It has been an incredible Spring season for all of Charger athletics.
It has been an incredible spring season for all of Charger athletes. We could not be prouder of how our teams performed. Middle School, JV, varsity, and club teams all came together to learn, grow, lead, and improve as the season progressed, with many bringing home some impressive hardware and titles for their efforts. In case you missed it, here is an update on how all of our spring sports teams fared and the playoff schedule for those teams remaining. GO CHARGERS!
Baseball:
The varsity baseball team finished their season at 15-2, clinching the TISAC conference championship. They were seeded as the #8 team in the state association and earned a “bye” for the first round of the playoffs. Their first game of the playoffs was an offensive explosion, putting up 13 points in a dominant win over Durham Academy. After that strong showing the baseball team exited the tournament following a tightly contested clash with the #1 seeded Wesleyan Christian Academy. We could not be prouder of their effort and growth this season, and we know they will be back to make a deep playoff run next year!
The Middle School baseball team finished their season in heartbreaking fashion this past Friday with a loss at St. David’s with a final score of 11-9. The rebuilding Chargers improved consistently throughout the season and the team looks good for the future.
Golf:
The varsity golf team had a strong season. As a team, the Chargers finished ranked #11 in the state, and had the top 2 golfers within the state association, Bryan Fang and Timmy Kaufman, ranked #1 and #2, respectively! Timmy Kaufman was also awarded the TISAC Player of the Year!
Boys Lacrosse:
A rejuvenated varsity boys lacrosse team improved dramatically throughout the season. Tuesday, the team traveled to Durham Academy and lost, ending their post-season bid. Regardless, we could not be prouder of how this team banded together and played hard down the stretch.
The Middle School boys lacrosse team was undefeated in conference play, landing the #1 seed. The team defeated North Raleigh Christian and then Cary Christian in the championship game. Our Chargers are CAMS champions, and we could not be prouder of this team!
Girls Lacrosse:
With four wins more than last year’s squad, an improving varsity girls lacrosse team’s season ended on Tuesday with an away game against Ravenscroft. We are excited to see the growth continue for this squad! Go Chargers, and congratulations on a strong season.
The Middle School girl’s lacrosse season has also ended, but kudos to the players who had an outstanding inaugural season! We cannot wait to watch this young program continue to grow and feed talent to the varsity team!
Soccer:
The varsity soccer team finished 6-8 on the season and beat Saint Mary’s in their first post-season bout by a score of 5-1. After the impressive playoff debut our Chargers fought hard, but could not beat NRCA in the second round. Although they exited the playoffs earlier than they would have liked, we know they are proud of the season they spent together and the memories that were made during it!
The Middle School soccer team finished as the #7 seed in the conference and had their playoff run cut short in a game against St. Timothy’s on Monday. We are immensely proud of this team and cannot wait to see what they do next year!
Softball:
The varsity softball team finished with a record of 12-8, placing 2nd in the conference and ranking #8 in the state association. Their first game did not go as planned against a talented Wesleyan Christian Academy team, leading to a first-round playoff exit. Our softball team put up a fight, as they have all season, and never lost faith in each other. We know great things are destined for this group next season!
The Middle School softball team finished as the #5 seed in the conference. Their season came to an end with a loss to North Raleigh Christian Academy. This team played incredibly this season, and we are all looking forward to what they will bring to the field next season!
Tennis:
The varsity tennis team finished the season undefeated and is ranked the #1 seed within the state association. They won their first 2 playoff games versus the #8 ranked Ravenscroft School and the #5 ranked Charlotte Latin. this set them up for a NCISAA State Championship clash at home against the #2 ranked Providence Day School. Our boys fought hard after being down 2-1 after doubles to storm back and win 5-3. Our Chargers are NCISAA State Champions!
Like the senior team, the Middle School tennis team finished conference play undefeated and ranked as the top seed in the conference. These young Chargers won matches against both Franklin Academy and North Raleigh Christian Academy in the playoffs before defeating St. Timothy’s School in the conference Championship, securing the 2023 CAMS Conference Championship. Way to go Chargers!
