Charlotte County Public Schools board members and staff recently attended the Virginia School Board Association’s (VSBA) 2016 Annual Convention in Williamsburg. School Board Chairman Kenny Redmond, Vice Chairman Larry Fannon and School Board member Henry “Buzzy” Carwile attended the annual convention along with Superintendent Dr. Nancy Leonard.

They were among approximately 1,000 school governance leaders who met at the convention and participated in more than 50 workshops, clinics and critical issues sessions. These sessions focused on topics such as boardsmanship, school law, workforce readiness, school construction, advocacy, educational trends and special education.

Leonard expressed appreciation for the board members’ dedication for giving their time to increase their knowledge about current educational issues from experts in the field.

“The professional knowledge gained at the VSBA annual conference will help them to be well informed as school board members as they govern policies and the future direction of Charlotte County Public Schools,” Leonard said in a press release. “The focus of the presentations that we attended was on school construction and renovation. Because of the facilities needs of our elementary schools, and the board of supervisors’ request for the school board to come back with a more ‘reasonably’ priced plan, the school board members in attendance used this conference to talk with experts in the field of school renovation and construction. We attended sessions provided by school architects and gathered information to bring back to the remainder of the school board members.”

In addition, Charlotte County Public Schools received an award during the conference for the second consecutive year as a certified “Gold” rated school division in the 2016 VSBA’s Green Schools Challenge.

The challenge is considered a friendly competition designed to encourage implementation of specific environmental policies and practical actions that reduce the carbon emissions generated by both the local school division and the broader community. School divisions receive “green points” for implementing new actions and adopting new policies that reduce carbon emissions.

Charlotte County earned Gold Certification by earning between 150-174 green points.