SANFORD — The Lee County Schools superintendent highlighted district-wide efforts to ensure all students graduate high school with more than a diploma during the first of seven community meetings at B.T. Bullock Elementary School Monday night.
“We’ve all accepted the idea that students need as much education as they can get to be successful beyond school,” Bryan told the 20-plus parents and teaches in the B.T. Bullock library. “I’ve never seen a student who isn’t passionate about something, and I’ve never met a parent yet who didn’t want the very best for their child.”
Bryan outlined a number of programs in Lee County — The Leader in Me, Advancement Via Individual Determination, the National Academy Foundation and Central Carolina Works — that seek to enhance students skills outside of the traditional classroom setting.
“”I would just like to say thank you for the priority you give to the diploma plus something extra,” said Kim Slate, a first-grade teacher at B.T. Bullock whose son went through Lee County Schools and is now a junior at UNC-Greensboro. “As a parent of a child who went through Lee County and is now in college, it just means so much going into a college setting having already taken college courses.”
Bryan told parents that 196 students participated in dual-enrollment courses at Central Carolina Community College as a part of Central Carolina Works.
“That was a significant increase from last [school year],” Bryan said. “And that was just the first semester. We’ll have new numbers in a week or so.”
Rita Booth, an English as a second language teacher at B.T. Bullock whose daughter is in sixth-grade at West Lee Middle School, was especially pleased that the school district recognized that a four-year degree was not for everyone.
“I am grateful we are no longer saying, ‘Where are you going to college?’ but, ‘What are you going to be?” Booth said. “Not all students are going to go to a four-year university, but all of them need to think about the future. What are you going to be? What certification do you need? What two-year degree do you need? It doesn’t have to be a four-year diploma, but it definitely has to be something extra.”
Booth said programs like NAF, which helps high school students get certifications in fields like finance, tourism and engineering, are a great way to set children up for success after graduation.
Bryan said programs at the high school level work in tandem with elementary and middle schools initiatives like AVID and The Leader in Me to help students excel at each level of education.
“We’re trying to set up this hopefully seamless system,” Bryan said, “that will allow student to learn leadership and organizational skills in [elementary school], set up a vision for themselves of what they want to do [in middle school] and then have an opportunity at the high school level to pursue it.”
The next community meeting will take place at 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 16 at Deep River Elementary School.