Kannapolis City Schools
A Partnership in Science Education
Kannapolis City Schools nine top performing schools- one pre-K, five elementary, one middle, one intermediate, and one high school- consistently receives the state’s top educational accolades. KCS earns the highest scores in the physical sciences, and outperforms other districts statewide in biology, chemistry, geometry, civics & economics, writing, Algebra II, and overall high school student achievement. Over 90 percent of all KCS students attend colleges or universities to earn four-year or two-year degrees. KCS is the only area school district to produce a Rhodes Scholar.
Such a record of success is built on a rigorous foundation of academics. KCS is the home of the region’s only Cyber Campus, which connects A.L. Brown to the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham. Students can choose from multiple high-level courses including genetics and biotechnology, Mandarin Chinese, Latin and advanced placement environmental science, biology, statistics, calculus, history, and English. KCS students can choose from numerous honors-level courses and a full Career Technical Education program.
Student achievement is accentuated by the accolades of KCS educators. The school system has two winning schools of the North Carolina Lighthouse Award for outstanding innovation and academic achievement, a National Educator of the Year, the NC Principal of the Year, the Regional Teacher of the Year, and UNC Charlotte’s Most Outstanding Teaching Graduate. KCS also has a higher percentage of fully licensed and highly qualified teachers than the state average including a larger number of teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, teaching’s highest credential. KCS hires only the top five percent of educators from the over 1,000 applications received annually from teachers throughout the nation.
A.L. Brown High School STEM Academy
To add to the systems’ achievements, a new Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Academy opens in the Fall of 2011. The 49,000-square-foot facility sports not only classrooms and computer labs but laboratories with advanced equipment that allows students to engage in real-world, hands-on scientific activities. Already, engineering students work with UNC Chapel Hill’s Carol Cheatham, PhD, a developmental cognitive neuroscientist with the Nutrition Research Institute on the NCRC, to design toys using 3D modeling that test infant and toddler memory.
Collaboration between KCS and NCRC extends throughout every grade level with scientists participating in career fairs, providing talks, and even sponsoring science fairs for kindergartners to learn about nutrition and good health. Select A.L. Brown High School science teachers spend the summer working in NCRC labs with researchers like Penelope Perkins-Veazie, PhD, of NC State University’s Plants for Human Health Institute, furthering ongoing research and learning techniques and knowledge to take back to their students.