Meet the New Hilburn Drive Academy
Nov. 4, 2011 - The new Hilburn Drive Academy, an elementary school becoming a combined kindergarten-through-eighth grade academy in 2012, will feature a curriculum infused with a 21st-century skills focus.
Superintendent Tony Tata presented Hilburn Drive Academy's new framework during his weekly press briefing today. "Under Gregory Ford's leadership as principal, and through the resources we have been able to provide, we will welcome sixth-graders into a new, innovative academy next year," said Tata. "Families will have a compelling reason to be a part of this stable learning community."
Hilburn Drive Academy will be Wake County's first K-8 public school in decades. It will maintain its membership in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) Schools Collaborative Network while also adopting the world language focus of the WCPSS Global Schools Network. Spanish will be the language offering. Additional programming components are being developed and will be presented to the Wake County Board of Education on Nov. 22.
In surveys this fall, interested parents expressed a preference for a single traditional calendar for elementary and middle grades, as well as an early start. Hilburn Drive Academy will operate on a traditional calendar, and its bell schedule for all students will run from 8:05 a.m. to 2:50 p.m. Bus transportation will be optimized so that future seventh- through eighth-graders may try out and participate in athletics through Leesville Road Middle.
The school will admit rising sixth-graders in 2012-13, followed by seventh- and eighth-graders in the following two years.
"We owe it to families to make every school a strong school with high expectations, and we owe it to taxpayers to make full use of our facilities," said Tata. "With Hilburn Drive Academy, we'll meet both those needs and present a powerful new option for families."