Charlotte Country Day School
Encyclopedia
Charlotte Country Day School is a private
, secular school in Charlotte
, North Carolina
, with classes in grades Kindergarten
-12
. A junior kindergarten program is also offered. Applications to the school are reviewed on the basis of character, intellectual ability, emotional maturity, curiosity, and breadth of interests. The school does not discriminate on the basis of religion, race, color, handicap, or national or ethnic origin in its admissions program.
Charlotte Country Day is located on two campuses, which cover a combined 113 acre (0.45729518 km²). Cannon Campus is the main campus and home to the Lower School (grades JK-4) and the Upper School (grades 9-12), as well as administrative offices. Bissell Campus, located on Green Rea Road, is designed specifically for the education and development of Middle School (grades 5-8) students.
from the Aiken School in South Carolina. This acquisition qualified Country Day for accreditation under the guidelines of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
. In September 1960, the school began holding classes on the current site of Cannon Campus. In 1979, Carmel Academy partnered with Country Day, merging with CCDS soon thereafter, and its former campus became the Bissell Campus. Grades 5
through 8
are taught at this site. Country Day became an International Baccalaureate World School in August, 1992.
Key Values
Educational Excellence
We develop a love for learning by discovering and celebrating each student's abilities and talents through engagement with exceptional teachers in distinctive academic, artistic, athletic, and extracurricular experiences.
Character
We instill and expect integrity, honesty, moral courage, personal accountability, and compassion for others.
Community
We respect each individual, embrace diversity, and value the relationships uniting us as a school and connecting us with our local and global communities.
Service
We empower our students to address social, environmental, and global issues and to realize the obligation and value in giving of themselves for the public good.
and 9
-12 has 15 buildings, including a full-service dining hall, two libraries, a 400-seat theater, two reading gardens, and multiple computer labs. The main (Cannon) campus is highly "wired," with Wi-Fi
capability throughout most of the Upper School, and high speed Internet connections in all classrooms and computer lab
s. Cannon Campus has about 700 computers, not including personal laptop computers; school laptops are available for check-out and school-provided laptops are provided for teachers.
The newest building is the Hance Fine Arts Center, completed in August 2004. It features four visual arts studios (out of one of which an observer can see the entire campus from the upper level floor-to-ceiling windows), a photography lab, a ceramics/3-D art studio (including the teaching of metallurgy and jewelry-making), a blackbox theater, a two-story dance studio, six soundproof music studios, and six classrooms.
The campus houses the Bruton Smith Athletic Center, which has 3 full-sized basketball courts, a weight room, and a 4-lane indoor track. There is also a training and rehabilitation center. Sports facilities on Cannon Campus include 2 baseball fields, 2 fields used for P.E.
and miscellaneous sports, a gymnasium, and a full length football field and track.
Lower School students have two playgrounds, an imagination garden, recently renovated art classrooms designed for small children, two dedicated science lab/classrooms, foreign language classrooms for the teaching of Spanish and French, and a community garden that provides organic produce to the dining hall.
Other amenities include a sound system that allows for "town meetings," lectures, assemblies, and cheerleading routines. The 7th
and 8th grade hallways and the school bookstore are built into the gymnasium's structure, providing space for the higher two grades. Fifth and 6th graders
receive instruction in Rea Hall, which also is home to the school offices and nurse.
Elsewhere on Bissell Campus, the Sklut Center has two art rooms, the cafeteria
, a computer lab, and the general music room. A separate building is dedicated entirely to the natural sciences. The campus also has 3 locker rooms, a playground
, blacktop, and basketball courts.
Classroom teachers use an inquiry-based curriculum. Each grade level completes four units of inquiry during a school year, each lasting approximately four to six weeks. The units provide opportunities for students to apply and use skills learned in other curricular areas and formulate questions and investigate important aspects of history, geography, economics, environmental science, literature and the arts, and technology. Each unit is based on a central idea that is key to understanding the world in which we all live. Special area and classroom teachers work together to ensure these units of inquiry cross many subject areas and maximize opportunities for students to make connections across and between disciplines.
At the end of fourth grade, students take part in “Exhibition,” which is a culminating group research project using the inquiry skills students have learned while in the Lower School, specifically to question, plan, gather, sort, synthesize, and evaluate.
