The Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools (locally known also as WJCC or WJC) is a combined public school division which serves the independent city of Williamsburg and James City County in the Virginia Peninsula area of the Hampton Roads region in southeastern Virginia.
The system consists approximately 10,000 students in 14 schools, of which there are 8 elementary schools, 3 middle schools, and 3 high schools.
James River Elementary School, located in the Grove Community in the county's southeastern end, is a magnet school. It offers the IB Primary Years Programme, one of only five such schools Virginia as of October, 2006.
Clara Byrd Baker, a public elementary school in Williamsburg, was opened in September of 1989. originally built to house 600 students, it was expanded 1992 to increase its capacity to capacity 800 students.
The three high schools, all of which are within the County's boundaries, are Jamestown, Lafayette, and Warhill High Schools. All are considered above average institutions. For the 2001-2002 academic year, the public school system was ranked among the top five school systems in the Commonwealth of Virginia and in the top 15% nationwide by Expansion Management Magazine. There are also two regional Governor's Schools in the area that serve gifted and talented students.
A fourth middle school and a ninth elementary school were in final stages of construction and scheduled to open for the 2010-11 school year beginning in September 2010.
Famous quotes containing the words city, county, public and/or schools:
“A city on th’ inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“It would astonish if not amuse, the older citizens of your County who twelve years ago knew me a stranger, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working on a flat boat—at ten dollars per month to learn that I have been put down here as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“In common with other rural regions much of the Iowa farm lore concerns the coming of company. When the rooster crows in the doorway, or the cat licks his fur, company is on the way.”
—For the State of Iowa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Columbus stood in his age as the pioneer of progress and enlightenment. The system of universal education is in our age the most prominent and salutary feature of the spirit of enlightenment, and it is peculiarly appropriate that the schools be made by the people the center of the day’s demonstration. Let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)