Voices of the Albemarle
Get ready to experience the heartbeat of Elizabeth City like never before! Voices of the Albemarle, produced by The Daily Advance, an Adams MultiMedia newspaper, is an all-access pass to the bold personalities, untold stories, and groundbreaking ideas transforming Eastern North Carolina. Hosted by the dynamic duo of reporter Izzy Kelly-Goss and publisher David Prizer, each episode amplifies the voices that make Elizabeth City and the surrounding area an ever evolving place to call home. Tune in and discover the Voices of the Albemarle.
Voices of the Albemarle
Episode 4: The New Initiatives of ECPPS
David and Izzy sit down with ECPPS Superintendent, Dr. Keith Parker, and three former student board members home from their first semester of college. This episode is a must listen for anyone interested in our local education system, the future Parker hopes to build, and an inside look at how it shapes the young minds as they head off into their own futures.
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Welcome back to Voices of the Album Marl. Today, David and I are joined by Dr. Keith Parker, the superintendent of ECPPS, our local public school system. And we also have a surprise guest today, our student board members from the 2024 to 2025 school year. And they are joining us. They're home from college for their winter breaks. So we have we have Brandon Moore, we have Ruby Nunezanaya, and we have Erica Moore. So thank all of you. We thank all of you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thank you so much for having us. And it's a pleasure to join the podcast. And we're looking forward to talking about some of the incredible things going on in Elizabeth City today.
SPEAKER_05:As am I. So just to start off, um Keith, can you talk to us a little bit about how you got involved in the education system and and how that led you to where you are today?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, great question. And uh first I think I will uh start off and just um wish everyone a just a wonderful holiday season and and a Merry Christmas. And as we get ready to um, I'm looking at my watch here. I think we're 24 hours away from uh winter break in the school system. So um I'm not sure when this is gonna air, but as of this moment, we're got about 5,000 students that are checking their clocks to get to winter break. So I just want to wish everybody a wonderful holiday season um as we start here. But you know, I I will say that um teaching is one of the most one of the most fulfilling um purpose-filled professions you could go into. And it's it's something where you have an opportunity to make an impact in somebody's life, and then it becomes exponential. And you know, oftentimes I tell our teachers, particularly uh beginning teachers or teachers that just come to the school system, um, no matter what you do, you'll always be the sixth grade teacher to that group of kids, the kindergarten teacher, the eleventh grade biology teacher. For that group, you'll always be their teacher. Um, and you know, that's a that's a profound opportunity to be able to invest in the minds and the hearts of our young people to be able to give them a chance to prepare for the life that's ahead. I I remember reading Michelle Obama's biography, and I think in the second or third chapter, she wrote about her kindergarten teacher, uh, having grown up on the south side of Chicago, and she at the moment of writing her her memoir, she could still remember what the classroom looked like. She could remember um her teacher vividly. And this is a woman who traveled around the world, first lady, found herself in castles in Europe, had an incredible experience, but when she sat down to write her memoir, she remembered and took the time to write about her kindergarten teacher. So um teaching is a profound profession, and I think I didn't realize that when I went into it. But as I now have um spent over 15 years in the profession, I have come to realize that it's a profession that is precious to our country and it's precious to this community. And now my work is focused on um building up systems and structures so that the public schools in Elizabeth City um continue to become places that are relevant to the 21st century and that create opportunities where all of our 5,000 students have the opportunities that three that these three fine young people here today have had. Um we don't meet that mark every day for every kid, but we're working to get there. And that's a big part of what my work's focused on now.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely. And speaking of you guys, now that you've graduated and and you've gone off to college, you're all in completely different places. Um, starting with Erica, where are you in school and how do you feel like your time with ECPPS has prepared you for college life?
SPEAKER_04:Right now, I am studying at Syracuse University. So being so far away is like honestly, I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to leave. But I'm grateful that ECPPS like gives me a home to come back to. I think when I'm where I'm at, I am so proud of where I came from and the experiences that I had to say that I belong somewhere that's bigger than myself. So I guess that's kind of where I'm at now. Very reflective of my time here whenever I'm at school.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely. And Ruby?
SPEAKER_00:I uh I want to start off by thanking you for having us here. I study at Chapel Hill. I'm studying business administration right now. And I feel like ECPPS definitely prepared me for Chapel Hill. It was a huge change of pace, I will say. But like the public speaking opportunities that we were able to have, thanks to Dr. Parker, definitely did help, especially being in the business industry. And as a like as Erica said, I do find myself reflecting a lot on the time that I spent at ECPPS. And I do think of those teachers, um, especially the ones I had in elementary school and middle school, and some of the ones I had in high school, I think back. And whenever I have the opportunity, I do text them, I tell them I'm thinking about them, and I'm appreciative of everything that they taught me because it definitely has played into my journey, especially now at Chapel Hill.
