GROWING GREAT SCHOOLS TOGETHER

Academic and operational leaders join forces with community to foster growth, equity, and access

hen it comes to teaching and learning, families seek the best for their children. Durham Public Schools seeks to be the first and best choice, and the district’s Growing Together initiative intends to assure families that every DPS school is a great school—no matter whether it is a neighborhood school or one that families apply to attend. Beginning with the adjustment of elementary school boundaries and specialized program placements effective in 2024, and continuing with middle and high schools effective in 2025, DPS is intent on serving families better by:

• responding to Durham’s explosive population growth,

• increasing equity among schools to ensure that all students benefit from high-quality academic programs, and

• increasing families’ access to application programs by establishing them across Durham County.

For some DPS employees and stakeholders who have worked on the initiative, the mission is intensely personal.

Child Of Dps

DPS director of student assignment, Melody Marshall, is a product of Durham Public Schools from kindergarten to graduation. From Morehead Elementary to Rogers-Herr Middle to Hillside High, Ms. Marshall experienced all of the normal peaks and valleys of school life, but she also experienced a seismic change: she was a DPS student before DPS truly existed.

“Before 1992, there were two school systems in Durham County. The city school district was majority-Black, and the county school district was majority-white,” said Marshall. “There were resource disparities and political divisions, and for all of the efforts to bring the two school systems together there was mistrust on both sides. ” Neither school board was in favor of merger. That changed in 1992 when the state legislature merged the districts, but the merger didn’t come easily.

For almost 30 years, DPS made only minor changes even as Durham has transformed around us. I’m thrilled that we are finally acknowledging the needs of all of our families. And we did it with the community’s voice at the table.”

““There was a promise that our city schools would gain more resources, and that our schools would be more equitable,” said Marshall. “But one major piece of work was left undone for decades. Merger proponents saw that if we didn’t continue to look at school boundaries and magnet programs, that we would continue to struggle to give every family the same kind of access to high-quality academic programs.

Current Map Proposed Map

For almost 30 years, DPS made only minor changes even as Durham has transformed around us. I’m thrilled that we are finally acknowledging the needs of all of our families. And we did it with the community’s voice at the table.

Growing Great Elementary Schools Together

The Growing Together initiative began with elementary schools. One of the initiative’s foundations is ensuring that outstanding programs and academic experience are in every school, not just in application or “magnet” schools.

“We are investing in and placing rigorous, high-quality academic programming in every elementary school,” said Dr. Debbie Pitman, assistant superintendent for specialized services and a key Academic Services leader on the Growing Together working group. “For example, beginning in 2024 every elementary school will have a daily, intentional focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) instruction. Currently we have some magnet schools with a STEM programming emphasis, but tomorrow’s careers will require that every child have that access. Parents and guardians shouldn’t have to worry about getting in the ‘right’ school to have that kind of support.”

In addition to a daily STEM focus, each of DPS’s elementary schools will also provide every week:

• Weekly visual arts instruction in a dedicated classroom

• Weekly music instruction in a dedicated classroom

• Weekly world language exposure

DPS is also significantly expanding families’ access to other specialized academic programs tailored to students’ individual needs. Geographically located across Durham County in five equitable regions, DPS will offer six application schools that operate on the year-round calendar and five application schools that offer Dual-Language Immersion, the opportunity for students to develop fluency in two languages while they receive the same high-quality core instruction other DPS schools provide. Families may apply to enter these programs based on the region they live in.

Finally, DPS is also expanding elementary access to Montessori education by expanding the program to a third school, and to the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme by expanding it to a second school. These schools will be available based on regions as well.

“We are preparing our students for an international world full of technology, opportunities for creative expression, and diverse cultures,” said Dr. Pitman. “I can’t emphasize enough the quality of programming and teachers in every school. We are truly growing great schools together.”

Planning For Equity And Access

As Ms. Marshall noted, the county changed around Durham Public Schools over 30 years. Neighborhoods aged and changed. Magnet programs were established to attract wealthy, white families to impoverished neighborhoods that later gentrified—but the magnet programs remained as they were, unchanged.

“Before Growing Together, our student assignment policies and practices were no longer serving our families and community the way they had been intended,” said Mathew Palmer, DPS executive director for school planning, transportation, and school nutrition. A planner by nature as well as by trade, Mr. Palmer saw with his colleagues that school boundaries and magnet application rules were out of step with families’ lived reality.

There was a promise that our city schools would gain more resources, and that our schools would be more equitable. But one major piece of work was left undone for decades. Merger proponents saw that if we didn’t continue to look at school boundaries and magnet programs, that we would continue to struggle to give every family the same kind of access to highquality academic programs.”

““We reached out to our community after we received the charge from our Board of Education to explore the changes that our families needed,” said Mr. Palmer. “Over the course of three years—even during the worst of the pandemic— we received hundreds of ideas and data points from parents, guardians, teachers, and members of stakeholder organizations. The community’s voice helped ensure that we did this work with a growth mindset: dreaming and planning without being limited to the past but envisioning a greater future.”

Mr. Palmer and his team of planners first pored over census and other data to establish the five geographical regions based on community infrastructure such as freeways and demographic data. They then revised school boundary lines within those regions to account for neighborhood changes since 1992 as well as projecting the future growth of Durham County.

“People believe that our schools are under-enrolled, but that’s especially untrue at the elementary level,” Mr. Palmer said. “Today we have some schools that are bursting at the seams and are using mobile classrooms that were ‘temporary’ years ago. In addition, we needed to make space for our community, school board and county commissioners’ priority to expand pre-K classrooms throughout the county.”

Growing Great Middle And High Schools Together

Following additional community engagement, in June 2023 the Durham Public Schools Board of Education approved further recommendations for DPS secondary schools, effective the following year, in 2025. The project extends the commitment to offering high quality arts, global languages, and STEM experiences in every school serving students from grades six to 12, while ensuring consistent feeder patterns from elementary to middle to high school and providing program continuity for students in the elementary application programs: Year-Round, Dual Language Immersion, International Baccalaureate, and Montessori.

In particular, DPS expands access to year-round middle schools to support the students rising from our increased number of year-round elementary schools, with The School for Creative Studies joining Rogers-Herr as a regional year-round option for grades 6-8. The growth in elementary Montessori programs is further supported with the establishment of a second Montessori middle school at Lucas to join Lakewood Montessori, and Dual Language Immersion will be brought to Brogden Middle.

DPS’s outstanding high school application programs will remain supported and enhanced, and student assignment boundaries at middle and high schools have been adjusted so that students will be able to go together to the same schools, from elementary to middle to high. To give students from lower-income neighborhoods more equitable opportunities to enter application schools, a weighted lottery will be used at schools that currently serve a lower percentage of those students than the district average.

“The power of the Growing Together initiative is in providing both greater access to stronger academic programs in every school, and also strengthening community relationships as students rise together from elementary to high school,” said Superintendent Pascal Mubenga. “I am so excited to help Durham Public Schools support and reflect the Durham of today, and to help prepare our students for the Durham of tomorrow.”

With housing developments bursting from the ground, the new boundary lines and application program placements effective in 2024 and 2025 will provide families greater access to high-quality programs closer to home while improving bus service—a win-win all around.

Ms. Marshall, the student assignment director, is excited to see an old vision being realized. “We’re on the path that we started on 30 years ago,” she said. “A more equitable district where every family, regardless of background or address, can access a great education for their child. We really are growing together.”

For more information about Growing Together, visit dpsnc.net.

High School Boundries

Middle School Boundries