students,

and another for teachers.

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Five months into its first year of operations, officials at the Greater Williamsburg Sports and Events Center say attendance has exceeded projections. But they say the real test will be in how successful it is next year in driving visitors to local hotels and restaurants.

The center was never expected to be more than a break-even operation.

It was sold to local communities as an economic development engine that would bring in visitors to hotels, restaurants and retailers in the three communities that own it through the Historic Triangle Recreational Facilities Authority: Williamsburg, James City County and York County.

Williamsburg guaranteed the majority of funding for the $80 million facility, built on land leased from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation near its Visitor Center. The two counties will subsidize operating losses to the tune of $1.6 million a year in the first two years, using money from the 1 percentage point tourism tax added to sales taxes in the area.

Local governments must spend half of their receipts from the so-called “Tommy Tax” -- named for its sponsor, former Senator Thomas K. Norment -- on tourism marketing.

Dana Creech Youst, executive director of HTRFA, said hotel bookings next year will be a good measure of how successful the center is.

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Friday, Nov. 6

Plans to build 37 upscale townhouses on the site of William & Mary’s Richmond Hall dormitory are still in the preapproval stage, and no prices have been set, but potential buyers are already calling, the developer told us.

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Thursday, Nov. 5

Now that York County residents have voted convincingly against raising sales taxes, county and school officials will have to look for other ways to pay for school construction and renovation costs that could exceed $500 million over 15 years.

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Wednesday, Nov. 4

The Democratic sweep of Congress dislodged First District Rep. Rob Wittman Tuesday, while voters in Williamsburg handed Stacy Kern-Scheerer a comfortable victory and voters in York handily defeated a proposal that could have raised local sales taxes.

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Tuesday, Nov. 3

Today is Election Day. At stake are a variety of decisions with local, statewide and national implications.

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Monday, Nov. 2

Developers of a proposed substance abuse clinic in Grove are coming back to the James City County Planning Commission this week, after meeting with community residents and cutting the number of proposed residents by nearly half.

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Plans to build 37 upscale townhouses on the site of William & Mary’s Richmond Hall dormitory are still in the preapproval stage, and no prices have been set, but potential buyers are already calling, the developer told us.

The William & Mary Real Estate Foundation, a nonprofit corporation that supports the university through real estate ventures, will go to the Williamsburg Planning Commission Nov. 18 to explain its request for rezoning and a special use permit. The planning commission will recommend to city council whether it should approve the project.

The group plans to demolish the Richmond Hall dormitory and build 37 three-story townhomes for sale along Richmond Road between Matoaka Court and Brooks Street, according to its application.

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The Democratic sweep of Congress dislodged First District Rep. Rob Wittman Tuesday, while voters in Williamsburg handed Stacy Kern-Scheerer a comfortable victory and voters in York handily defeated a proposal that could have raised local sales taxes.

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Today is Election Day. At stake are a variety of decisions with local, statewide and national implications.

Democrats are counting on President Donald J. Trump’s low approval ratings to influence congressional races and give them a majority in both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. The Wall Street Journal released a new poll last week showing 59% of voters disapproved of Trump’s performance, which the newspaper said was the highest disapproval number it has recorded heading into midterms since the newspaper began polling in the 1990s.

Democrats turned out in larger numbers than Republicans in all but the 6^th and 9^th congressional districts, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Virginia Public access Project. Seniors 71 and older cast the largest chunk of early votes in the 1^st District --43% -- according to VPAP.

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Developers of a proposed substance abuse clinic in Grove are coming back to the James City County Planning Commission this week, after meeting with community residents and cutting the number of proposed residents by nearly half.

Dr. Pedro Becerra requested a deferral of his application after 11 Grove residents turned up at a planning commission public hearing in September to complain they had been blindsided by plans for the former Colonial Manor building at 8679 Pocahontas Trail.

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Today’s local news is sponsored by the Zaremba Center for estate planning and elder law. We’ll help you protect your loved ones and ensure your wishes are respected as you age.

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Today’s local news is sponsored by the Zaremba Center for estate planning and elder law. We’ll help you protect your loved ones and ensure your wishes are respected as you age.

Click here for more information.

The remains of three slaves who died on a plantation that is now part of Kingsmill will be reinterred Monday, during a ceremony led by the top leaders of the Episcopal church.

It is the culmination of a campaign by the Rev. Jan Brown to bring back the skeletal remains of slaves that had been held for decades at the Smithsonian Institution.

They died and were originally buried in the Pettus Plantation and the adjacent Utopia sites in James City County, but were disinterred in the course of work to develop the Kingsmill resort.

“These ancestors have waited a long time to come home,” said Brown. “The least we can do is take the time to receive them well.”

