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:
““Do not be afraid; for see -I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.””
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 2:10 -12.
Angels to the Shepherds.
“Hold hard, my county darlings, for a hawk descends,
Golden Glamorgan straightens, to the falling birds.
Your sport is summer as the spring runs angrily.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poetic youth dreams, and prays, and paints today, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To me, nothing can be more important than giving children books, It’s better to be giving books to children than drug treatment to them when they’re 15 years old. Did it ever occur to anyone that if you put nice libraries in public schools you wouldn’t have to put them in prisons?”
—Fran Lebowitz (20th century)