Since 1991, seventh and eighth grade students have been separated by gender for math instruction. In eighth grade, the social studies curriculum is dedicated to 20th Century American history.
from Charlotte Country Day School, a student must have (in the Upper School):
School Mascot: Buccaneer
School Colors: Green, Black, and White
Each year, "Spirit Week", a competition between all grades of the Upper School, is held (usually on a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday). Each grade promotes a different theme daily. Wednesday is also "Can-Do" day, when students bring in cans to benefit local charities such as the Second Harvest Food Bank. Decoration Day, on Friday, concludes with a dance for each grade, the decoration and design of which is left to the individual grade levels.
Head of Upper School: Matthew Less
Head of Middle School: Warren Sepkowitz
Head of Lower School: Margaret P. Otey
Director of Advancement: Lauren Batten
Director of Athletics: Amos Branson
Director of Admissions: Nancy Ehringhaus
Director of Diversity Planning: Brian Wise
Chief Financial Officer: David Mancos
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
, secular school in Charlotte
CHARLOTTE
- CHARLOTTE :CHARLOTTE is an American blues-based hard rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1986. Currently, they are signed to indie label, Eonian Records, under which they released their debut cd, Medusa Groove, in 2010. Notable Charlotte songs include 'Siren', 'Little Devils',...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, with classes in grades Kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...
-12
Twelfth grade
Twelfth grade or Senior year, or Grade Twelve, are the North American names for the final year of secondary school. In most countries students then graduate at age 17 or 18. In some countries, there is a thirteenth grade, while other countries do not have a 12th grade/year at all...
. A junior kindergarten program is also offered. Applications to the school are reviewed on the basis of character, intellectual ability, emotional maturity, curiosity, and breadth of interests. The school does not discriminate on the basis of religion, race, color, handicap, or national or ethnic origin in its admissions program.
Charlotte Country Day is located on two campuses, which cover a combined 113 acre (0.45729518 km²). Cannon Campus is the main campus and home to the Lower School (grades JK-4) and the Upper School (grades 9-12), as well as administrative offices. Bissell Campus, located on Green Rea Road, is designed specifically for the education and development of Middle School (grades 5-8) students.
History
Founded in 1941 by Dr. Thomas Burton, the school faced initial problems in securing a permanent location large enough to house its student body; they were eventually solved. By July 1944, the school was able to buy a 2,000—volume libraryLibrary
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
from the Aiken School in South Carolina. This acquisition qualified Country Day for accreditation under the guidelines of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools is one of the six regional accreditation organizations recognized by the United States Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation...
. In September 1960, the school began holding classes on the current site of Cannon Campus. In 1979, Carmel Academy partnered with Country Day, merging with CCDS soon thereafter, and its former campus became the Bissell Campus. Grades 5
Fifth grade
Fifth grade is a year of education in the United States and many other nations. The fifth grade is the fifth school year after kindergarten. Students are usually 10 – 11 years old, and are preteens...
through 8
Eighth grade
Eighth grade is a year of education in the United States, Canada, Australia and other nations. Students are usually 13 - 14 years old. The eighth grade is typically the final grade before high school, and the ninth grade of public and private education, following kindergarten and subsequent grades...
are taught at this site. Country Day became an International Baccalaureate World School in August, 1992.
Mission
Through excellence in education, Charlotte Country Day School develops the potential of each student by fostering intellectual curiosity, principled character, ethical leadership, and a responsibility to serve.Key Values
Educational Excellence
We develop a love for learning by discovering and celebrating each student's abilities and talents through engagement with exceptional teachers in distinctive academic, artistic, athletic, and extracurricular experiences.
Character
We instill and expect integrity, honesty, moral courage, personal accountability, and compassion for others.
Community
We respect each individual, embrace diversity, and value the relationships uniting us as a school and connecting us with our local and global communities.
Service
We empower our students to address social, environmental, and global issues and to realize the obligation and value in giving of themselves for the public good.
Cannon Campus
Cannon Campus for grades JK-4Fourth grade
Fourth grade is a year of education in the United States and many other nations. The fourth grade is the fourth school year after kindergarten. Students are usually 9 or 10 years old, depending on their birthday. It is a part of elementary school. In some parts of the United States, fourth grade...
and 9
Ninth grade
Ninth grade is the ninth post-kindergarten year of school education in some school systems. The students are 13 to 15 years of age, depending on when their birthday occurs. Depending on the school district, ninth grade is usually the first year of high school....
