Wednesday, August 20, 2008
North Cross School is aiming for diverse student body
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If you're driving along Electric Road near its intersection with Colonial Avenue in Roanoke County, it's easy to miss the small private school tucked behind a shopping center. Although North Cross School has been around since 1961, its overall profile in most of the area has been rather low.
Tim Seeley wants to change that. As he embarks on his first full year as headmaster, he's trying to spread the word about the school, an independent co-educational institution which, last year, enrolled roughly 500 students.
Specifically, Seeley is trying to recruit students who have not in the past been very well represented at the school: minorities, students from surrounding counties or students from lower-income families, who may not be able to afford the school's tuition, which ranges from $6,575 to $11,250 a year. The school will give out roughly $564,000 in financial aid this year, up from about $351,000 last year. More students have also applied for financial aid this year, perhaps a reflection of the economic downturn.
"Our ability to be a resource for the community as a whole is a lot greater than people realize," he said. "What we're really trying to do is not to be a school for the elites, in the negative sense."
North Cross recently got a $100,000 gift targeted to help minority students attend the school. It has also hired a retired teacher from Roanoke public schools to serve as a mentor to its minority students.
The effort seems to be paying off. Minorities will make up about 20 percent of the student body this year, up from 10 percent four years ago.
Some of the school's new students have struggled in public schools, Seeley said. But they showed enough potential that North Cross teachers thought they would do well in the school's small classes.
"It's a very satisfying conversation to sit with a young man and with his mom and say, 'You impressed us,' " Seeley said.
As in any college preparatory school, the goal is to send students to college. North Cross says it sends all of its graduates on to a four-year college. Some of them, Seeley said, are the first in their families to go to college.
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Roanoke school buses have been involved in more accidents than previously thought. A letter from Deputy Superintendent Curt Baker sent to parents earlier this month said that the school system's buses were involved in 28 accidents last year, 11 more than the school system had reported to the Virginia Department of Education.
Although none of the accidents caused an injury, the accidents caused roughly $35,000 in property damage. The school system found that 18 accidents were the fault of the school bus driver and 10 were the fault of another driver.
In 2006-07, the school system underreported the number of accidents to the state by 14 accidents.
Baker wrote that the school system has hired trainers to instruct drivers on safe driving.
Officials are also offering a monetary bonus for safe drivers and have bought a new computerized routing system.
Most of the school system's fleet of 146 buses run every school day. This year, many school bus routes will change as the school system moves from three start times to two.
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Two Roanoke elementary schools are starting the year with new principals. Jeanette Warwick will lead Westside Elementary School and Judy Lackey will take over at Fishburn Park Elementary School. Warwick is a product of the city school system having attended Westside and graduated from William Fleming High School. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Radford University and has worked as a teacher and administrator in the Roanoke and Montgomery County school systems.
Lackey has worked in Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina. For the past two years she's served as assistant principal at James Madison Middle School