Track & Field:
The varsity track and field season ended with the annual NCISAA meet. Our charger competed admirably, and many earned high individual finishes!
Both the boys and girls MS Track & Field teams won the Capital Area Middle School Conference Championship! The girls have won all 6 championships and the boys are 5 for 6 since the meet’s inception in 2017! In addition to the team title, the following Chargers also set conference records:
Find full meet results HERE! Congratulations Chargers!
Volleyball:
In its inaugural season Club Volleyball proved to be a success, both in popularity and competition. This team has consistently improved throughout the season, and we are excited to watch the program grow—not only in our school but across all of North Carolina!
I certainly didn’t expect organizers waving pompoms enthusiastically in welcome or debating the merits of jellybeans versus chocolate with a complete stranger (shout out to Houston Kraft for this icebreaker) when Kevin Rokuskie first described the Association of Middle Level Educators Conference (AMLE).
As it turns out, there may have been nothing that could have prepared me for the sheer explosive energy of thousands of middle school teachers and faculty combined into one convention room, ready to connect and share their passion for educating the world’s preteens.
Held November 3 to November 5 at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Orlando, AMLE featured a weekend jam-packed with moving keynote speakers, rotating “speed session” workshops, and illuminating presentations on everything from social emotional learning to community engagement to the very tools helping to keep our classrooms running.
Prior to our arrival Kevin and I had spent weeks preparing our presentation on last year’s brand-new virtual reality in Egypt activity, “History Made Real: Learning Ancient Civilizations and World Religions in Virtual Reality.” For 15 minutes at a time, we would explain to other educators and administrators how the collaboration between a sixth-grade Language Arts and World Cultures teacher and an Education and Technology Support Specialist resulted in a week of some of the highest student engagement all year using a combination of Z-Space, VR headsets, and MERGE Cube technology. To our delight, our table ended up becoming one of the most popular attractions during the speed sessions, resulting in meeting a university professor who was excited to learn from us how to implement VR into her post-secondary curriculum.
Our strategy for the rest of the conference was to divide and conquer, so while Kevin engaged in meaningful conversations with various vendors as well as attended sessions on advisory and social emotional learning, I found myself learning about social studies frameworks, how to better support our gender expansive students, techniques for total classroom participation, self-paced learning, how to support children with ADHD challenges (from a teacher who had been successfully navigating his own ADHD for decades), empowering youth with restorative justice practices, and many sessions on community partnerships.
Every day it continued to amaze me to see the degree of knowledge, care, and expertise with which these presenters talked about their curriculum and student support, and I left the conference filled to the brim with a desire to challenge myself in my teaching to new professional heights. Kevin describes professional development as a “vital tool at Cary Academy” that “only makes the community better.” I know that I speak for both of us when I say that I cannot wait to find ways to share my new knowledge with my colleagues and look forward to returning, maybe with my own pompoms this time!
Written by Lauren Bullock, Language Arts and World Cultures Teacher, Sixth Grade
CA Curious
COVID-19, self-discovery, and the college search process
The other day I was watching a clip* from a neuropsychologist Dr. Russell A. Barkley who was addressing a group of educators in a series called “Essential Ideas for Parents.” He began with “The problem with parents these days…” and he almost lost me. Heavy sigh. Eye roll.
I usually have no tolerance for whatever negativity comes after such grand, generalized statements—especially one aimed at parenting (which is arguably more complicated now than in any previous generation). While defensive, I continued watching. He jabbed his finger in the air and proclaimed, “Parents do not get to design their children.”I was intrigued. He went on to say:
Nature would never have permitted this to happen. Evolution would not have allowed a generation of a species to be so influenced by the previous generation.
A quick perusal of any medical office waiting-area parenting magazines would suggest quite the opposite. There, in glossy print, you’ll find recipes for The Perfect Baby. The D1 Athlete. The Child-Who-Has-An-Easygoing-Temperament. Who is writing those articles?
Reading one of those magazines gives a false impression that if parents just do the right things, their children will become what they plan for them to be. No pressure, right? Dr. Barkley would rip those magazines to shreds. Based on everything neuroscientists, behavioral psychologists, and many other researchers have studied, our children are born with a “unique genetic mosaic” comprised of hundreds of psychological and physical traits from genes that extend beyond the biological parents and well into your extended families.