-12 has 15 buildings, including a full-service dining hall, two libraries, a 400-seat theater, two reading gardens, and multiple computer labs. The main (Cannon) campus is highly "wired," with Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
capability throughout most of the Upper School, and high speed Internet connections in all classrooms and computer lab
Computer lab
A computer lab, also known as a computer suite or computer cluster is typically a room which contains many networked computers for public use...
s. Cannon Campus has about 700 computers, not including personal laptop computers; school laptops are available for check-out and school-provided laptops are provided for teachers.
The newest building is the Hance Fine Arts Center, completed in August 2004. It features four visual arts studios (out of one of which an observer can see the entire campus from the upper level floor-to-ceiling windows), a photography lab, a ceramics/3-D art studio (including the teaching of metallurgy and jewelry-making), a blackbox theater, a two-story dance studio, six soundproof music studios, and six classrooms.
The campus houses the Bruton Smith Athletic Center, which has 3 full-sized basketball courts, a weight room, and a 4-lane indoor track. There is also a training and rehabilitation center. Sports facilities on Cannon Campus include 2 baseball fields, 2 fields used for P.E.
Physical education
Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
and miscellaneous sports, a gymnasium, and a full length football field and track.
Lower School students have two playgrounds, an imagination garden, recently renovated art classrooms designed for small children, two dedicated science lab/classrooms, foreign language classrooms for the teaching of Spanish and French, and a community garden that provides organic produce to the dining hall.
Bissell Campus
Bissell Campus, where CCDS students in grades 5-8 attend classes, underwent extensive renovations in 2009. The 23000 square feet (2,136.8 m²) Dowd Science Building was completed, which added eight science lecture/lab classrooms and two general purpose classrooms. The old science building was renovated to create six foreign language classrooms. Grounds enhancements included a new entryway and fencing, a new front courtyard, and new tennis courts and practice fields.Other amenities include a sound system that allows for "town meetings," lectures, assemblies, and cheerleading routines. The 7th
Seventh grade
Seventh grade is a year of education in the United States and many other nations. The seventh grade is the seventh school year after kindergarten. Students are usually 12–13 years old. Traditionally, seventh grade was the next-to-last year of elementary school...
and 8th grade hallways and the school bookstore are built into the gymnasium's structure, providing space for the higher two grades. Fifth and 6th graders
Sixth grade
Sixth grade is a year of education in the United States and some other nations. The sixth grade is the sixth school year after kindergarten. Students are usually 11 – 12 years old...
receive instruction in Rea Hall, which also is home to the school offices and nurse.
Elsewhere on Bissell Campus, the Sklut Center has two art rooms, the cafeteria
Cafeteria
A cafeteria is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a school dining location is also referred to as a dining hall or canteen...
, a computer lab, and the general music room. A separate building is dedicated entirely to the natural sciences. The campus also has 3 locker rooms, a playground
Playground
A playground or play area is a place with a specific design for children be able to play there. It may be indoors but is typically outdoors...
, blacktop, and basketball courts.
Lower School
Each classroom in the Lower School includes two teachers for 20-24 students. Students also regularly visit special area classrooms for instruction in the arts (visual, music, dance, and theater), science, computer technology, foreign languages (French and Spanish), information literacy, and physical education.Classroom teachers use an inquiry-based curriculum. Each grade level completes four units of inquiry during a school year, each lasting approximately four to six weeks. The units provide opportunities for students to apply and use skills learned in other curricular areas and formulate questions and investigate important aspects of history, geography, economics, environmental science, literature and the arts, and technology. Each unit is based on a central idea that is key to understanding the world in which we all live. Special area and classroom teachers work together to ensure these units of inquiry cross many subject areas and maximize opportunities for students to make connections across and between disciplines.
At the end of fourth grade, students take part in “Exhibition,” which is a culminating group research project using the inquiry skills students have learned while in the Lower School, specifically to question, plan, gather, sort, synthesize, and evaluate.
Middle School
The student to teacher ratio in middle school is 16:1. In fifth and sixth grade, students take a combined language arts/social studies class, math, science, either French or Spanish, visual art, drama, a choice of band, orchestra, or general music, and daily PE. In seventh and eighth-grade, students take English, social studies, math, science, and PE. They also take a two-year foreign language sequence that is the equivalent of Level 1 in high school. French, Spanish, and Latin are offered. Each year, approximately 25-30 students choose to study Latin in addition to French or Spanish. In seventh grade, students also choose a fine arts area in which to concentrate: choosing between visual art, choir, orchestra, band or drama.Since 1991, seventh and eighth grade students have been separated by gender for math instruction. In eighth grade, the social studies curriculum is dedicated to 20th Century American history.
