Invest in Excellence

Dear Parents and Families of the Lake Norman Charter Community:

On behalf of the LNC High School faculty and staff, I sincerely hope you and your student(s) are having a successful and enjoyable 2015-2016 school year.  I am honored to serve as your Interim Principal of the High School and your encouragement and support have been tremendous.

Hopefully, you are aware of our current Invest in Excellence campaign and I wanted to take a moment to share how our Community's support will potentially impact all of our students, Grades 5 - 12.  The goals outlined in our Invest in Excellence were determined as a direct result of stakeholder surveys last spring.  Through a successful campaign, we hope to accomplish our goals.

We recognize the need to improve traffic entering and exiting the Lake Norman Charter campus.  Earlier this year, we were able to make some minor, yet extremely beneficial, adjustments.  This included, but was not limited to, beginning carpool 15 minutes earlier in the morning.  These adjustments were met with enthusiasm and appreciation by our families and the citizens of Huntersville.  One goal of the Invest in Excellence campaign is to build a secondary campus road between the high school and Verhoeff Drive.  This location is already indicated by our displayed "Future Entrance" signage on campus.  A secondary access will dramatically decrease congestion and more importantly, improve campus safety.  Additionally, the project will add over 100 extra parking spaces at the high school, allowing many more students to obtain parking passes and drive to school.

Realigning and possibly adding counseling personnel will immediately strengthen our ability to meet the needs of every student with both academic and emotional needs.  Currently, we have two counselors assigned to 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students.  We also have a shared Transition Counselor who works with 8th and 9th graders.  For the sake of "clean math", let's assume we have exactly 200 students in each grade level: Each 10-12th counselor is aligned with 300 students; the Transition Counselor has 400.  If we are able to allocate three full-time counselors at the high school, the student-counselor ratio decreases to 266:1.  Needless to say, this drastic increase in personalized attention would benefit every single LNC student.

Finally, our third identified goal directly impacts student learning on a daily basis.  We need to modernize our instructional technology, specifically our Smartboards.  We are extremely priviledged to have been able to provide a Smartboard in every classroom since the high school was constructed.  Yet, we also must recognize the need to properly update and replace these devices when necessary, allowing our teachers to continue to enhance their instructional strategies and our student's engagement.

Your support, in addition to our collaborative efforts aligned with the Lake Norman Charter Strategic Plan, will continue instilling our students "with a life-long desire to learn, lead, and serve."  I ask you to join us and your fellow LNC families to Invest in Excellence [hyperlinked].

Thank you for reading.

Yours in education,

Craig Smith
Interim Principal, High School
Lake Norman Charter
csmith@lncharter.org
704-875-3389
@CSmithGoBlue

The opinions shared in this blog belong to Craig Smith and do not represent the school or district in which he works.