DURHAM — The first public school to receive a charter in North Carolina continues on the cutting edge of curriculum and character building for underprivileged students.
Established in 1997, the Healthy Start Academy, a K-8 public charter school in Durham, pioneered a shift in the educational process for underprivileged and troubled youth in the state.
“The children are in a good environment,” said kindergarten teacher Regina Boney. “They are allowed to think outside the box, and their circumstances.”
Currently, 96 percent of the student body lives at or below the poverty level, qualifying students for the federal free- and reduced-price lunch program.
School founder and board member Liz Morey said the school wanted to develop an atmosphere where the minds of young scholars could thrive.
“The school was created for at-risk students and those who were experiencing academic failure,” she said. “This alternative makes a lot of difference to parents who can’t afford private school tuition.”
Many obstacles
The school has faced a lot of obstacles since its inception. Since the North Carolina General Assembly would not give extra funds for building, Healthy Start had to find an existing structure to host the school. The founders settled on the site of a century-old former Baptist church.
“It’s the perfect reuse of this building,” Morey said. “It’s old and it needs a lot of work, but it is a good and solid building.”
School officials also had to confront rising standards on each student’s end-of-grade testing and annual yearly progress report required for the federal No Child Left Behind law. Although the students haven’t met the standards in the past couple of years, they continue to do better at their studies in the confines of a smaller school than they would in a traditional public school.
Morey said the numbers can be deceiving, since the school accepts some students who are several grade levels behind their same-age peers.
Everyone needs a chance
“It doesn’t matter who we get, they still need to be educated,” Morey said. “All of our students just need a chance and we do everything we can to help them achieve and succeed.”
Principal and superintendent James T. McCormick said the teachers and staff work continually to provide a rigorous and challenging curriculum to a very mobile and challenging student body.
“We don’t pick and choose our students here,” he said. “We provide equitable access and they come from the surrounding community and apply just like at any other public school. We do, however, have a huge population turnover here. Only 15 to 20 percent of our students were here during the 2008-09 school year.
“The students come from a very transient lifestyle, making their education hard and a continuous struggle,” McCormick said. “Oftentimes, their parents are scraping out a living.”
A delicate balance
McCormick said there is a delicate balance at the school between academics and discipline and he takes the initiative to call every student who gets into trouble. Students with disciplinary problems are not allowed to return to the school until the issue is settled both at home and school.
“We have a lot of contact with the home,” he said. “We are just trying to build relationships and we want them to know we are more than a talking head, and we invite them to become a part of the circle of courage.
“We always want them to know we are a safe and secure place in which students can learn,” he added. “We try to give them purpose and work at higher levels of responsibility.”
Parent Pearletta James has enrolled four of her six children, some gifted and some special needs, at the school. No matter what level her children are on, James said she has felt embraced by the faculty and staff.
“It’s an extended family at times,” she said. “We have a relationship with them. They pay more attention to my children, catch learning problems quicker, and boost it up with education so the children understand what they are doing.”
Graduate Brittany Atkins, who attended all nine years at Healthy Start Academy, said she felt secure at the school.
“I used to wake up every day knowing what I was going to do at school and that made me feel happy and stable,” she said. “It gave me the education I needed to go to high school and I’m looking forward to going to college to become a nurse someday.”
Besides providing after-school programs and tutoring services, the school also provides therapy counseling and other supports for the students and their families.
Eddie Goodall, president of the North Carolina Alliance for Public Charter Schools said the passage of Senate Bill 8, lifting the statewide cap on charter schools, has made it an exciting time to be a part of the school-choice movement.
Embracing the new law
He said the North Carolina School Board Association appeared to be embracing the new law. Goodall said his association advised to the SBA to fast-track both charter schools that had applied unsuccessfully in the past and private schools that want to convert into charters. That process would clear the way for a plethora of new charter schools to open in August 2012 throughout the state.
The deadline for potential charter schools to apply if they want to open next school year in Nov 11, Goodall said. The application form can be obtained from the Department of Public Instruction’s website (http://bit.ly/nDRD2P).
“The SBA has embraced the intent of S.B. 8 and the halls of education have opened wide,” he said. “We are proceeding in good faith to continue to meet the education needs of the children in the state. That’s where we are. It’s a much brighter picture than we thought it would be before. I applaud [State Board of Education Chairman Bill] Harrison and the SBA for doing that.”
Karen Welsh is a contributor to Carolina Journal.