The larger picture -- we need to address facilities AND academics

[Amy]

Below is a copy of the comments I made to last week's board meeting.

While the funding the arts wing is very important, lets not lose sight
of other equity issues, such as class offerings.

As you'll see from my comments, I think it's time for us to challenge
the board to really look at the underlying issues of what a
comprehensive high school is and whether CHS is meeting that standard
at the same levels as CHHS and East. If not, we need the situation
rectified, either through increased funding to bring CHS up to the
comprehensive standard or making CHS a school of choice and giving it
a special role in the district.

Please stay involved in any way you can and work to convince the board
and administration that we need to begin fundamental, substantive
discussions about the future of Carrboro High School and its role in
the district.. Even if the arts wing is made a priority, we still
have many years (and many graduating classes) until full buildout.

Amy



COMMENTS READ AT THE MARCH BOARD OF EDUCATION BUDGET MEETING


Hello, my name is Amy Ryan, and I’m the mother of a sophomore at
Carrboro High School.

For the past year, I have been part of a group that has been
investigating inequity issues at Carrboro High School and advocating
for a solution to what we see as the problems at Carrboro that are the
result of our being a small school.

The administration has repeatedly declared that it is their intent
that Carrboro High School is a comprehensive high school, equivalent
in educational and extracurricular offerings to our sister schools
Chapel Hill High School and East. While this is a laudable goal,
we’re not seeing this parity in practice.

In terms of facilities, our lack of an arts wing auditorium seriously
impairs drama and arts programs.

In terms of academics, our small size has caused several inequalities
between Carrboro and the other high schools.

1. A high percentage of our classes are taught as combined sections
(two or more different classes meeting together in a single class
period):

28% of our language offerings -- Latin I/II, Spanish for
Native Speakers I/II, etc.
67% of our arts courses – Drawing/Painting/Visual Arts, Tech
Theater I/II, etc.

2. This year, Carrboro teaches a significantly smaller range of
courses than the other high schools:

161 courses this year at CHS, v. 217 at CHHS and 193 at East

3. My daughter was told this year that Carrboro High will only be
able to offer AP Chemistry and AP Physics in alternate years (the
other high schools offer both each year). She was also told that there
will be no calculus-based Physics taught at Carrboro at all, only
Physics B, which doesn’t prepare students for higher-level engineering
and science classes. [This year, Carrboro taught 15 AP course, versus
18 at CHHS and 22 at East.]

This sort of inequity in facilities and academics is unfair to the
Carrboro students and I fear that it will create a drain of involved
and talented students from the school.

I’d like to offer a few suggestions for alleviating this situation
until we have the funds to complete the high school.

For the next school year, I hope that the board will recognize the
challenges that Carrboro’s small size creates and adjust our funding
and teacher allocations accordingly.

But in the longer term, until buildout, I would ask the board, and the
Chapel Hill/Carrboro community, to address the problem at a deeper
level. First, we will need to determine what a truly “comprehensive”
high school looks like, in terms of range of facilities, courses, and
extracurricular offerings. If the board wants all three high schools
to operate at the same “comprehensive” standard, it will have to
authorize the extra funds to Carrboro to make this goal a reality.

Or the board may decide that in the current financial climate, we
can’t afford to offer this level of extra resources to make a small
school the same as her larger sister schools. In that case, we need
to clearly define a new role for Carrboro High School (for example,
building on our International Academy to offer stellar foreign
language and social science programs, or taking advantage of our
computer infrastructure to become the technology school, offering a
broad range of CTE/elective courses – programming, digital video,
music recording, hardware repair, etc.).

Whatever the board decides, and I think either the comprehensive or
specialized model is fine, it needs to be clear about what kind of
high school Carrboro is so that families can make informed decisions
about whether it is the best fit for their students.