Charter school enters aviation, expands IB

The number enrolled in the Andrews academy is expected to double to 100 students with the rising ninth grade for the 2016-17 school year. The program, with strict admissions guidelines, won praise during the Guilford Education Alliance Summit in April.

Kip Blakely, vice president of customer service and government relations of Triad-based aviation company HAECO America, said his company is pleased with the caliber of employees it gets through the Andrews program but needs more workers.

Paul Norcross, co-founder of Phoenix Academy, along with his wife, Kim, who serves as superintendent of Phoenix, say they recognized a need for more aviation and logistics careers to replace furniture and textiles jobs lost to Asia.

“These guys at HAECO and Honda are investing billions of dollars here, and if we don’t have a workforce, they’re going to leave,” Paul Norcoss said. “Flight crews are one thing, but for one plane to be in the sky, that’s 150 ground crew that have to be there to keep it up in the sky. There needs to be an additional pipeline.”

Norcross estimates 12,000 jobs in this area relate to the new aviation and logistics program.

Nora Carr, Guilford County Schools chief of staff and co-interim superintendent, said she finds its interesting that charter schools often copy GCS in innovative programs.

“We offered the first aviation program at Andrews, and now there’s an aviation academy coming on line at Phoenix Academy in the High Point area,” she said. “We’ve offered International Baccalaureate programs for almost 10 years now, and that’s being added to Phoenix Academy in High Point.”

She also pointed out that the school system worked for two years to help bring Say Yes to Education, a national college scholarship initiative, to Guilford County Schools students.

“Now the charter schools are saying they want in on that, too,” she said. “So how do you have it both ways? Are we competing, or are we supposed to cooperate? If what you want is collaboration, it’s like asking Coke and Pepsi to share their trade secrets.”

Since 1996, High Point Central High School has been an authorized IB school. Guilford County Schools is one of the few North Carolina districts authorized to offer the prestigious diploma program.

Norcross’ daughter graduated from Central with an IB diploma. Norcross said it opened doors and helped her gain entry into higher education. Phoenix recently began offering International Baccalaureate studies.

“We are supposed to be innovative, and I think we’re the first charter school in North Carolina to be IB,” Kim Norcross said. “We are currently a diploma program candidate school for the 11th and 12th grade, so when our kids are ready, the program will be there for them to roll up to. Right now we go through grade nine, but the program goes through 10. We went through our growth, and now we’ve stabilized. Our first graduating class will be 2020.”

The Norcrosses opened a small private school with three families and five children in 1997, which eventually became the Phoenix Academy charter school in 1999. At the time, they had no idea the charter concept would reach such heights.

“We had a huge amount of support from the people at Immaculate Heart of Mary,” Kim Norcross said. “We give credit to the people at IHM who helped us start it.”