School Board approves new school on SJAFB

The Wayne County Board of Education has approved a measure to create the Wayne School of Technical Arts in cooperation with Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.

The STEM school, which would open in fall 2022, will serve 420 students (at full capacity) in grades 6-12 and will be housed on the Air Force base.

Students, 60 per grade, will be selected via lottery similar to Wayne School of Engineering, with 50 percent military connected and 50 percent from across the district.

WSTA will open next fall with 60 students in grades 6, 9 and 10 — 180 students. In the following two years, students will be added in grades 6 and 9 selected via lottery until the school is at full capacity.

The number of slots per school will be based on the size of the class from which they are drawn.

For example, if slots were offered to sixth-graders based on current enrollments, the distribution for non-military would be:

• Brogden Middle School — 3

• Carver Heights Elementary — 3

• Eastern Wayne Elementary — 2

• Fremont Stars Elementary — 1

• Grantham Middle School — 2

• Greenwood Middle School — 2

• Mount Olive Middle School — 2

• Northeast Elementary — 3

• Northwest Elementary — 3

• Rosewood Elementary — 3

• Spring Creek Middle School — 4

• Tommy’s Road Elementary — 2

The military lottery will be determined based on standards set by SJAFB and will follow the definition of “military child,” district officials said. The district cannot predict how students from military families choosing to attend WSTA will affect school populations and, in turn, teacher allotments at those schools.

Interim Superintendent Dr. David Lewis said the negotiations have been ongoing with the base for the last four to six months to create the program, which would offer both technical and advanced placement courses.

Dr. Marcia Manning, who serves as assistant superintendent for student services and innovative programs, told board members at their monthly meeting that the school offerings will be divided into two levels — grades 6-8 and 9-12 and will meet N.C. Career and College Ready requirements, including math, science, social studies, English and world languages.

Students will also have the opportunity to earn the AP Capstone Diploma Endorsement and/or the opportunity to earn industry credentials in a technical arts field of study, Manning added.

Students in grades 6-8 will be enrolled in humanities, integrated math/science course, career and technical courses in Minecraft computer programming (beginning, intermediate and advanced) along with health and physical education.

Students in grades 9-12 will continue their studies with pre-AP courses in math, science and history, preparing them for the AP Capstone program, including AP seminar, AP research and a minimum of four additional AP courses selected from humanities and STEM fields.

Manning said the AP Capstone courses, which adhere to a rigorous national standard, would be especially interesting to military students, some of whom must change schools many times while their parents are serving.

“To be able to take courses that are the same across the world is advantageous (for them),” Manning said.

Manning said the county also hopes to use some of the AP Capstone offerings in other schools, to allow more students to access the opportunities.

Career and technical education options also will be available, including digital design and animation, game art design and drone technology — opportunities district officials want to be as inclusive as possible for all county students.

“(WSTA) is not meant to be an elite school with an elite curriculum for only a certain population of students,” Manning said.

The CTE programs could lead to continuation of studies with courses at Wayne Community College, she added.

Access to resources on base, as well as offerings at WCC, including articulated credits, college transfer credits and industry credentials also will be available to WSTA students, she said.

The school would be housed in the former SJAFB Education Center and would include 16 potential classrooms as well as 17 teacher planning and workspaces, two conference areas as well as potential for a lab, assistant superintendent for support services Dr. Tim Harrell said.

Lewis said there will be some startup costs, including improving access to WIFI.

“We believe that the work could be done in stages,” he said, adding that federal funds might be available to cover the costs.

Devices could be provided as part of the school district’s service to its local student population, many of whom are already enrolled in Wayne County Public Schools.

There would be some training involved to get teachers ready to handle the AP Capstone curriculum.

“Because we are talking about existing students, we believe the allotment for teachers, a counselor and an administrator would be covered by our current allotment,” Lewis said.

He added that district officials believe that the state would also allow a principal to be hired for the school “after about four months.”

The school would also have four classified positions — a bookkeeper, a data manager, a distance learning facilitator and a custodian.

Lewis said that other than a lease agreement, maintenance and custodial costs, the district would incur some additional transportation costs.

“I don’t see anything in this program that would make it cost-prohibitive in any way,” Lewis said.

Lewis said the county schools will use the 2021-22 as a planning year to work out facilities and connectivity needs and to get training for teachers who will be working with the AP Capstone programs.

Fourth Fighter Wing Commander Col. Kurt Helphinstine, who attended Monday’s meeting, said the Wayne School of Technical Arts is a blueprint he hopes will be a model across the Department of Defense for other community-military projects.

This is not the first of these associations between Wayne County and Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, the base commander said.

The district and the base currently have a joint use agreement for the Bryan Sports Complex. 

“We have proven that we can partner with the community before,” Helphinstine said.

The commander said he had heard about the success of Wayne School of Engineering and the partnership between the schools and Wayne Community College.

The idea for Wayne School of Technical Arts started there.

Helphinstine said the military families are seeking the same thing all parents do — the best schools possible for their children that offer them the “more opportunity than we had when we grew up.”

“There is no doubt that military children would benefit greatly in grades 6-12 with having a school that they would have additional access to,” he said. “But I think a rising tide will raise all ships in the sense of another high-performing school with the 400 to 420 students seems to be the perfect size where the principal knows every student’s name, where we can have students even two years below grade level enter in sixth grade and hopefully, by the time they hit high school in the same school, they are up to grade level and surpass it.”

Helphinstine said base officials are looking forward to continuing working with the school district to get the WSTA off the ground. 

“We think this is a win-win for the community and the military,” the commander said.