In the heart of Holly Springs’ growing biotech business park, carpooling parents will soon join employees of global companies.
Families dropping off ninth graders for the inaugural class of Pine Springs Preparatory Academy’s upper school will turn into the new campus off Green Oaks Parkway.
The gate for flu vaccine manufacturing leader, CSL Seqirus, is directly across the street. Fujifilm Biotechnologies is around the corner.
From the freshly installed windows of the school building, students will be able to see the Holly Springs location for RoviSys, a company that supports life sciences and tech companies with systems integration and engineering.
It’s by design, said Craig Tucker, principal of the new high school opening its doors for the first day August 19.
“Our proximity to these companies gives students a unique opportunity that I don’t think a lot of students get in North Carolina,” Tucker said. “We share a sidewalk with some of these companies.”
The three-story building will house classrooms for between 150 and 200 students in the independent charter school’s new upper school program. Applications are still open for the high school, which will start with just ninth grade and grow each year. Pine Springs is a public charter school, which means it’s tuition-free for families and receives state and county funding.
Four pathways have been identified for students: biotechnology, health sciences, technology and skilled trades, and business. Each focus area will have a core scope and sequence of courses, starting with a prerequisite and ending with an internship. The school will also direct kids toward the College and Career Promise program at Wake Tech.
From “Not Yet” to Today’s Value Proposition
Pine Springs Preparatory Academy started about 10 years ago and has grown to about 750 students in its kindergarten through fifth grade elementary school program and 600 in its sixth grade to eighth grade middle school, said Bruce Friend, Pine Springs’ superintendent.
Pine Springs, like other charter schools, operates separately from the local school district. It’s managed by its own nonprofit board of directors, with oversight from the Charter Schools Review Board, which Friend chairs.
Parents have asked for a high school in the past, wanting stability for their kids. “Not yet” was the answer that Friend gave then. That time is arriving, as parents of potential students toured the new building in late June.
The natural light-filled building is more than 100,000 square feet, and the ninth grade class will only use the first half of the building, to start.
It includes a dining area, a music and band room, and a large gym that can be divided into two regular courts with a stage on one side. An art classroom is set up for a kiln that will likely be operational in year two for ceramics classes.
That may all sound expected (if perhaps above average) for a high school–until you get to the fish tank.
The school will include a science classroom with a 140-gallon fish tank, part of the aquaponics program. Tilapia or another feeder fish will give students hands-on experience to learn about chemistry, biology, biomimicry, agriscience, and agriculture. The tanks will pump up waste to garden beds to grow produce. Students won’t just be learning—they’ll get a certification through a partnership with 100 Gardens.
Certifications like that, internships with nearby companies, and college credits are among the benefits school leaders tout.
The internships–envisioned to include life sciences, trade jobs, logistics, marketing, and other areas–aren’t locked in yet, though administrators said companies are interested.
By starting with one class, and adding a class each year, it will help “build the foundation for all of this,” Tucker said. “It gives us a chance to really get these students immersed in these opportunities.”
“We’re going to start with those immersion experiences, do career exploration ninth into tenth grade, but then by 11th, 12th grade, years three and four for us, that’s when students can start doing internships,” Tucker said. “In North Carolina, you can get high school graduation credit through an internship. And so that gives students really cool opportunities to knock out that high school graduation credit while also, hopefully making connections with their future employer.”
‘Take the leap’
In addition to career-readiness, leadership is another focus of Pine Springs Academy. Its parent-teacher association will be a PTSO: Parent Teacher Student Organization.
Tara Odom, president of the new PTSO, said one goal is to align the organization’s officers with the new student council to teach skills like leading a meeting and creating calendars. Parents may also be resources and sponsors for clubs.
Students will be a part of starting clubs and traditions, Principal Tucker said, which is a benefit to their resumes and leadership skills.
“(Colleges) see the students with the high GPAs and the ‘I participated in this club,’ and all these different things, but how many of those applicants can come in and say ‘I started this club, I grew from five people to 40 people over four years?’” he said.
Odom has other hopes for the new school, which her fourth child will attend.
“I’m hoping this first year we can foster that sense of community and belonging and families will buy in 100%,” she said, supporting teachers and students with donations and community connections.
Two of her kids attended Pine Springs when it first opened, including her then-kindergartener who will now be in ninth grade. She heard about the school a few years after Common Core Standards started, a controversial set of federal learning standards that were implemented and later rewritten by the state’s Department of Public Instruction.
“I knew that (Pine Springs) was something I wanted to get my youngest into,” Odom said.
Her kids have attended different schools throughout the years, including other charters, virtual school, and homeschooling. All kids learn differently in different environments, she said. For this year, her incoming ninth grader is excited that she can stay with her friends.
“Our family philosophy is that we evaluate every year,” she said, “and it’s what works best for each kid at each age.”
For her kids, some of whom have ADHD, dyslexia, or an auditory processing disorder, the smaller class sizes, hands-on learning, and creative and collaborative teaching styles have suited their learning well.
She’s told parents who are considering applying to Pine Springs to give it a try. “You can always go back to your base school,” she said, but it’s going to be harder to get back into a charter.
“Sometimes you have to take that leap and try it.”
‘The Pioneer Way’
When asked about the culture of the school–the “Pioneer Way”–both superintendent Friend and principal Tucker point back to the values. Students say the mission statement every day after the Pledge of Allegiance.
“The high school to me is just an extension of providing those types of leadership and self-responsibility values that we try to instill in them with the help of the parents,” Friend said.
Friend sees Pine Springs as a place all students can thrive, and notes its place in the school choice landscape.
“We’re really into the customer service business, it just happens to be in education. I think you have to take that approach, especially as a school of choice,” Friend said.
“Parents are putting a lot of trust in us to give us their most valuable asset, their child, and they want the best for that student.We’ve got to give that student our best every single day. And if we don’t, no one is coming to Pine Springs because their ZIP code says this is the school you have to go to.”
Those results are why he says that in any given year, there are families driving to a Pine Springs school from six to eight different counties.
For public charter schools in North Carolina, county funding is connected to the student, so if a student lives in Wake, local funding comes from Wake. If a student lives in another county, any local funding would come from that county.
“We have families driving from Moore County, Lee County. We have families driving from Fort Bragg to Benson. You’re not driving your kid 45 minutes one way… if we’re not living up to our end of the bargain in terms of providing them a safe place to learn, where they can feel valued, where they can thrive,” Friend said.
Learn more about the new school at pinespringsprep.org.
What do you want to know about Western Wake schools and education? Send questions and feedback on this story to line@theassemblync.com.
