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A new year of opportunities

Posted on August 14, 2008August 14, 2008 by Staff

Neil PedersenNeil Pedersen

In some ways, the 2008-09 school year will kick off like many before it in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. With the opening of Morris Grove Elementary School on Eubanks Road, we will have opened eight new schools during the last 14 years. We expect to enroll approximately 325 more students in the district, an upward trend that has been with us for more than two decades. We welcome three new principals, six new assistant principals and a new assistant superintendent for support services, along with about 160 new teachers and 40 other staff members.

There are, however, some new programs and events that will set this year apart from others. One is that we will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the chartering of the city school system. Throughout the year, we will be educating the community about the history of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, celebrating our heritage and looking toward to our future.

This year our students and parents will notice the strengthening and expansion of educational options within the school district. Dual-language students spend approximately half of their day being instructed in Spanish, or in Chinese at Glenwood, and the other half of the day in English. The Spanish-English dual-language program that has enjoyed popularity at Carrboro Elementary will expand to Scroggs and Frank Porter Graham elementary schools this year and to McDougle Elementary next year. In addition, with the promotion of the first cohort of dual-language students from elementary school, the dual-language programs will extend into middle school at McDougle.

Last year, we launched three thematic academies in our high schools: Academy for International Studies at Carrboro, Academy for the Arts at Chapel Hill and the Social Justice Academy at East. All had successful years introducing underclassmen to initial experiences, but now students will be entering the 11th grade, where the academy courses begin to be offered. The academies provide a more personalized environment within the larger high schools that allow students to engage deeply in studies that they can apply to the outside world.

Virtual-learning opportunities also will continue to expand. We are just concluding our first virtual summer schools in our high schools. Some students remained at home and participated in online courses to accelerate their progress through high school. Other students who had not successfully completed one or more semesters of a course went to their high schools and completed online units in the specific areas where they needed additional remediation. During the regular year, high school students have the opportunity to take high school and college courses online free of charge.

We also have more than doubled the enrollment in the Middle College High School that is operated on the Durham Technical Community College campus. Middle College allows students to study for two years at DTCC and graduate with a high school diploma and one year of college credit that is usually transferable to any university in the state system.

We continue to enroll more and more students for whom English is not their first language. Some students arrive not only not knowing English but also with little education and limitations on the formal acquisition of their native language. They also may not know the day-to-day conventions that we tend to take for granted. For these students, we are opening a Welcome Center and a Newcomer Center. The Welcome Center will be established at Lincoln Center to provide “one-stop shopping” for these families. The Newcomer Center will be located at Chapel Hill High School and will serve the recent immigrants who need the greatest support.

At Lincoln Center, the old vocational building is undergoing a major renovation and will house Phoenix Academy, our alternative school. We will be able to serve up to 50 students in high-quality classrooms where they will be instructed by some of our most dedicated and talented teachers.

Although we are excited about these new learning opportunities, our focus remains on the quality of instruction that we expect to see in every classroom, every day for all of our students. Our emphasis on schools being Professional Learning Communities will lead to teachers pooling their knowledge, skills and resources rather than working in isolation. Systematic and frequent classroom walkthroughs will help principals gain a clearer picture of the type of instruction that is occurring in their schools. Structured prevention and intervention systems will be strengthened to head off failures before they occur. Teachers will employ the Positive Behavior Support system to redirect students to more productive and appropriate behaviors.

We’re looking forward to the 2008-09 school year and invite parents as well as the entire community to join hands with us and work toward our common goal of providing a foundation for lifelong learning in the 21st Century.

Neil Pedersen is the superintendent of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.

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