New community space in the Upper School, bringing in natural light into the hallways and giving students a place to collaborate.
We kicked off our 20th year at Cary Academy with a bag, as employees and their significant others gathered for a “birthday party” to mark the occasion. During our first week of school, we gathered the entire community for a picture on the quad — with everybody decked out in new CA shirts just for this occasion. It is indeed a time to celebrate.
In 20 short years, Cary Academy has established a reputation as one of the leading schools in the Southeast. Our results speak for themselves: an outstanding reputation among top colleges around the US and an 80% admission rate into UNC-Chapel Hill; three alumni named in Forbes “30 under 30;” award winners in speech, debate, robotics, mathematics, programming, and Science Olympiad; state champions in cross country, tennis, wrestling, and swimming; and visual and performing arts programs that are second to none.
Cary Academy was established through the generous philanthropy of Dr. James H. and Ann Goodnight and John and Ginger Sall. They envisioned a college preparatory school that serves as an engine for student-centered, technology-rich instructional innovation embedded in a liberal arts tradition. Our school’s inspiring and inclusive culture stems from its powerful founding mission to be a diverse learning community committed to discovery, innovation, collaboration, and excellence.
We have much to be proud of during this anniversary year, and we stand in a position of strength to build an even stronger school moving forward. As I mentioned in my opening convocation speech to the Upper School, Cary Academy is an amazing school — but each year, we must do our part to build new community and reinforce our special culture. Our school history now gives us a proud heritage, but it is new with each generation of families and students who pass through the halls.
We opened our first year with 244 students in grades 6-10. This year we open with 761 students. Only 53% of students who apply are admitted, and 85% of those accept our offer. Only 3% of students leave the school each year before graduation. All of these metrics place us among the most high performing of independent schools.
Moving our programs forward
We have been moving forward with two initiatives from our Master Facilities Plan. In Berger Hall, we are creating a new Design Lab and repurposing the old Lecture Hall into a Discovery Studio. We’ve removed the grand staircase to make a new space in the ground floor, which will be used for MS robotics and as a multi-purpose art classroom and makerspace. We’ve removed the raised seating in the old Lecture Hall to create a more flexible space, which can be used with no furniture (dances, art shows), with 140 chairs in lecture format, or with tables as a seminar space. The room will have two white “write walls” and a multimedia wall for presentations. The room will be ideal for our first TEDx, which we will host in November.
In the Upper School, we are reconfiguring a space in the second floor for a flex classroom space that can hold an entire grade level or be split into three different sized classrooms (with writeable and glass movable walls). We’ve also opened up the middle of the building to allow more natural light into a new student collaboration space, giving them a space to sit and work between classes. At the end of the space is a large conference room, which can be used for more private meetings and study groups. The last new space is an updated college counseling suite, which adds an extra office for our new (and third) college counselor. We are excited to be adding even more personalized attention to the college counseling process.
We’ve got a lot of great things planned for the coming year. Here are just a few highlights that will emerge from our strategic plan in year 2:
- We will continue our curriculum review process, with science and math in the program development phase and the English and social studies departments beginning their review and research phase;
- we will launch a new computer science department and a Microsoft credential program;
- we will form a new communications team and launch a weekly email that we prototyped this past spring;
- we will move to the next phase of our master facilities plan, which involves detailed planning for a new science center;
- we will launch a girls lacrosse program and an athletic leadership development program;
- and, we will be celebrating our 20th Anniversary in many ways, including a student/alumni-sponsored TEDx in November and an awesome musical revue in February.
Our 20th year should indeed continue the fine tradition of exciting discovery, innovation, and collaboration.