Grant proposal would fund new high school
By LAURA THORNBURG
Staff
Exploration into A $40,000 Learn and Earn planning grant could result in an early college high school here in Alleghany if an application submitted by the local school system is accepted by the North Carolina New Schools Project (NCNSP). Deadline for application is June 1.
Superintendent Jeff Cox broached the topic during the board of education's May 7 meeting.
Providing an overview of the information, Cox stated that Gov. Mike Easley is behind an initiative to "create more innovative high schools to bridge the gap" between high schools and colleges. The separate high school would operate like other state-maintained schools, with the requirement of maintaining at least 100 students and/or seven full-time positions.
"The purpose of this is to get middle-of-the-road students who may or may not be thinking about college as a real option," explained Cox. "You channel them into this early college high school, and at the end of either four or five years, those students would graduate high school with a two-year associate's degree. All of that would be free-of-charge (or of little cost) to the parents. Every student who graduated out of this early college high school would have two years of college complete; it could be a two-year associate's degree in some specific trade, or it could be a college transfer credit for kids who want to go to a university."
Cox admitted to the board he had been somewhat hesitant to apply for a grant or to bring the issue up and noted with Easley leaving office this year, it would be the last opportunity for interested school systems to apply for and most likely receive grant funds.
He said, "Initially, I didn't feel like we could maintain 100 kids in the high school in grades nine through 12 with only 500 students in our high school, that's one out of five kids (who) would have to leave our high school and go to this other high school. I wasn't sure we could pull 25 kids out of every class."
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