SPEAKER_05:That's so great to hear. I definitely I have some teachers like that too. Um, a lot of them are retired now because I'm like older than you guys and old, but but I see them, I run into them downtown sometimes. We won't get into that right now. But and it definitely makes an impact. And I I love to stay in contact with the teachers that I have been able to stay in contact with. Brandon, how do you how are you feeling? You're at Howard?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I'm at Howard. Um, as far as how ECPPS plays a big part, um, I can say ECPPS structured me into me being humble and knowing where I came from. A lot of the time, I think people forget because a lot of when people go to college, it's a whole personality change. They feel like they can make up something new about themselves, and that's fine. But as for me, I won't forget where I came from and where I started from. I started from Elizabeth City. Nobody can nobody can say they came from Elizabeth City like I came from Elizabeth City. I started from now from the dirt. Like, if I was to ever like I explain that to people because a lot of people don't know. They uh as me and Erica discussed earlier. We said they come from Charlotte, Riley, that's all the cities they know, Durham, but no, nobody knows about Elizabeth City. I want Elizabeth City to be on the map at some point in life. But as for right now, I represent Elizabeth City the best way I can. And ECPPS structured me into a way I already knew what I was getting myself into with college. So ECPPS definitely played a big part, but I do miss it sometimes. Like looking back on it, I think about all the all the random stuff Dr. Parker had us doing, and it was so fun. But at the same time, I've like it really molded me into who I am today as an African-American man that goes to Howard University. It's different, but I love it. That's great.
SPEAKER_03:Izzy, can I can I ask you a question here? Absolutely. Um Brandon, what you were saying, it it made me think of something, and I'd like to ask all of you. I don't want to uh take this too long, but um, when I went back in the day, when I went to high school, I went the suburbs of sh of Chicago. It's a very good school, ranked very highly high school. Um when I went to college, what college learning, going to classes, going to lectures was totally different. A lot of it depended on my discipline to get to the classes, and a lot of the work I was doing wasn't it wasn't contained. It was I had to go out and and go to the library, had to do this, I had to do all that work. How did um your studies at ECPPS prepare you for the difference that college the college environment uh asked you to follow in order for you to continue your learning? I mean, either one of you, Brandon, uh, you know, any one of you can answer that.
SPEAKER_02:But uh well, as for me, I went to the early college and we were right on the community college campus. So with us being a high school and there in the college, we didn't have a choice. We had to go to class. It wasn't, it wasn't so much as discipline, but it was so much as what is my mama gonna do to me if I don't go to this class. So it was that type of thing. But it did as I got older and I started driving, it was more of a discipline thing. You have to get up, you have to go to this lecture, you have to, because like you said, you do have to go out and do the work. But if you don't go to the lectures, you probably won't know half the stuff. That's why I know sometimes I've had uh I did have a little record of not going to the lectures and then having to ask somebody else what happened, but I wouldn't have to ask that if I would just go to class. So it does take a lot of discipline. I tell you that. It takes a lot of prayer. Um, sometimes you might pull an all-nighter and you might have to go to class the next day, but you you gotta do it in order to have a good journey, at least. At least that's how I look at it.
SPEAKER_03:Ruby, how about you?
SPEAKER_00:Um, I will say a lot of my teachers were very lenient in high school, and that was something I definitely had to adjust to when I went to Chapel Hill. And like you said, you had to take that extra step of preparing prior to the class, doing the readings prior to the class in order to understand. And definitely, I will say there was a lot of support at Chapel Hill. Like we had office hours, we had TAs, we had tutors. Um, but it's all of your initiative. And at the end of the day, there were times where I questioned, I was like, should I go to like lecture or should I prioritize my sleep? Because I had 8 a.m. four days a week and I wouldn't go to bed until like four or five in the morning because I was studying um or doing things that I probably should have prioritized with my sleep over. But it's all of like it all just really comes down to what you want to make out of it. And then a lot of it was like my conscience telling me too that I had a lot of people back home, especially that poured a lot into me for me to like just give it up now, especially so early on in my career. So I don't know. It's a lot of mental thinking that you have to do and see what you want to make out of your career and your journey at the university.
SPEAKER_03:Erica, how are you?
