Ligon Middle School
Encyclopedia
John W. Ligon GT Magnet Middle School is a public magnet
middle school in the Wake County Public School System
located in the Chavis Heights neighborhood of Raleigh, North Carolina
.
After the racial integration
period, Ligon heavily promoted diversity, which is still part of its goal. As of 2007, there were 157 Asian students (~15%), 376 African-American students (~36%), 496 White students (~47%), and 17 Hispanic students (~1%). In addition, students' differences in income and class are shown by the 24% of the school which gets reduced price or free lunches.
, consistently ranked among the best high schools in the United States.
, Science
, and Social Studies
course each year, as well as two quarters of either a dance or physical education course. Students in the sixth grade are required to take Ligon Way, a course introducing students to middle school, and either Computer Skills or Keyboarding.
, Spanish
, German
, French
, Japanese
, and American Sign Language, plus standard sports, e.g. Soccer, Basketball
, and Tennis
, and electives that can be as specific as Flash
software and Visual Basic
programming. Many electives involve students in running the school, such as technical theater, yearbook, and LTV (Ligon Television).
Unlike most middle schools, who only have ten or so electives, Ligon has about 300 electives. Students can take three electives per quarter, unless they are taking semester-long, or year-long electives.
, band
, dance
, chorus
, and acting
.
Two of Ligon's string orchestras, Silver Strings and Ligon Philharmonic, will perform in Carnegie Hall, New York City, NY this April. They will also be performing at Crabtree Valley Mall on Saturday April 9th. Silver Strings concertmaster is Gordon Ma and second chair is Rebecca Shen. Mrs. Ruth A. Johnsen is the conductor of both orchestras, along with Apprentice Orchestra.
.
Ligon's sports teams include:
Quidditch is a new afterschool sports club that has been added in the 2010-11 school year.
In the 2009-2010 season, Ligon's football team went undefeated.
club to the MathCounts
club. These usually meet once a week, but it depends on the club.
There is also VisPro (Visual Production / Computer Club) and Art Club meeting on Tuesday afternoons. In 2009-10, Ligon created the Chain Links club in response to Rachel's Challenge
.
Calvin Deng ('09) took home fourth place from the national math competition MathCounts
.
Ligon's Science Olympiad
varsity team got second place (2011) at reigonals. They will compete in State competition.
At the end of each year, LSC has Student Body Executive Board Elections.
Magnet school
In education in the United States, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities as school zones that feed into certain schools.There are magnet schools at the...
middle school in the Wake County Public School System
Wake County Public School System
The Wake County Public School System is a public school district located in Wake County, North Carolina. With 143,289 students enrolled in 163 schools as of the 2010/11 academic year, it is the largest public school district in North Carolina and the 17th largest district in the United States.-...
located in the Chavis Heights neighborhood of Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...
.
History
Ligon was founded in 1954, right after the US Supreme Court's ruling on the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education, as an all African-American high school though it has since been integrated. In the 1980s, the school became a middle school. The school has undergone major renovations, including the building of new hallways, a baseball field, and more classrooms.Demographics
Racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
period, Ligon heavily promoted diversity, which is still part of its goal. As of 2007, there were 157 Asian students (~15%), 376 African-American students (~36%), 496 White students (~47%), and 17 Hispanic students (~1%). In addition, students' differences in income and class are shown by the 24% of the school which gets reduced price or free lunches.
School Awards
- 2004 Magnet School of Distinction
- 2005 Magnet School of Excellence
- 2006 Magnet School of Excellence
- 2008 Magnet School of Excellence
- 2009 Magnet School of Excellence
- 2010 Magnet School of Excellence
- 2010 Football Conference Champions
Chapters
Ligon belongs to multiple school related organizations. Among them are:- FCCLA
- National Junior Honor Society
- Tri-MTri-MTri-M Music Honor Society, formerly known as Modern Music Masters, is a high school and middle school music honor society. Each school has its own chapter, which is run by the students but supervised by an advisor or sponsor, usually a school teacher...
Music Honor Society
Curriculum
In Wake County, Ligon is known for its wide variety of elective choices and extracurricular activities. A large number of its NC state-identified Academically Gifted students go on to Enloe High SchoolEnloe High School
The William G. Enloe GT/IB Center for the Humanities, Sciences, and the Arts, more commonly called Enloe High School , is a Wake County public magnet, Gifted & Talented, and International Baccalaureate high school located in east Raleigh, North Carolina. The school is named after William Gillmore...
, consistently ranked among the best high schools in the United States.
Mandatory Courses
Students at Ligon are required to take a Math, Language ArtsLanguage arts
Traditionally, the primary divisions in the language arts are Literature and Language, where language in this case refers to both linguistics, and specific languages....