The development of these genes in your children is, science tells us, largely out of the control of parents. Regardless of whether the mother ate enough broccoli when she was pregnant or if she frequented Bojangles for fried chicken twice a day (totally random example, don’t look at me), a large part of her child’s gifts and challenges are already pre-programmed. Too often, society likes to suggest that we have control over so much of what is not in our control. Our kid’s success, we have been told, is based on the choices we make as parents.
“The truth is: we don’t have that degree of power. Nature would never permit that to happen.”
What does this mean, that we’re not in control? Is it frightening, or is it freeing? You tell me. Yes, Dr. Barkley says, a stimulating environment is better than a deprived environment. But ‘more is better’ reaches its point of diminishing returns, and overload in the name of child design has negative consequences. Maybe our pre-covid schedules and our post-ish-covid schedules in our homes tell that same story. Dr. Barkley and his colleagues encourage us to think of ourselves as parents as Shepherds, not Engineers. He goes on to explain:
The idea that you can engineer IQ, personality is just not true. Your child is not a blank slate on which you get to write. Instead of an ‘engineer’ view of parenting [that makes you responsible for everything that goes right and everything that goes wrong—totally guilt inducing] step back and take the ‘Shepherd’s View’.
You are a shepherd to a unique individual. You don’t design the sheep. But shepherds are powerful people. They pick the pastures in which the sheep will graze and develop and grow. They determine whether they’re appropriately nourished. They determine whether they’re protected from harm. The environment is important, but it doesn’t design the sheep. The shepherd knows that he will never make the sheep into a dog, no matter how much he wants a dog.
I read that as this: we can do what we can to make sure our children have opportunity and surround them with great teachers, healthy friends, and intellectual stimulation. And then we get to observe, accept, and encourage.
The stress we put on ourselves to engineer our children, surely rubs off on the child—how can it not? We can unpack the damage of all that parental pressure: it undermines confidence, sense of self, sense of trust in knowing who you are, and ultimately, paralyzing stress narrows your child’s options rather than follows their lead to new horizons. It certainly would decrease the competitiveness the world wants us to feel with other parents. Imagine this gentler, graceful approach snowballing into a new wave of parenting that encourages observation, discovery, and celebration. And, imagine, our children growing into their authentic selves—confident, assured, proud, and supported.
*After I saw the short video, I dove into literature that was footnoted at the end of the talk. Wow, one can really go down a rabbit hole if one chooses! Stephen Pinker’s book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature boils the nature vs. nurture argument down and highlights many of these points. He’s a psychology professor at MIT and was featured on a MIT author series. I’ve talked about this book before but Andrew Solomon’s book Far From the Tree reads like a textbook but is an ambitious exploration of children’s search for identity in families, in the world.
Written by Josette Huntress Holland, Head of Middle School
What do we do when our children don’t get what they want? When they’re little, we coach them on the value of sharing, waiting their turn, or accepting the situation. If you are a parent of siblings, you’ve probably set multiple invisible timers to negotiate toy time between equally indignant children. You’ve heard ‘it’s-my-time-with-the-Xbox!’ and ‘I WAS HERE FIRST!!!’ I remember the days when one of my children ONLY wanted to practice the piano at the exact time that their sibling was practicing. Have you ever seen piano-bench wrestling? It’s not pretty.
But how about when they’re older? An adolescent? What happens when your child struggles with self-regulation when they don’t get chosen for a sports team, their arts major preference, or their first choice in an X-day activity?
They might seem mad or sad—even indignant; fear of rejection can wear many masks (and some, simultaneously). And, wow, can it be tough to parent a child through that, especially when, as parents, we might struggle ourselves with FOMO (a.k.a. Fear Of Missing Out. It’s a real thing, I promise).
Or maybe it’s not self-regulation they are struggling with, but rather: what if they’re struggling with a side effect of people-pleasing? It might stem from a fear of disappointing YOU, their parent, if they did not get or do something that was expected of them. How can you parent them through those choppy waters?