SPEAKER_04:I would say back at East PPS, there was a time when we can go to class and comprehend and understand. But I feel like in college, if you're not like mentally fully present there, there are gonna be things you're gonna miss. You're gonna have to go back in the lecture. You might have to reteach yourself some things. I know for some of my courses, because I'm a journalism major, we do creative projects. And I can say that working in groups here at East PPS has helped me working with people that sometimes working in groups is very challenging. And when you're producing videos and nonfiction pieces and PSAs, like I had to go out and direct things. I had to write scripts, I had to get actors, and those things are very different for me coming from a world where like I didn't know how to use Adobe Premiere Pro. And I have people around me that are so knowledgeable in the things that they do that it's like, I am grateful that I have to like push myself harder with these new challenges that face my way. But also I can say that everything you do, you have to be intentional because there's gonna be someone else that's behind you that's already like either they're getting up at three in the morning to go to the radio station and to do their bit, or they're up at two shadowing somebody at the news station. So you have to like keep pushing yourself because, like Ruby said, there are people that have like poured so much into all of us and all other students that we want to make them proud and we want to like be successful because we all go to incredible schools, and I know that we're all beyond grateful to be where we are. So we want to put our best foot forward in all that we do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so insightful.
SPEAKER_05:And I just kind of shifting back over to Dr. Parker, I feel like, you know, a lot of the things that you guys the three of you have learned and are now using, they're not necessarily new initiatives, but there have been a lot of improvements in the school system. There's a lot of new, there are new initiatives. There's the Spanish Immersion Program. Um I'm not really sure how many times you guys have had student board members, but I don't recall having that when I was in high school. Um and I think that's a really unique, like, position to put these kids in where they are taking on this responsibility for their own future and for the future of all of the students around them. So can you just talk to me a little bit about what brought on all of these changes, how you guys are making these changes and and how ECPPS can continue to improve moving forward?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, great question. Well, you know, one of the things when we took 2022 and 2023 and really just did a year, year and a half long visioning process with the community and our students and staff, and really just wanted to hear what our community as a whole uh wants to see for public education in the future. And some themes resounded really heavily out of that process. Um, one overwhelming students, um, these young people are with us today, but their peers across the school district said resoundingly when we met with them in groups, focus groups, that they want to do something with their hands. They want to move away from the computer screen, they want to do something, they want to learn, have experiences with their teacher, but they also want that to translate into real-world experiences where they do something. Um, families told us overwhelmingly that they want a plan for their kid the morning after high school graduation. You know, what's my kid going to do? Is my kid already enrolled? Does my kid have a plan? Help us as a family navigate what that plan looks like. And um teachers said that they want to grow professionally and become better at what they do. And so we listened to all of those uh themes, and that has really driven the work we've done. And so the programming that we're uh building and the the schools that we're working to build are based on the heartbeat of what our community told us in that year and a half, where we went to everybody we could find, and mainly we were asking, tell me what your hopes and dreams are for the young people in Elizabeth City, but also for public education. And you know, we um we've we've tried to stay true to to that. I I think you know, um, you know, it's interesting. We're we're we're trying to we're trying to to really build schools where we prepare students for what's a h coming ahead. Um and that's hard to do, you know. You don't you don't become the organization, the school that you want to be overnight. You know, I mean it takes time to build what you're trying to build, especially if you have an ambitious goal like we've we've done, which is to reimagine education. Um, I read recently, I went went and reread actually a book that was written by a Jewish historian, uh Noah Harari. Um he wrote, I think in 2018, um around that time, pre-pandemic, he wrote a book called uh 21 Lessons for the Twenty First Century. And in the book he talks about um what a a Chinese rice farmer would need to know in the year 1000. Probably wouldn't be any different than what a Chinese rice farmer would need to know in the year 1300 or 2000 or um 1300. But what somebody would need to be able to do in 1986 versus 1996 versus 2026, that's radically different. And so I think public education has found itself in this place where um our young people are inundated with information, and probably the thing they don't need is just more information. And that's typically been what schools have been designed to do. They have been places where professors, teachers, institutions, libraries are the place you go to get the information. And we live in a world now where, in fact, you actually don't have to go to school to learn things to get the information. And so we're trying to transition out of this model where educators hold knowledge and they deliver it to kids. Um, we're trying to move into a place where schools become places where kids learn together, they build friendships, um, they play on an athletic team, they get an internship, they've learned something, but then they do something with it. Um, Erica was talking about the value of working in a team. You know, that's probably one of the most important things we could teach our kids is like, what what do you do when there's conflict in a group? How do you manage conflict? And how do you work with somebody that you actually may not like, um, but you actually need that person to be able to get the product done. That's a huge valuable skill. Um, and so we're really thinking on those things. The Spanish Immersion Program, the Aviation Academy, the International Baccalaureate Program, our Global Leaders Program, K-12, all those programs at the heartbeat are about being able to go and do something. And so they're not just about the flow of information and but they're about doing something. Um, how do you get a skill where you'll be more capable to work with other people? And uh I think that's really a driving force in the programming that we're launching.
