Spirit Week, FAD, and Student U.

Mollie Pathman, seconds before her game-winning goal in the Spirit Week Quad Soccer tournament.

----Student Council aims to conquer the February blues with laughter and competition Feb 4-9 during Upper School Spirit Week

Tuesday - dress-like-a-kindergartener
o egg toss (tutorial) and obstacle course (lunch)

Wednesday - class color day
o Bond tournament (tutorial) and Tug O'War (lunch)

Thursday - twin day
o ping pong (tutorial)and dodge ball (lunch)

Friday: DA Spirit day (wear green and white)
o quad soccer (tutorial) and 3 on 3 basketball (lunch)

Basketball in the the CAV DOME from 3:45 until 9:00, when the Cavs Club will celebrate its annual S'mores Night.

Saturday: Science Olympiad regionals + Valentine's Day Dance

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More than a FAD - a happy update from Mrs. McCarthy about the new senior elective Teaching Literary Skills and Outreach Tutoring:

If you happened to walk through the doors at Forestview Elementary School at 12:50, you might notice a gaggle of third graders giggling, turning cartwheels and literally jumping up and down. A dozen Latino children eagerly await the arrival of their Durham Academy Augustine tutors, 12 seniors enrolled in the Augustine Literacy elective, offered for the first time by the Upper School in 2007-2008. The seniors spent the first six weeks of school learning about why some children struggle with reading, writing and spelling, then how to assess and remediate those problems using the research-based Orton-Gillingham approach and Wilson Reading System materials. They were each then assigned to an Augustine child at Forestview (defined as being below grade level in reading and qualifying for free or reduced lunch). One-on-one tutoring, using multisensory, systematic, phonics-based lesson plans, takes place in the Forestview media center during a combined E / lunch period on days 2,3,6, and 7. The other days are spent in the classroom at DA -- planning lessons, discussing the needs of specific children, learning more about the curriculum.

This FAD (Forestview / Augustine / Durham Academy pilot project) has been an unqualified success. As one senior wrote in a mid-year evaluation, “The entire experience has been wonderful; one I wrote about for numerous college essays and that has inspired me to want to continue teaching and tutoring. The first few weeks when we learned how to teach someone to read was awesome and gave me tools I will use for life. The experience of working with my student has been irreplaceable and life-changing.”

The instructors for the course, Augustine Project Executive Director, Debbie McCarthy and her assistant, Tracey Powell, are very impressed with the DA tutors. In their words, “These twelve seniors are incredibly capable, committed, and compassionate young people. Their students are making solid progress in literacy skills while building relationships that are a joy to behold.”

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Some similarly uplifting updates from Student U.:

o Our 49 sixth-graders from last summer's program have, since early September, been tutored weekly and been gathering monthly with 49 high-school and college-age tutors for whole-group mentoring events. After an on-campusing tutoring session tomorrow, for example, the group will march with DA in the Durham MLK Parade.

o Over 110 fifth graders have applied for the 50 available positions in Student U. Summer 2008. The lucky 50 will be joined by 32 teachers (including a dozen returners): approximately 10 each from NCCU, Duke, UNC-CH, and 2 from DA.

o With strategic and logistical support from the DA development office, Dan Kimberg has raised nearly all of the $186,000 operating budget for the 08-09 school year. This includes new commitments from Duke, UNC-CH, and DA, and gifts from foundations and individual donors all over Durham.

At last week's 2nd annual Benefit Breakfast for Student U., I introduced our new Advisory Board members and talked a bit about why Student U. matters to the "new DA." Excerpts follow:

• Priscilla Ching is an architect who serves on the Board of Trustees here at Durham Academy. Her enthusiasm for Student U. flows directly from her motherly pride and satisfaction, as Priscilla's son Terry taught English in the first cohort of Student U. teachers last summer, and her younger son Nathan is working each week now as a Student U tutor with 6th grader Devin Autry.

• Anthony Clay is the Co-Director of College Counseling and a teacher of Economics and AP Government and Politics at Durham Academy. Anthony has been deeply engaged in Durham since he arrived ten years ago. He is the past Board President of Junior Leadership Durham and a Board Member of the Southern Association for College Admission Counseling. After stints at Raleigh Charter High School and Carolina Friends School, Anthony has become an effective catalyst for community involvement at Durham Academy.

• Omega Curtis Parker is a Durham native and recent retiree from the Durham Public Schools, where she served for 39 years as media center coordinator at Little River Elementary School. She now serves as one of the seven elected members of the Durham Board of Education. She is also a member of St. Mark A.M.E. Zion Church and a longtime leader in the Durham Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. Omega is a graduate of Hillside High School with bachelors and masters degrees from North Carolina Central University.

Priscilla, Anthony, and Omega join our veteran board members in representing the 5 pillars of Student U.: Durham Public Schools, Durham Academy, North Carolina Central University, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Duke University.

We all know that Duke and Carolina are occasionally antagonistic. We know that private schools like Durham Academy and public systems like DPS are supposed to be competitive and oppositional. We have heard -- particularly from the national press in recent years - that Duke and North Carolina Central University serve opposite spheres in Durham.

But Student U. is helping to prove that none of this is true. Our shared goals, to lift up young people, to improve their lives and the collective life of this region, transcend the differences in our institutions.

My Board colleagues can speak for the universities, and at the end of the program you'll hear from the Chair of the Board of Durham Public Schools, but I can say unequivocally that Student U. is not simply an extra program at Durham Academy. At the core of our mission as a school, at the center of our strategic planning, and in the hearts of our faculty and students is a profound commitment to connect more fully with our city, to share the resources that we have, to steer our most talented graduates toward education and other careers for the public good.

Student U. is already bridging the gaps that have existed in Durham for decades. Who would have thought that the first check written to Durham Academy for Student U. would come from a Board Member of the Public Schools. (Thank you, Steve Schewel!). Who would have thought that Duke University would be paying its students from all around the country to spend their summers working 80-hour weeks in Durham (Thank you, Duke Engage). Who would have thought that a grad student from North Carolina Central University would be among those leading 100 Durham Academy 11th graders on a Civil Rights Bus Tour of Atlanta, Selma, Birmingham, Montgomery, and Memphis? (Thank you, Jamie Bennett). Who would have thought that Tar Heels and Eagles and Devils and Cavaliers would all come together so that 50, then 100, then 150, then who knows how many middle schoolers will change college from a distant and perhaps doubtful dream into an unavoidable and exciting reality?

Thanks to all of you, for all you've done already to support Student U. and its public-private collaboration. And thanks for all you will do to take this good idea turned great program into something truly transformative for our graduates, our students, our institutions, and our city.

Now, some might say that Student U. is just a drop in the bucket. Why should a school system with 33,000 students care about a little bitty program that serves just 100 or 150 of them? I think the answer will, in the course of the morning, become clear. Student U. is a program that changes individual lives radically, altering the trajectories of middle schoolers and revolutionizing the vision of college students. But it's also sending ripples already into the broader system - linking Durham Academy and the universities more fully with the rest of Durham, opening doors to public school teaching for our most talented college graduates, and best of all, sending super-charged Student U. alums into their Middle Schools and into the work force with high expectations for what a school can be and how an individual can change the world.