You can ask a parent of a first-year college student who is at their ‘second choice’ school and thriving. Or you can ask the parent of a child who was put into a random X-day activity last year and ended up loving it. Or Jay Sagrolikar ’21 who was placed in band as his second-choice arts major in the 6th grade and ended up being one of our school’s most prolific and joyful saxophonists, completing multiple independent studies and performing as a key player in a newly formed jazz band. His band teacher wrote
Jay, Xavier, and Marvin all stopped by at the start of this school year just to jam a little bit together and be in the band space. Wonderful young men who have definitely found a passion in their gifts of music. Here is a short video of what they were playing around with that morning. Warmed my heart for sure!
There are lessons to learn here that go well beyond placement. Parents who have experienced such challenges and have experienced any measure of success have reported that they did a few things:
They let their child feel their emotions—whatever those were.
They sought their child’s permission to discuss the disappointment and their feelings about it.
They discussed it without shame or judgment, approaching the issue with curiosity and empathy, including that it’s okay to have “wants”.
When their children felt like a victim of ‘not being selected,’ they kept the focus on things in their child’s control, like attitude and enthusiasm.
If it wasn’t life-threatening, they didn’t jump in to fix it.
Worth repeating: if it wasn’t life-threatening, they didn’t jump in to fix it. (It’s hard, I know.)
They asked their children for their suggestions on how to move forward, opening an empowering space for their kids to flex agency, figure out self-advocacy, and practice problem-solving.
In short, all found success when the parents signaled that their kids could handle their disappointment and when they stopped assigning judgment to their kids’ feelings. It’s totally normal to feel sad and disappointed and bummed—yes, it makes us parents uncomfortable, but there are no such things as ‘bad’ feelings.
I know it can be hard to watch your child sit in discomfort, to resist the urge to swoop in and manage a situation or “fix” it on their behalf. However, I promise that there is something extremely valuable in finding safe, low-stakes ways for your children to experience disappointment and find acceptance of an outcome different than what they had planned and envisioned. In a recent podcast entitled How to Raise Untamed Kids, Dr. Becky Kennedy talks with Glennon Doyle and her pod squad (We Can Do Hard Things) about these very topics.
Of course, I’m not talking about ‘settling’ in a marriage or a career or anything like that. Rather, having a mild-to-moderate disappointment is a chance to understand that sometimes, for reasons that may be as random as a lottery, life deals you your second choice–and that you will be just fine, perhaps even better for it. It can also present an important opportunity to practice breaking the bonds of people-pleasing, which plague so many of us adults.
You might be saying, “But Josette, my child has had her fair share of disappointments.” And there are undoubtedly heavy sighs when we recognize societal disappointments, like how COVID shaped the last few years of these children’s social lives. But if we are genuinely looking to celebrate authentic success, let’s start by recognizing the value in building a worldview in which our children are sometimes the main character and, other times, a supporting crew. After all, it is in those alternate outcomes, second choices, and “disappointments” that resilience and flexibility are forged. And these are skills you want your kids to have in spades when larger challenges and disappointments come their way. By granting a space for your children to experience and process a disappointment, you are arming them with the confidence and knowledge that, when things don’t go their way, they can handle it—that they’ve “got this.”
And that is how disappointments don’t become setbacks, but new opportunities.
Written by Josette Huntress Holland, Head of Middle School
Alumni News
CA Alumnae in healthcare opens up, shares what she’s learned
Follow the leaders: Spotlight on Migration Collaboration
September 11, 2021
Amaranth greens. Bitter melon. Long beans. Yu choy. Asian chiles. Next year, families across CA will have the opportunity to discover these delicious flavors firsthand—many for the first time—all while learning about and supporting our local Burmese refugee community.
It’s all thanks to a service-learning pilot program led by seventh-grade Migration Collaboration students and faculty in partnership with our Center for Community Engagement and Transplanting Traditions Community Farm, a local nonprofit aimed at uplifting food sovereignty in the Burmese refugee community through access to land, education, and opportunities for refugee farmers.