SPEAKER_05:And can you talk a little bit more about those programs, like the Aviation Academy, the micro school, uh the Spanish Immersion Program? Can you just, I guess, give us a little bit of insight as to what that looks like from your perspective? And then I know you guys are kind of come graduating on the tail end of those coming in to the for the most part, but if there's any insight you guys have, the three of you, as to what that looks like from a student's perspective, I would love to hear that as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So we're really trying to to think of K-12 public education as, you know, elementary is a foundation, middle school really becomes an exploratory phase, and then high school is a point where you really have, you're doing something. And so, you know, if you think about school in those three blocks or those three layers, um, there's a lot of opportunity for us there. And so we have this year, every elementary school has the Spanish dual language immersion program. So we're trying to lay a foundation early on, starting in the kindergarten, where students become bilingual. And so just imagine a world in the next five years where half, almost half of our elementary students will move into middle school. They'll speak two languages. You know, half of the school half of the elementary age students in the school system in the next five years. Almost half will be fully bilingual in English and Spanish. That's transformational. And that will allow those young people to go into middle school with a skill set that is not common in the United States, which is actually common in the world, but not in the United States. For the other half of the students that opted not to go into dual language immersion, we have moved high school Spanish one, the core Spanish one, into sixth grade. So the students right now at River Road and Elizabeth City Middle, they're taking Spanish one in sixth grade. They can go on a pathway of becoming bilingual by high school if they opt to do that. And so our goal is that every student in this school system graduates from high school over the next decade speaking Spanish. And, you know, from my knowledge in North Carolina, and I can't speak nationally, but I'll speak in North Carolina. We're the only district I know of that's committed that will become a bilingual district, that every child here will speak two languages. So that's a huge foundation early on in elementary school that will set our kids up for what comes of middle and high school. The micro school is a, you know, as an opportunity for us. We've created this school with 25 kids right now, but it really has become an experimental lab school. We are piloting some really cool things with artificial intelligence in there right now through a partnership with ConMigo and Khan Academy, a partnership with Water Street Realty, our partnership with Arts of the Albemarle, with Rick Anderson Fitness. You know, that school is something unlike anything else in North Carolina. It just does not exist right now. We've had funders, we've had visitors, we've had organizations come, and we really are working now with partners to be able to replicate at scale our micro school in other areas. So it's a way on a in a small, you know, think of the micro school as sort of like a small pressure cooker, a place where we can infuse really quick innovation and things that work. Then we want to replicate at scale in the traditional schools in larger contexts. So I think that's a really cool thing. Um, both our middle schools and both our high schools uh have become international baccalaureate schools. And so those elementary kids that go into sixth grade speaking two languages, they will have enrolled in an international baccalaureate middle school. They immediately then begin to learn at a higher level based on the IB learner profile. And then when they go into high school, they will have had global curriculum from K to eight. They'll speak two languages, all of them, even the kids that took Spanish one in sixth grade. Most of them be fully bilingual. And then when they go into high school, they get to choose what they want to do. And high school is a place where you choose. Um, you may want to play in the marching band, you may want to take classes at COA, you may want to play on a team, you may really be into arts and want to take pottery classes. So high school becomes the great land of choice. Um, and so what we're doing there, we hurt our parents. They were very clear, I want to plan for my kid. So we're working to make all these choices we have easier to access. And so we're building our choices into these career academies. The Aviation Academy is our first one. So that is for kids that are interested in engineering, aviation science. But instead of having to piece all of those opportunities together, we've put it in one package for them. And so all they got to do is enroll in the Aviation Academy. We've mapped out every class for them till graduation, their internship, partnerships with Coast Guard, how to get the pilot's license, it's all there. Um, we're really excited, we're exploring to launch, really doing some work right now to see if we can launch next year a health sciences academy where the same concept, somebody who's interested in the medical field, they can enroll in high school. Everything they need to do to be a nurse is already packaged every class up till graduation. We've already lined it up for them. So that's our work in high school is to take this land of choice and be much clearer on the pathways so students can access what they need to do, need to do. When we get to the end of it, imagine a world a decade from now where a student walks across the stage, they're getting ready to go to Chapel Hill, Howard, or Syracuse. They speak two languages. They're bilingual in English and Spanish. They've had global curriculum for K-12, they've got an international baccalaureate diploma, and they had a career pathway that they went through that included an internship at a community partner that prepared them already for a job. You know, that is something that will change the outcomes for families and students in this entire region. And you don't have to go to Chesapeake or Durham or Chapel Hill to get it. You can live in Elizabeth City and kind of get that same experience. So that's that's a vision, I think, that's driving uh the work we're doing with the programming.