Upper School
In order to graduateGraduation
Graduation is the action of receiving or conferring an academic degree or the ceremony that is sometimes associated, where students become Graduates. Before the graduation, candidates are referred to as Graduands. The date of graduation is often called degree day. The graduation itself is also...
from Charlotte Country Day School, a student must have (in the Upper School):
- 4 English credits
- 2 foreign language credits (in the same language)
- 3 mathematicsMathematicsMathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
credits - 3 social studiesSocial studiesSocial studies is the "integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence," as defined by the American National Council for the Social Studies...
credits (World Cultures, European History, and American History) - 3 natural science credits (Biology and two more lab sciences)
- 1.5 fine arts credits
- 2 additional elective courses
- 2 P.E. credits per year, for a total of 8 credits
School spirit
School Motto: Fortitudine Ac Pietate (With Courage and Reverence)School Mascot: Buccaneer
School Colors: Green, Black, and White
Each year, "Spirit Week", a competition between all grades of the Upper School, is held (usually on a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday). Each grade promotes a different theme daily. Wednesday is also "Can-Do" day, when students bring in cans to benefit local charities such as the Second Harvest Food Bank. Decoration Day, on Friday, concludes with a dance for each grade, the decoration and design of which is left to the individual grade levels.
Sustainability Initiatives
- Joined the Green Schools Alliance as a charter member school, the first school in the North Carolina area.
- Participated in the Green Schools Alliance “Green Cup Challenge” and lowered electrical consumption by 10.6%.
- Participated in Turn Off the Lights Week and Light Bulb Giveaway Weeks.
- Established an Environmental Stewardship Committee representing academics, operations, and administration.
- Created a student-directed paper, can, and bottle recycling program in grades JK–12.
- Formed student-led Environmental Clubs in Lower, Middle, and Upper School.
- Hosted notable environmental speakers such as filmmaker and environmental activist Jeff Barrie; National Geographic photographer, Joel Sartore; and author Daniel Quinn.
- Initiated international service learning projects with an environmental focus in Costa Rica and Mexico.
Administration
Head of School: Mark E. ReedHead of Upper School: Matthew Less
Head of Middle School: Warren Sepkowitz
Head of Lower School: Margaret P. Otey
Director of Advancement: Lauren Batten
Director of Athletics: Amos Branson
Director of Admissions: Nancy Ehringhaus
Director of Diversity Planning: Brian Wise
Chief Financial Officer: David Mancos
Notable alumni
- Molly Barker - Founder of Girls on the RunGirls on the RunGirls on the Run is a North American non-profit program that works to encourage pre-teen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through participation in running programs...
, which got its start in 1996 on the Charlotte Country Day track
- Ed CashEd CashEd Cash is a producer, songwriter, engineer, and multi-instrumentalist. He was named the “Producer of the Year” at the Gospel Music Awards for four consecutive years and gains recognition for his work with Christian singer, Chris Tomlin...
- Christian music singer, songwriter, musician, and producer; he has earned multiple Grammy nominations, as well as BMI Christian Music Awards, and Gospel Music Association Dove Awards
- Mike CoferMike CoferJames Michael Cofer , is a former professional American football player who attended Charlotte Country Day School. A 6'2", . placekicker from North Carolina State University, Cofer kicked in the National Football League for 8 seasons from 1987–1993 and 1995...
- Former American footballAmerican footballAmerican football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
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- Award-winning American television soap opera script writer
- Ross McElweeRoss McElweeRoss McElwee is an American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer, and Harvard professor, known for his autobiographical films about his family and personal life, usually interwoven with an episodic journey of some sort. Many cultural aspects of his southern upbringing are present in his...
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, National Board of Film Critics Five Best Films of 1986, and selected for preservation by the Library of Congress National Film RegistryNational Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
for its historical significance
- Alvin PearmanAlvin PearmanFrancis Alvin Pearman, II is an American football running back who is currently a free agent, having last played for the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League. He was drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the fourth round of the 2005 NFL Draft...
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. Previous teams include the Jacksonville JaguarsJacksonville JaguarsThe Jacksonville Jaguars are a professional American football team based in Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. They are currently members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
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.
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- President and CEO of Speedway Motorsports, Inc.
- Frank WhitneyFrank DeArmon WhitneyFor the 19th-century baseball player, see Frank Whitney .Frank DeArmon Whitney is a United States federal judge.-Biography:...
- Federal district judge for Western North Carolina