CA families that subscribe to the CSA will receive a weekly box of organic vegetables locally farmed by Burmese refugee farmers (possibly with an occasional assist from CA students on Flex Days). In each box, a pamphlet thoughtfully researched, designed, and produced by Migration Collaboration students will offer information, not only on the vegetables included, but share profiles of the refugee farmers that produced them, the crisis they faced in Burma, and other ways the CA community can get involved to help.
“The pamphlet comes with the food, so it adds a sense of reality to it. These are actual physical people, these are the actual vegetables they grew, this is what they have been through, and what others like them are still going through,” explains Finn Miller ’26, who helped to create the profiles that appear in the pamphlet. “It’s a quick way to help, to raise awareness and get more people to learn about what they have been through.”
“I think it is cool that people can buy different types of vegetables that are from where some of our local refugee farmers are from,” adds Dana Jhoung ’26, who participated on the student-led communications committee tasked with promoting the initiative to the broader CA community. “These refugees have come a long way to share their culture—and that’s not easy. Transplanting Traditions gives them not only a job and a home, but an important way to share their background and history.”
Digging Deep
The hands-on service project is an outgrowth of the larger seventh-grade Migration Collaboration project. Now entering its third year, Migration Collaboration—led by seventh-grade social studies teachers Lucy Dawson and Matt Koerner, in partnership with Service Learning Director Maggie Grant—is an immersive, interdisciplinary, and experiential exploration of human migration. It offers students a deeper understanding of the refugee experience through personal interactions with refugees and members of local refugee-serving organizations; explorations of non-fictional and fictional migrant and refugee narratives; interdisciplinary, student-led research projects; and various hands-on excursions where students work side-by-side with refugees and community partners.
“It’s been an amazing project,” enthuses Daphne DiFrancesco ’26, who participated in Migration Collaboration and the Transplanting Traditions service-learning project this past year. “I’ve learned so much about different communities and migration in general. I’ve done different research projects on stuff like this before, but it’s usually just reading website after website or the occasional book. With this, I was able to take a deep dive and connect with the community and really interact. It made me realize how we’re all connected. The experiential piece just adds so much.”
As president of the Student Leadership Club, next year, Difrancesco hopes to take what she learned to determine constructive ways that CA students might support North Korean refugees. “There are only a handful of organizations that work with North Korean refugees because it is so dangerous to do so,” she explains. “I’m hoping to partner up with these organizations to see how we might help with fundraising.”
A rich harvest
And that, of course, is precisely the goal: To help students develop the empathy, connections, and competencies needed to lead ethical and equitable community activism—all while gaining a more nuanced understanding of the complex historical, social, cultural, economic, and political forces that shape human migration.
“We want to inspire our students to understand not only why people move, but how we can responsibly support those that do,” explains Koerner. “How we can help them in our own community.”
Central to that effort is challenging racist and reductive stereotypes of the immigrant refugee. “We want students to understand that refugees don’t look one way—there isn’t a certain race or ethnicity or class or level of education,” adds Dawson. “It isn’t a monolith; there isn’t a singular refugee experience.”
That empathy-building process starts with getting students into the community where they can build authentic, personal connections that disrupt stereotypes, broaden perspectives, and allow students to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. That’s where the Center for Community Engagement comes in, building partnerships within the broader Triangle-area community that facilitate impactful, memorable, and long-lasting connections and experiences for students that put a human, relatable face on the abstract concept of migration.
Take, for instance, one of Dawson’s favorite moments: when Scott Philips, the North Carolina field representative at the United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), brought two of his nearly-arrived clients—Israel and Mordecai—to meet with students. The two Congolese teenagers shared their experience of growing up in a Ugandan refugee camp, having never lived in the country of their birth. It was a wildly different experience than that of most CA students, and yet, through conversation, they found common ground.
“Our students got to hear about our guests’ experiences—about their culture, about growing up in a camp—firsthand. It was just such a cool exchange,” recalls Dawson with a smile. “Our kids were just in awe. They were asking questions like ‘What’s math like there?’ and were dumbstruck when our guests said it was ‘way harder’ than it is here at CA. They were connecting as humans, as kids, bonding over the Black Panther movie and candy preferences. It was such an authentic exchange, and one that upended preconceived stereotypes.”