Brown is an Episcopal priest and founder of the SpiritWorks Foundation Center for the Soul, an addiction recovery group. She worked with the church on a 49-day effort to discuss and learn from the history of slavery in an effort that began on Holy Cross Day, Sept. 14, and culminates on All Souls’ Day Monday.

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Today’s local news is sponsored by the Zaremba Center for estate planning and elder law. We’ll help you protect your loved ones and ensure your wishes are respected as you age.

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After trading some gallows humor, James City County supervisors began grappling this week over how best to use their limited power to control future marijuana sales.

Local governments have no choice in the matter. The last General Assembly session authorized the state to issue up to 350 licenses across Virginia for stores to legally sell marijuana starting July 1, 2027.

Recreational marijuana use became legal for adults 21 and older in Virginia five years ago, but is still a federal crime.

Local governments like James City County are now discussing ordinances to leverage the limited control they will have going forward. No ordinances have been approved.

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James City County supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to approve a new regional library contract – but differed on plans to build a new library annex to the consolidated government center on Longhill Road.

Williamsburg and York County have already voted to approve the contract for what will be known as the Greater Williamsburg Regional Library system.

At their work session Tuesday, supervisors voted 3-2 to proceed with the first phase of construction of the library annex, for a cost of up to $6.3 million. The final cost for the library will not exceed $23 million, said Bradley J. Rinehimer, assistant county administrator. He said the first phase will pay to order steel and concrete, HVAC and plumbing work.

Powhatan representative Tracy Wainwright and Stonehouse representative Barbara E. Null voted against the library construction.

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Correction: inserting a dropped word (not) in penultimate paragraph of camera story.

School speed zone cameras have drastically reduced speeding during school hours at the James City County schools that have them, according to the company that leases them to police. They are also credited with deterring speeders in I-64 work zones.

Blue Line Solutions, the Tennessee company that provided the cameras to local police, said speed violations have dropped by 97.8% since the program began in September 2025.

In a presentation put together for today’s board of supervisors work session, Blue Line said the biggest improvement came at Norge Elementary School, where 90% of drivers were clocked going more than 10 mph above the 25 mph school zone speed limit during tests in 2023.

That number of violations in the Norge school zone dropped from 17,876 violations during the assessment period to 196 caught during enforcement hours after cameras were installed. In all, speeding incidents at local schools over a 5-day period dropped from 35,347 to 786, according to the data.

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James City County supervisors are scheduled to approve preliminary work on the new $23 million library annex at their work session Tuesday, as well as approve a new regional library contract.

Assistant County Administrator Bradley J. Rinehimer told the board in a memorandum that the total cost to design and build the library annex to the new county government center will not exceed $23 million. That cost does not include fixtures and equipment.

Supervisors are being asked to approve the first phase of the work – at a cost of up to $6.3 million -- to cover pre-ordering steel, concrete work and other initial phase work, according to his memorandum.

We have included a guest essay further down in this newsletter from county resident Steven Mains, who argues the expense is unnecessary because physical book checkouts continue to decline and Williamsburg is expanding its downtown library. Proponents of library expansion say libraries serve as community meeting spaces and teaching areas, not just as places to check out books.

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Friday, Oct. 23

James City County police charged a couple with allowing a child access to firearms after investigating how the child brought the handgun in a backpack to Williamsburg Christian Academy and a martial arts center last week.

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Thursday, Oct. 22

Speakers at recent school board meetings are stepping up calls to change the name of James Blair Middle School – and they may have a more receptive audience this year.

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Editor’s Note: updated to include name of arrested couple and firearms details

James City County police charged a couple with allowing a child access to firearms after investigating how the child brought the handgun in a backpack to Williamsburg Christian Academy and a martial arts center last week.

Police charged 49-year-old Jathan Noell Day and his wife, 33-year-old Lashawnda Mae Day, with a class 2 misdemeanor for allowing their juvenile child access to a handgun, according to the police report. Police identified the weapon as a BERSA Series 95, a 9 mm handgun manufactured in Argentina.

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Speakers at recent school board meetings are stepping up calls to change the name of James Blair Middle School – and they may have a more receptive audience this year.

Three out of four speakers at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Williamsburg-James City County School Board, where redistricting was approved, used their time to demand a name change for the school. Blair is named after the founder of William & Mary and first rector of Bruton Parish Church, who was a slaveholder.

In York County, several speakers have also called recently for a name change to Magruder Elementary School, named after a Confederate general.

“James Blair was part of the reason slavery was institutionalized in Virginia,” speaker Joseph Caterine said Tuesday.

The school board tabled a move to change the Blair name in May 2025, after a community poll of 1,724 people showed only 37% favored the move.

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