, Science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, and Social Studies
Social studies
Social 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...
course each year, as well as two quarters of either a dance or physical education course. Students in the sixth grade are required to take Ligon Way, a course introducing students to middle school, and either Computer Skills or Keyboarding.
Electives
Ligon has many extracurricular courses and electives. These include foreign languages, which include ChineseChinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and American Sign Language, plus standard sports, e.g. Soccer, Basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, and Tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
, and electives that can be as specific as Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
software and Visual Basic
Visual Basic
Visual Basic is the third-generation event-driven programming language and integrated development environment from Microsoft for its COM programming model...
programming. Many electives involve students in running the school, such as technical theater, yearbook, and LTV (Ligon Television).
Unlike most middle schools, who only have ten or so electives, Ligon has about 300 electives. Students can take three electives per quarter, unless they are taking semester-long, or year-long electives.
Performing arts
Ligon offers multiple courses in orchestraOrchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
, band
School band
A school band is a group of student musicians who rehearse and perform instrumental music together. A concert band is usually under the direction of one or more conductors...
, dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
, chorus
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
, and acting
Acting
Acting is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play....
.
Two of Ligon's string orchestras, Silver Strings and Ligon Philharmonic, will perform in Carnegie Hall, New York City, NY this April. They will also be performing at Crabtree Valley Mall on Saturday April 9th. Silver Strings concertmaster is Gordon Ma and second chair is Rebecca Shen. Mrs. Ruth A. Johnsen is the conductor of both orchestras, along with Apprentice Orchestra.
Sports
Ligon's mascot is the Little Blues, although some call them the LynxLynx
A lynx is any of the four Lynx genus species of medium-sized wildcats. The name "lynx" originated in Middle English via Latin from Greek word "λύγξ", derived from the Indo-European root "*leuk-", meaning "light, brightness", in reference to the luminescence of its reflective eyes...
.
Ligon's sports teams include:
- VolleyballVolleyballVolleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
- SoftballSoftballSoftball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
- 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...
- Men's and Women's Soccer
- BaseballBaseballBaseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
- Men's and Women's BasketballBasketballBasketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
- Roller HockeyRoller hockeyRoller Hockey is a form of hockey played on a dry surface using skates with wheels. The term "Roller Hockey" is often used interchangeably to refer to two variant forms chiefly differentiated by the type of skate used. There is traditional "Roller Hockey," played with quad roller skates, and...
- Track and FieldTrack and fieldTrack and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
- CheerleadingCheerleadingCheerleading is a physical activity, sometimes a competitive sport, based on organized routines, usually ranging from one to three minutes, which contain the components of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers, and stunting to direct spectators of events to cheer on sports teams at games or to participate...
Quidditch is a new afterschool sports club that has been added in the 2010-11 school year.
In the 2009-2010 season, Ligon's football team went undefeated.
Clubs
Besides sports, Ligon has a wide variety of after-school clubs that meet regularly. They range from the Japanese animeAnime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
club to the MathCounts
MathCounts
Mathcounts is a middle school mathematics competition held in the United States. Its founding sponsors include the CNA Foundation, the National Society of Professional Engineers, and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The competition is designed for sixth, seventh, and eighth...
club. These usually meet once a week, but it depends on the club.
There is also VisPro (Visual Production / Computer Club) and Art Club meeting on Tuesday afternoons. In 2009-10, Ligon created the Chain Links club in response to Rachel's Challenge
Rachel's Challenge
Rachel's Challenge is a non-profit, non-religious, non-political organization. It is led by Rachel Scott's father, Darrell, along with Rachel Scott's step-mom, Sandy.-Darrell Scott and Rachel's Challenge:...
.
Competitions
Shantan Krovvidi, ('10) went to the National Geography Bee after winning the North Carolina state competition. On 19 May 2009, Shantan qualified for the final round. On 20 May 2009, Shantan took third place in the final round, winning ten thousand dollars redeemable for college.Calvin Deng ('09) took home fourth place from the national math competition MathCounts
MathCounts
Mathcounts is a middle school mathematics competition held in the United States. Its founding sponsors include the CNA Foundation, the National Society of Professional Engineers, and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The competition is designed for sixth, seventh, and eighth...
.
Ligon's Science Olympiad
Science Olympiad
Science Olympiad is an American elementary, middle, or high school team competition which tests knowledge of various science topics and engineering ability. Over 6,200 teams from 49 U.S. states compete each year. Most teams compete in three levels of competition: regionals, states, and nationals...
varsity team got second place (2011) at reigonals. They will compete in State competition.
Student Council
Ligon also has a student council board, of 60 students, 20 per grade level. Ligon Student Council (LSC) organizes the school dances, helps teachers around the school, etc. This is a year-long elective that students may apply for.At the end of each year, LSC has Student Body Executive Board Elections.