Wake schools, Shaw leaders ready application for leadership academies -- but as just one high school

The Wake school system and Shaw University are finalizing the details of their application to operate the system’s leadership academies.

2024-09-17

Under the proposed application, presented the school board Tuesday, the structure of the schools would change a bit: The leadership academies would be split into a single high school and two single-gender middle schools.

The Wake Young Men’s Leadership Academy and the Wake Young Women’s Leadership Academy used to run out of St. Augustine’s University. The school system ended that agreement in March after complaints from students and concerns about the university’s future accreditation status. A few months later, the university successfully petitioned to keep its accreditation, but the school board had already picked Shaw as its preferred new partner for its leadership academies.

This school year, students are temporarily at Wake Technical Community College’s northern Raleigh campus. Legislation passed this spring allow the schools to continue operating as “early colleges,” which allows students to earn up to an associate’s degree on the state’s dime.

An application to start the new partnership with Shaw in the fall of 2025 is due to the state by Oct. 4, in just a couple of weeks..

Currently, the academies are two single-gender schools that serve grades 6 through 13 — 13 being the bonus year early college students are allowed to have. But once the students reach the level of taking college classes — in grades 11 through 13 — they attend mixed-gender college classes.

The proposal would have single-gender middle schools serving grades 6 through 8. The high school would be mixed gender, although students in grades 9 and 10 would still learn from their current leadership academy buildings, taking mostly high school courses with some virtual college courses available. They would also go to Shaw on occasion to ready them for college. Students older than that would learn from the Shaw University campus.

Board Member Lindsay Mahaffey urged the school system to see if any teachers at the leadership academies could pursue certification to teach a Shaw University course, so that the 9th and 10th graders don’t have to take a virtual course.

Seydric Williams, the district’s area superintendent overseeing the academies, said officials are talking with Shaw about the possibility of doing that or of a Shaw professor being able to go to the leadership academies to teach the course there.

They’re “still working that out,” Williams said.

Mahaffey said “virtual” courses prompt mixed feelings.

“I just know if I told my high schooler that was happening they’d be like, ‘Nah, I’m good,” Mahaffey said.

The change to one high school and two middle schools is partly because legislation requires the academies to be high schools, not inclusive of middle school grades, to be considered early colleges. It’s also partly because of Shaw’s limited space.

The leadership academies, under law, can accept no more than 100 students per grade level, which district leaders worry could require them to accept up to 100 students. If the high schools remained separate, that could be up to 800 students, instead of just 400 students.

During the most recent school year, the schools enrolled less than 100 combined in 9th (89) and 10th (97) grades — the students who would be going to Shaw’s campus next school year.