SPEAKER_05:And from the three of you guys, obviously you guys were not in elementary school when they started this Spanish immersion, but just from someone that has recently graduated, from your perspective, how do you feel like these changes are going to benefit? How do you feel like this is going to help mold the minds of the people that are maybe even just not that much younger than you guys as they are getting ready to be in your shoes graduating and going out into the world?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I will say that the vision that Dr. Parker and the entire board of education has for ECPPS, it's really exciting. Um, I was born uh speaking Spanish. So I know that the students that are now like in elementary school that are Spanish-speaking students, I know that they feel welcomed and they feel supported because their peers are learning the language that they were born into. And this also helps them be even better Spanish speakers because you can lose that in school too, if you're surrounded by people that only speak English. And it's really exciting to see like how this is gonna like eventually work out and play into society. I do know um over the summer I worked, and one of my customers, she was telling me about her little daughter who's at one of the schools in ECPPS, and she was telling me that she was really excited because her daughter was going to start speaking Spanish. And she was like, But I need a tutor. She was like, Do you perhaps know anybody? I was like, I speak Spanish. And she was like, really? And so I've been working with uh this family over my first semester at Chapel Hill. We've been doing like virtual, like peer tutoring sessions, and it's it's really sweet, you know, to like get to talk to this like eight-year-old and try to teach her Spanish. But the initiative that the family and that the student is taking also means a lot too. And another thing that Dr. Parker said about the internships, like that is super valuable, especially at college. Like when you're applying for like clubs, uh, business societies, fraternities, sororities, like people want to see you involved. And the fact that ECPPS is giving their students that opportunity is like, it really means a lot. And I'm really excited and thrilled. Like, although we didn't get the opportunity to like live that out, at least we get to see it and support the family that we still have in ECPPS.
SPEAKER_04:I want to piggyback off of Ruby's excitement. I could say that this Ministrial Emergency Project to me feels like my baby. I remember back in 2023 when Dr. Parker took me and some friends to go visit one of the first schools that had the program. So we got to see, like with our own eyes, like how it was affecting those students and thinking about back then, it was just an idea that maybe it could come to our schools and maybe we could implement it. So seeing that come to fruition, I was always just blown away and honored to work with someone that makes his ideas come to life. Like we've we've heard him talk about things and to see that in our school systems, like where we said we're not gonna get a chance to do it, but I'm excited for what the other students have because, of course, you have people who are coming up after you to have more than you did and to have new experiences. And I can't imagine like being a parent knowing that my child's gonna be able to be bilingual, have these internship opportunities, could go into an AVH aviation track just to go into to be locally in our college to know my child's gonna have like a path and a chance to grow and learn and try new things. And I think all these different programs, I know I usually get emotional talking about the Spirit Civil Russian program, but like it really is something so special. And I'm grateful to Dr. Parker that he takes a chance and he's willing to go like 100% till it's done, until it's sought out, and he still looks to do more within our community. It's amazing to witness, to see, to watch it grow, to see how the kids react. I remember the first time at one of our meetings, we had kids come and they were just singing. And I was like, oh my gosh, like this is really gonna be, this is gonna be our norm. And that's that's what that's what we should want, and more. So to have that vision of looking forward and how I can do more, how we can do better is gonna be great for our community.
SPEAKER_05:And I think that's a really great example of the opportunity that having student board members is presenting. Um, you were still in school and you're sitting here helping shape the curriculum of students that are younger than yourself. And I just I think that blows me away. How long have you guys been doing the student board membership?
