Did you know that Powhatan sports could have ended up playing against different opponents in a different district starting in the fall of 2023?

On Wednesday September 21 representatives from Powhatan High School headed to Spring Creek Golf Club for a meeting that decided the fate of Powhatan sports in the Dominion district.

In 2019 Powhatan moved out of the Jefferson district and into the Dominion district. This was a very exciting opportunity and gave Powhatan sports a promising future.

However, around this time last year Chesterfield county presented a proposal to the Virginia High School League or VHSL to remove Powhatan, George Wythe and Huguenot from the Dominion district. VHSL declined this proposal, but Chesterfield wasn’t going to let that be the end of their pursuit.

Their next move was appealing the decision made by VHSL. The date was set to hear the appeal on September 21.  

At this point there seemed to be a decent chance the ruling would be overturned, so Powhatan High School decided to send four representatives to speak at the meeting. 

Chesterfield’s main case for the removal of Powhatan and the two other schools was to have a district with only Chesterfield schools. Essentially they would swap out Powhatan, George Wythe and Huguenot for Thomas Dale, Matoaca, and Meadowbrook. 

Powhatan had many concerns with this plan being executed. Most concerns were for student well being. Longer trips to and from games would make for less time for students to complete homework, which could ultimately lead to worse grades for many student athletes. 

One other major concern Powhatan brought up at the meeting was what moving to a different district could mean for many of their JV teams. If Powhatan were to either move back to the Jefferson district or into the Central district many of Powhatan’s JV teams wouldn’t have any opponents.

At the end of the meeting they called for a vote and luckily VHSL upheld their original ruling with a 32 to 1 vote.