CARTER KIDS GET NEW PLACE TO PLAY

Charter school gets playground, outdoor court with help of Duke, other donors

BY PAUL BONNER pbonner@heraldsun.com; 419-6621

If they need still more encouragement after boosting their achievement test scores, students at Carter Community School can anticipate clambering on new playground equipment and playing basketball on a new outdoor court when school starts again next fall.

Rain made the brightly colored slides and swings a little too damp for play Friday, the last day of classes for the charter school, when students and staff hosted a ceremony thanking donors for the new features.

The playground and other improvements to the St. James Family Life Center on West Club Boulevard, where the school operates, were provided by Centex Construction Co. as general contractor and other companies, with Duke University providing design services and miscellaneous interior repairs. The building is the former Walltown Elementary School.

Duke also supports the school in other ways in an ongoing relationship, including providing volunteer tutors and donating computers. The university's director of community affairs, Michael Palmer, serves on the charter school's board of directors.

In all, the value of donated materials and services by the companies and the university for the playground and repairs and rehabilitation came to more than $100,000, all under the aegis of the university's Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership.

Speakers Friday also congratulated the school's children and teachers for raising test scores that three years ago were so low that the state threatened to close it. Then, the school's third- through eighth-graders averaged in the low 30 percent of grade-level competency in reading and math.

Starting in the 2002-2003 school year, the school brought scores up to the mid-50s. For the school year just ended, Carter's scores will show another jump, nearly 20 percentage points to 72 percent, said principal Gail Taylor. The school was reorganized in September, when Taylor came on board, as it was released from governance by the Financial Reform in Educational Excellence, an umbrella support group of charter schools.

Having an independent board was a factor in the testing improvement, Taylor said in an interview Friday, as was a coach provided by the state Office of Charter Schools.

"Through that, we were able to look at curriculum, analyze test data from '03-'04, and make changes in the structure and organization," Taylor said. "We looked at some of the teaching strategies that were in place last year and began to refine those processes so that we would have a stronger focus on reading and math."

Rather than just impart basic knowledge, teachers emphasized applying knowledge through higher-order thinking skills, she said.

The school, which is growing in enrollment, now has about 110 students, in kindergarten through eighth grade, and a staff of about 20, Taylor said. It received its charter in 1998.

The new playground will help its planned expansion, said Brian Crawford, chairman of the school's board of directors.

"To have a good school, you need a good facility, and one of the things essential to all facilities is how it looks on the outside," Crawford said. "So this is not only a gift to the school and the church but also a gift to the growth of the school, to have safe place for kids to play.

"For morale, it's going to be excellent," he said. "We already know the kids are excited about it."

Besides Centex, companies participating in the project included O.C. Mitchell Construction Co., Hertz Equipment Rental, ICI Paints, Mid-Atlantic Infrastructure Systems, Miller & Long, Valleycrest Landscape Maintenance, SteelFab of Virginia, Chandler Concrete Co., Marek Interior Systems and Starr Electric Co.

In the Duke-Durham Partnership, "we listen pretty closely to what the neighborhood says is important and what the school says is important, and we try to find a way to put all this together in a package to make a difference," said John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs and government relations at Duke. The partnership also has launched health clinics and rehabilitated 56 houses with Self-Help, a Durham-based nonprofit lender, in neighborhoods near the university, he said.

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