Clerk to the Prince Edward County School Board and Payroll Specialist, Melanie Adams, had a last meeting with the board July 11.

Adams said she will open a child care center, Happy Rock Preschool & Childcare, in her home.

“It has been wonderful working with you all,” Adams said during the meeting. “I just know God has called me into something else, and I just have to step out on faith.”

“I’m going to miss everybody,” Adams said.

Adams has served in the position for three years, beginning June 2015. Her official last day will be July 31.

“Say it isn’t so,” Farmville District representative Dr. Lawrence Varner said.

“I wanted to thank you, and I think all of us feel the same way,” Varner continued.

“Thank you again,” Leigh District representative and Vice Chair Dr. Timothy Corbett said. “We do appreciate you so much.”

Adams said in an email statement that the child care center will be for four children ages six months to five years. Preschool education will be offered for children ages 2-5.

“Our motto is ‘Happy on the Rock of Jesus!’” Adams said. “My vision is ‘Raising up children to be worshippers and prayer warriors, fully surrendered to glorifying Christ Jesus.’”

She said the mission of the school relates with Proverbs 22:6 from the Bible that cites, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Adams said she has four children of her own that she will be homeschooling through Abeka Academy, a distance-learning program.

Policies on the state and national level influenced her decision to pursue the child care center.

“I have sat with the (school board) for three years now, and I can see that policies passed down from the state and federal levels are removing Jesus and the Word of God from the school system little by little,” Adams said. “God has laid it on my heart for sometime to remove my children from public education and teach them at home where a focus on Jesus and the bible can be the foundation of their education.”