Star Christian Academy, a K-12 private school, occupies two rooms in the back of New Generation Christian Church in Smithfield. According to a former student, it has just three teachers for the 13 grades, and they provide minimal active instruction. The school is run by a husband-and-wife team with a long history of personal bankruptcies and failure to pay state and federal taxes.
A day in the classroom was as much a lesson for state Rep. Phil Shepard as it was for the students he visited.
Shepard, R-Onslow County, spent Monday at Southwest High School in Jacksonville, where he was a guest teacher for three history and civics/economic classes.
I am currently the principal of what our state of North Carolina deems as a “low performing school.” Based on our EOG proficiency and value added analysis, we are an “F” school that showed no growth last year.
When I began at my school on July 1, 2015, I knew the situation. My superintendent was very clear with me about what I was “getting into” as some folks would word it. Then we received the official designation in September as part of new state policy. We are still in the process of figuring out the in’s and out’s of being a low performing school and it is now almost February.