SPEAKER_01:Actually, um, we actually the board added this uh policy to provide for student board members in 2022, um, right when I got here. And so we've had a cohort of student board members every year since then, and um we uh have an application process. The board um conducts interviews and students can apply, but um, each of our three high schools, the early college, Paston Canada School, and Northeastern High School, um, students there can apply. There's some requirements and for the application. And uh moving into their senior year, we we um have students express their interest through application, they can apply, and then the board selects a representative from each high school and they serve one term as a non-voting uh member that's uh on the board. And so um board members are invited to community events, they come to monthly board meetings, um, they have an opportunity to share on behalf of their peers. Um, you know, this particular group here uh was able to um, you know, we had a we just it so happened that there was um some really great opportunities that came their way when they served. Uh as you remember, we hosted Governor Stein um last year at Passanate County High School for a visit. Um this group actually had an opportunity to meet the governor and uh talk with him, and they hosted the governor at this event and took a selfie with him. I think Ruby did, you know. So there's just some of the examples of the opportunities we really uh try to provide for student board members to be able to, as the group was saying, give them experiences that will help them network and interact with uh adults as they go into college or beyond.
SPEAKER_05:So we've talked about a lot of the changes that are happening within the school system, um, but there are a lot of changes happening just in our community in general. And I feel like a lot of people um have some questions and maybe even some current concerns about the fact that there's so many developments that are going in or have recently been approved for a rezone. And I was hoping maybe you could just address a little bit of the concerns about schools becoming overcapacity.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a great question. And uh the first thing I'll say is our um our official position on the zoning and the growth is that you know, we 100% defer to the city and the county on the appropriate uh zoning boards for making you know those decisions if things are approved. But what we have said is we support any growth that's approved from those governing bodies. Um, you know, we we believe that growth is good for the county, it's good for the public school system, and we see it as our responsibility to be able to accommodate the growth. Um, so if students or families move here, if developments are built, then it's our responsibility to work with uh the county, the city, and um to to be able to make the appropriate um accommodations. What I will say is that we have um we're working really hard right now to think about what that future looks like for for the schools in the in the in the county. As the public knows, um, out of our 12 operational schools right now, the majority of those schools were built before the 1950s. Chi Party was built in the early 1930s, and so we have a really significant um capital improvement need um that is gonna require us to really think about how we renovate our schools and do that over the next five to ten years, and that's gonna be a big commitment for our community, but I think it's one that's well needed and also um looking at where um people are gonna live and are there gonna be changes in um population patterns of where people live in the county, you know, and that's something that we're really trying to forecast. We're working with NC State right now to um complete a land use study and a population um projection of where um we can expect increases in student enrollment based on these developments, and that's gonna help us formulate uh longer term, both short-term and longer term capital improvement plan so that we make sure that we we accommodate the growth. So, you know, essentially what I would say is that anything that is approved by the city or county as a development, once it's approved, we're gonna lock in and figure out how to accommodate students. You know, and if families move to Pasco-Tank County, then we want to guarantee them that there'll be a spot for them, there'll be a place for them in the public school system. And we have a tuition-free, 100% constitutionally guaranteed school system. That's the public school system. And regardless of who moves here, it'll be here for those families.
SPEAKER_05:That's great. I'm glad to hear that. I think that'll put a lot of people's minds at ease to hear that. Um, I think that's been one of the biggest concerns with all of these developments going in, is people are worried about the school system. Um, so I think that'll put a lot of people's minds at ease. At least it puts my mind at ease to hear that you are so willing and accepting of any new students that may come your way.
SPEAKER_03:Uh I'd like to ask Dr. Parker, um school choice. Uh I'm not I'm not gonna ask anything about the politics of it, but it's a thing. Um when school choice now faces me as a parent, I have an opportunity to actually choose what I think might be the best educational path for for for my son or my daughter. Uh, what types of things today are are parents asking of you, looking for? What what is it? I know it's not a sales pitch. Maybe it is a sales pitch, but I'm not going to put you in that role. What do you tell parents? What are parents asking you? What is what's that conversation and what's that journey like when they're making that decision?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a great question, David. You know, I think the the thing that we say to parents is one, we have a huge amount of respect for um the fact that families should, could, and have to make choices about what is the best place for their child to learn. So one, at the end of the day, you know, we have total respect for the fact that families, it's their responsibility to make that decision. You know, where where is the best place for my child, um, be it homeschool, private school, school choice through charters, or for the public school system. Um, I think that's one thing. Um, but what I would say to families is the traditional public school system provides an array of opportunities. And the majority of the students in North Carolina, they walk into the front door of a public school every day. Um, that's true for the students in this county. And so, you know, public schools do public good. Um they're they're a hundred years old or more in this community. P.W. Moore, Elizabeth City High School were built in 1922, started construction in 1922. So for over a hundred years, we've had institutionalized, guaranteed by the state constitution public schools here. And so what public schools do is they become a heartbeat of the community and they allow students from all different types of backgrounds to be in one space together, to learn together, to play on teams together, um, to fail together, to have victories together. And when communities have highly functional, healthy public schools where a diverse range of students, both racially and socioeconomically, are under one roof, the whole