State Archery Tournament 

The CCS-Leland and CCS-Whiteville Archery teams competed in the National Archery in Schools Program (NASP) state tournament last month in Winston-Salem. CCS-Leland finished in fifth place and CCS-Whiteville in eleventh place.

Along with the experience of competing, research shows that target archery improves students educational performance by enhancing their focus and concentration. NASP schools also find that archery builds confidence, self-esteem, and helps students become more connected with their school.

Congratulations to the coaches and athletes for their hard work this season! We are so proud of the talent, sportsmanship, and character displayed by all.

CCS-Leland Pictures

CCS-Whiteville Pictures

Start Your Pencils!

Racers are signed up, Pit Crews have been announced, and Tune-ups have begun… FASTAR® is here! Students will spend March practicing their arithmetic and reading skills to prepare for the race days in April.

FASTAR® is a voluntary, extracurricular academic tournament. It stands for Fluent Academic Skills Tournament in Arithmetic and Reading. The goal of FASTAR® is to encourage students to improve their basic skills through practice in an exciting and rewarding tournament modeled on automobile racing. Research shows that practicing to the point of fast, smooth, nearly automatic response – fluency- has several benefits: memory of the skill is retained longer, the student is able to perform the skill for a longer time before getting tired, comprehension may be improved, complex tasks are easier with a stronger foundation in basic skills, and homework time may decrease.

Check out last year’s FASTAR® videos at the links below!

CCS-Leland

CCS-Southport

CCS-Whiteville

CCS-Wilmington

Race of Champions

Students of the Month

Virtue is an important part of CCS-America’s classical curriculum. Each month, students are recognized for displaying a specific character trait that they are not only learning and practicing, but also recite daily in our Pledge.

February’s character trait was Dependability. Students who are dependable do what they say they will do, even if it is difficult. Dependability is seen in the School Pledge as “I Pledge to be truthful in all my works.” Students apply these words to their everyday lives by being responsible decision-makers others can rely on.

Congratulations to all students who demonstrated exemplary dependability. Check them out at the links below!

CCS-Leland

CCS-Southport

CCS-Whiteville

CCS-Wilmington

Classical Charter Schools of Wilmington Names New Headmaster

Wilmington, NC— Classical Charter Schools of Wilmington, one of four area Classical Charter Schools of America (CCS-A) elementary schools managed by The Roger Bacon Academy in Leland, has named Mr. Marcus Dos Santos as its new Headmaster. 

Mr. Dos Santos is widely experienced as both a classroom teacher and as an online teacher before moving into administration for internal auditing and regulatory compliance for all four CCS-America schools. He then served most recently as Operations Coordinator for 850-student CCS-Whiteville. Another asset he brings is having been Testing Coordinator for CCS-Wilmington when he got to know many students and staff. Headmaster Dos Santos has his Master of
Education degree in Learning and Technology and is tri-lingual in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Under Headmaster Dos Santos’ leadership, CCS-Wilmington children will continue to enjoy the same traditional classical education that has benefited all our students for nearly a quarter century and who now form our 2,700-student enrollment.

We want to thank Ms. Chaney for her dedicated service and maintaining the highest standards for the students’ education at Wilmington, and we look forward to her knowledge and skills being applied at Leland.

LELAND, North Carolina –The Charter Day School network of charter schools, anticipating further growth and heightened enrollment demands, is adopting a new name reflecting the schools’ unique classical curriculum and emphasis on civic virtue: Classical Charter Schools of America. The new names will be phased-in for the network and each of its schools beginning immediately.

 Charter Day School, Inc. Board Chairman Robert Spencer said the name change was prompted by “the need to clarify what makes our schools different and better” and a desire to “bring unity and uniformity to our family of schools” at a time when charter school popularity has been rapidly accelerating.

Headquartered in Leland, a Wilmington neighbor, the Charter Day School, Inc. network began 20 years ago with a single charter school in grades K-5. Today, the network includes four schools—in Leland, Southport, Whiteville and Wilmington—enrolling more than 2,500 students. Spencer said Classical Charter Schools of America will likely apply for a fifth area school in the next 18-24 months and is planning additional schools elsewhere in the state “and even in other states.”

 In North Carolina, charter schools became law on June 22, 1996 as independently controlled, tuition-free schools open to the public.  Charter school boards are accountable to the state for maintaining high academic performance and financial stability.

Spencer said the network’s first school, Charter Day School, opened in 2000 in Leland. Just five years later the State Board of Education recognized its academic success, designating Charter Day School one of the Top-25 elementary schools out of 1,800 in North Carolina.

 As a result of this success, a second school was established in 2007: Columbus Charter School in Whiteville. A third school was added in 2013—Douglass Academy in downtown Wilmington—and a fourth in 2014, South Brunswick Charter School in Southport. All four schools will be renamed. Columbus Charter School, for example, is becoming Classical Charter Schools of Whiteville and Douglass Academy is becoming Classical Charter Schools of Wilmington.  All schools will continue to be under the central control of Charter Day School, Inc. which is becoming Classical Charter Schools of America.

“While all of these schools share the same management team and use the same time-tested, field-proven classical curricula and instructional methods, their legacy names didn’t reflect that fact,” Spencer said, “the new names do.”  Spencer also noted that uniforms and other materials bearing the old names would be grandfathered.

Spencer said that renaming the network and its schools is one of several steps the Board is taking. The second step, which is ongoing, will be to evaluate future locations for possible expansion. “We have a terrific educational model as our wait lists attest; we want to share this model,” he said.

The Board also is looking at ways to “further differentiate the way our schools teach citizenship and life lessons to impressionable young students as distinct from the highly politicized ways many traditional public schools have been adopting,” Spencer said. “We teach students to work hard, do their best, respect their teachers and each other and to love their country; the contrast with what’s going on in many traditional public schools couldn’t be greater, and many parents are choosing our educational model.”

Schools in the Classical Charter Schools of America network are managed by The Roger Bacon Academy charter school management firm, which provides the schools’ curriculum, instructional, and operational services—including professional development for teaching staff, accounting, human resources, recruiting, IT, maintenance, and security.

For virtual tours of the network and its schools visit www.CCSAM.net and select the location of interest for enrollment and employment opportunities, or contact The Roger Bacon Academy, 3610 Thaddeus Lott Lane, Leland, NC 28451. Phone: (910) 655-3600.