SEPTEMBER 3, 2009 ISSUE
Watauga County’s Only Charter School Earns “School of Distinction”
Entering its fifth year, Two Rivers Community School, a North Carolina public charter school located in Watauga County, has earned School of Distinction status for the 2008-09 academic year, making a striking 16-point gain in one year on its composite performance scores on the state End of Grade tests (EOGs). The school also met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) performance targets as defined by the No Child Left Behind act and was recognized for high growth in academic performance in the state’s annual ABCs of Public Education report.
Of the 2,467 North Carolina public schools in the state completing the annual tests, only 502, or 20.3 percent, were designated Schools of Distinction, the third highest level of recognition provided by the state. Other Watauga County Elementary Schools to achieve at this level include Bethel, Blowing Rock, Cove Creek, Green Valley and Hardin Park.
June Gilch, director of Two Rivers, explained that the school’s overall composite score of students in grades three through eight who are proficient in mathematics and in reading is 81.6 percent.
Reading continued to be a strength of Two Rivers’ students, whose school average reading score of 88.5 percent proficient is 45.3 points above the state minimum of 43.2 percent for AYP. But it was in mathematics that the Watauga County charter school made the biggest gains last year, scoring 81.6 percent proficient, an 18.5-point improvement over the previous year’s scores. The state’s minimum mathematics proficiency is 77.2 percent.
“Our scores are up significantly from last year and we applaud the hard work of staff to help our students achieve at this level,” Gilch said.
Formerly the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for the Attleboro, Mass.’s public schools, Gilch joined the Two Rivers’ staff as director last year.
Two Rivers Board President Lynnwood Brown expressed his pride in the school’s overall progress in its first four years, and said, “The early challenges and setbacks any new organization can expect were met and successfully overcome, and I believe we are stronger for it. We now have a foundation of experience and practice from which to look forward and build on.”
One of only 100 public charter schools in North Carolina, the Two Rivers Community School mission statement emphasizes “continuing discovery and development of self and community by providing a learning environment that is relevant, active and project oriented.” Using a model of expeditionary learning, teachers develop curriculum units that connect high quality academic learning to adventure, service and character development through a series of linked, in-depth investigations and products. Class sizes are capped at 20 and the school currently has openings in kindergarten, third, fourth, seventh and eighth grades. Two Rivers Community School is located at 1018 Archie Carroll Road in Boone.
For more information, call 828-262-5411 or click to www.tworiverscommunityschool.net.
For more information about the North Carolina’s ABCs of Public Education, click to http://abcs.ncpublicschools.org/abcs.
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