community benefits. And so what we say to families is there's a tremendous amount of value for having that type of experience and perspective when students then go on to job, life, college, or service. And that's something that we provide to families is we have um we have a diverse school system. We have over 19 languages are spoken our school system from Spanish, English, Vietnamese. Um, and so we're a diverse school system. You know, there's a diverse array of thought, belief, and background, and that benefits, I think, students to have that kind of exposure in school. The other thing that we're working really hard to focus on is the quality of programming. And we recognize that, particularly with some of our urban neighbors in Virginia, we do compete with 1,000, 1,700 student uh high schools in some urban areas. And um, you know, if you have 1,800 students at a high school in Virginia and you've got, you know, 12 AP programs or advanced placement programs, you know, you you may be a family move into the area and you may research online and you may say, wow, I I'm gonna enroll my kid in that school. That's great. They have all of these things. And I'm not criticizing those schools. Those are great schools, and some of our um partners in Virginia. But what we're saying is um we don't have a high school with 1,800 kids. Here's what we do have we have a high school where if your child goes in that high school, by the time they graduate, probably sooner, every adult in that school likely is gonna know their name. If they need something, they can walk into a place and say, help me get this thing. And somebody's gonna help them right then. Um and so we bring um we bring some unseen things that are not necessarily right now communicated on the internet or when people search for us. We're working to make um a difference in the the marketing and communication, our partnership with Nicole and um her team has been transformational in that. Um, but there is this future I see in the short term for us, where we have massively increased the quality um of our programming, where we can compete with some of these urban Virginia partners, and we have the small family oriented schools. Um, and when the broader public really sees that, um I think we will continue to be the primary choice for choice for most families.
SPEAKER_03:Interesting. Well So we've talked about parents and that that choice. Um there's another there's w there are many facets to to this, but there's another side, and that is teachers. Um how is how are all the changes in education affecting teachers? I know nationally uh there's an attrition rate for teachers. Um and it's a good teacher. You guys you guys have talked about about the teachers that you have now and the teachers you had very glowingly, and that obviously you had a very good experience in many cases. But how does the school system, how does ECPPS uh attract uh talent for teachers? And what is what what's your attention like? What do you see in the future? What are the changes going on for people who want to get into the education field and how do you keep them?
SPEAKER_01:David, that's a great question. And I think that question um is something that this country is gonna have to grapple with if we as a country want to, in the decades ahead, have a national public school system. You can't have a world-class education system if you pay teachers the lowest of any industrialized country in the world. So as a country, we're gonna have to make choices. As a state, we're gonna have to make choices. You know, you may have seen recently some of the reports that were released that now move North Carolina as 50 out of 51 in the nation on expenditures for um purple per pupil expenditures in the United States. Um we rank between 45, 46, 47 in teacher pay. Um, you know, we just have to do better. And we expect so much out of our teachers. And there's such a call to action and a high responsibility that we place on them. Um, the least we can do is to treat them through compensation as the professionals they are. So I worry about the future of the teaching profession if North Carolina in particular doesn't um rally as a state to be able to be competitive, um, to recruit the highest talent, but also to keep them in the field. And so, you know, I'm really concerned about that. Um, I'm concerned for the country, you know, if we don't rally that, you know, there's a couple of things at play here. One is, you know, families really have three choices now of where they send their kids to school. Um, North Carolina public school doll public tax dollars support private schools through voucher programs. Um we have charter school options and we have the traditional public school option. Um looking at just what I see of North Carolina's budget and budgets across the country, it does not seem likely that North Carolina will be able to fully fund three school options uh in the decades ahead. And so we just have to be more competitive to families to retain students because if we lose students, we lose teaching positions. And so that's one of the driving forces that is in our um strategy to bring quality programming to families is so that we do continue to be the best choice for them. But to the the question about teachers, um, one of the things that we're doing right now is um we have a uh we qualify for a particular uh teacher stipend and bonus that the state provides to our county and some other counties. And so many of our teachers receive um a around a$3,000 bonus from the state that we give them. And then we also, for many of our teachers, award a$1,500 to$2,000 bonus each year. That's one thing when we're working to be even more competitive locally on pay. And we have launched over the past two years a program called Advanced Teaching Roles, and it allows for some of our best teachers to move into advanced teaching roles and they become, they can move into positions called master classroom leaders, MCLs. And if these teachers become MCLs, then they spend half their day teaching, but then they also spend half their day working with a team of teachers through coaching, developing, training those teachers. And um for our MCLs, we um provide them anywhere from eight to twelve thousand dollars in additional compensation. So through some of these creative models, uh, we're working internally to be more competitive. Um, because when we get a talented teacher, we want to keep that person, we want to pay them as much as we can, and we want to expand their reach as far as we can to other students and other teachers. And so we're thinking about that. Um, in 2022, when I first came to the district, I think we had in the summer around 40 teaching vacancies. Just in perspective, we have about a little over 800 staff members in the district, have about 450 teachers. Um, in 22, when I got here, there was a there was over 40 teaching vacancies. Um, right now we're in the single digits. Uh, haven't looked at the job board um in the last week, but I think we're around four core teaching vacancies right now. So we've significantly reduced our vacancies, but a part of that has been through um local compensation um, through the advanced teaching role, but then also creating career advancement opportunities for our teachers so that they see that there is a career path in Elizabeth City for them if they stay in the profession.
