Rappahannock County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Chappell caught some flak Monday from Jackson District Supervisor Ron Frazier.

Frazier grilled Chappell with several questions during the Board of Supervisors afternoon meeting Monday. Frazier's main point of criticism was that he thought the superintendent did not do enough to publicize a Feb. 26 meeting during which the results of a school efficiency review were unveiled.

Frazier said he talked to a representative from MGT of America, which performed the efficiency review, and was told company and school officials had scheduled the meeting in mid-January. Chappell announced the meeting near the end of the monthly County School Board meeting Feb. 19.

"Even though you had announced it somewhere in the [school board] meeting on the 19th, you did nothing to get the knowledge out to the public. Why is that?" Frazier asked. "All you had to do is notify the press and it would have been in the same week's newspaper as the meeting itself."

Chappell said he "wasn't paying attention to those kinds of details." He said MGT representatives told him in January that the report would be ready to present Feb. 26, but did not confirm that date until Feb. 19. The Feb. 26 date was originally scheduled as a budget work session. He sent out an e-mail announcement about the meeting on Feb. 25.

"We knew prior to the 19th of February that MGT planned to come on the 26th," Chappell said. "What I didn't know until the 19th was if they were definitely coming."

MGT's analysis of Rappahannock's public schools found very little waste in the system.

Frazier replied, "But you didn't tell anyone about it, so how could you expect a crowd?"

Frazier then asked Chappell why the schools do not have a plan to reduce or justify staff levels in the face of declining enrollment, as MGT suggested.

Chappell answered that school officials are in the process of devising a comprehensive staffing plan. He added that by mid-March he will describe his plans to cut $415,000 from his proposed 2008-09 school budget.

Frazier also questioned the level of ridership on the schools' buses. He said he saw a bus last Friday that had only five students on it and another bus with seven students on it.

The superintendent said the school system tries to keep all the bus routes under 60 minutes. But that is difficult to do in a spread-out, sparsely populated county like Rappahannock.

One reason for lower ridership last Friday, Chappell said, could be that hundreds of students participate in spring sports and have practice after school.

E-mail the reporter at kallen@timespapers.com.