SPEAKER_03:That that that impacts retention and uh it help uh if I was an educator, um it would give me uh a pathway to improve my my skill sets and improve as an as a as a contributor to society. Um I know of two instances, not in this market, and I want to ask you about them. One is an individual who I went to high school with, she lives on the other side of the state, she retired, but she's back teaching. So they're they're asking seniors to come back. And I'm not not begging, she wants to teach, so they brought her back. My brother, he's three years older than I am, he's a retired Air Force colonel. Um, he also has a um he's he's a nurse and he's uh got a music degree, and he's he's actually teaching music in Texas. Uh I don't know if it's full-time or part-time, but he isn't uh he's officially teaching. So we're bringing seniors back in those situations. Is anything like that occurring uh in in this district? Um, have you seen the need for that? How do you feel about bringing people from the outside in?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a great question. There's there's a lot of energy and movement with what you're talking about here in North Carolina and across the country right now. North Carolina is um piloting this initiative called Teacher Apprenticeships, and it allows for non-degree, non-credentialed folks to be able to come into the teaching field and be able to get the credentialing to be able to be teachers and receive compensation like a teacher would. And so I think that in the years ahead, I think that will really become an option for people to enter the field. That can happen right now with us. So, for example, um, a couple of areas I'll give you an example of. We have some restart schools in the district, River Road, um PW Moore, and Elizabeth City Middle or restart schools, and they can hire um folks to teach courses that have um bachelor's degrees or more, but may not have a teaching degree or certification, and they can teach there because of that restart flexibility. I do think North Carolina, I think there's some appetite to explore expanding that restart flexibility in a in a in a larger context in the years ahead. So I think you'll probably see that. Um one example of how the micro school is leading innovation in this uh area is um the PE teachers that teach health and physical education for the students in the microschool are Rick Anderson and his team. They're not certified licensed teachers, but they provide the physical education through a partnership that we have with them. Um the music classes and the theater and the fine arts for students in the micro school comes from a partnership with Arts of the Albemarle and um local musicians and artists that work with the kids right now. The kids in the micro school are um practicing to put on a production. Um, I think Charlie Brown, your good man Charlie Brown, I think is what they're um going to put on in January. And they've learned that at AOA from local artists that have worked with them, but not a teacher. And so I do think there's this expanding energy around how to get people that have a passion and an ability to work with young people that can contribute, but they didn't go to school for four years to be a teacher. What role do they play? And um, how can you get them in the profession to engage with with young people? It's happening here with us, but I think you're going to see a broader uh kind of expansion of those entry points for people in in the years ahead. Because I think, you know, uh higher higher ed is going through the same thing we are. It's you don't you don't have to go to a college of education to figure out how to teach kids anymore. You know, so that's not me being critical of higher ed and colleges of ed, because there's huge value actually in doing that. But it's not the only pathway anymore. And I think um North Carolina and states like ours are really trying to grapple with this apprenticeship model where you can get folks into um the profession without necessarily having to go through the traditional credentialing. It's in this infancy, I think, in North Carolina, but I really do think you're going to see some traction and some energy over the years ahead with that. Cool.
SPEAKER_05:That is awesome. Um, there have been so many amazing improvements. I cannot wait to see how that all plays out over the next five to ten years. I can't wait to see what the three of you guys do in the next five to ten years. You guys have been so impressive. Um, I want to thank all of you guys for coming on to our podcast today. It's been a delight to have hearing everyone's perspectives. So thank you all so much for coming on, and thank you to all of our listeners. Please sure to check in again uh in the new year for another episode of Voices of the Albumorall.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you. Happy holidays all happy holidays. Thank you.