Koerner’s favorite moment? When Pauline Hovey, a volunteer with Annunciation House—a nonprofit in El Paso, Texas that offers hospitality to newly arrived migrants, immigrants, and refugees at the border—visited, sharing stories from specific families that were undergoing the asylum-seeking process.
“She was able to share specific stories and faces, to paint a vivid picture of what this family, this woman, this child went through. It made it very real for students—they could connect,” offers Koerner. “And, she was working only with the people that had actually gained asylum status. Just the sheer numbers of even that population—which is less than 1% of the actual people that arrive at the border—it was mind-blowing for our students. I had so many students come up to me and ask to get involved after her presentation.”
And, of course, that’s the point.
“Making those connections, hearing the personal stories, the challenges of those that have had to resettle, it deepens empathy—both for our students and for the educators involved in this project. You can see the light bulbs turning on.” says Grant. Miller—whose research project focused on unaccompanied minor migration—is one of the students who experienced one of those light bulb moments. “I realized that, here in our little bubble in Raleigh, we’re all pretty privileged and live good lives, but there are so many scary things happening in the world, so many people and things that need our help. We need to do whatever we can to publicize it, to make people care, to help.”
Cultivating Community
Once those light bulbs are turned on, Migration Collaboration aims to empower and equip students with the critical insights and skills needed to lead impactful change in their own backyards—and to do so in a way that stresses partnership and equity. Indeed, while fostering student empowerment is central to the project, so too is cultivating savvy leadership and collaborative skills. And that includes knowing when to sit back and listen and when to lead, or when to adjust an idea or let go of it altogether if it doesn’t have community buy-in or address community needs (no matter how invested you may be personally).
Dawson, Grant, and Koerner are hopeful that next year’s cohort of Migration Collaboration students will be putting those collaborative skills to action. In the long-awaited next stage of the project (postponed this year due to COVID), students will propose and develop their own service initiatives designed in partnership with community stakeholders.
“It’s a balancing act,” offers Grant. “We want these to be student-directed projects and ones that empower students in their learning, but they must learn to do so responsibly. First and foremost, they must listen to the community. That’s why we stress empathy, listening, and interviewing. What are the people in our community telling us that they are experiencing, that they need? Is there a way—because sometimes there isn’t—that we can be a part of a solution? How can we utilize our resources—our time, energy, money, whatever—to meet that need in partnership with the community.”
Cultivating respect for local expertise, for the deep knowledge that partners can bring to the table—even those not traditionally viewed as educators—is crucial. “We’re mindful about using the term ‘expert,’” explains Grant. “We use it not only when we are going into the community to learn directly from professionals who are working with immigration policy or programs, but when referring to refugee newcomers themselves. It is important that our students understand and respect the kind of expertise that comes from personal experience.”
“The title we chose for this project—Migration Collaboration—was quite purposeful,” reflects Koerner. “It’s not just about our students collaborating in the classroom on projects—it is about working together in partnership with the broader community. We wanted to set that tone, to be clear about our intentions from the outset. We’re not saving anyone—our community is broad and diverse. We are all in this together.” He smiles, “I can’t wait to see what our students and their partners will do next.
Written by Mandy Dailey, Director of Communications
Ask founding Head of Middle School Marti Jenkins to recount a favorite memory of her twenty-five years at Cary Academy and she’s hard pressed to answer.
“That’s too hard; there are too many!” she exclaims with a laugh, before sharing a series of quick vignettes that spring to mind: The thrill of breaking ground on campus (and the nail-biting anxiety of getting the required certificate of occupancy the day before school opened). The excitement and nerves of traveling to local events (while eight-months pregnant) with little more than a series of watercolor renderings and an impassioned mission to entice prospective parents to enroll. The overwhelming sense of community at the opening day ceremony. And, the warm connections made with early families—those that were willing to make the leap of faith and join CA based on the strength of vision alone.
Of course, there are also the countless moments—small and large, challenging and cherished—that she has shared with students over the years that are close to her heart. While impossible to choose a favorite, she admits that graduation days are highlights, as are the many notes, emails, and visits from former students that come back as adults to say thank you or share stories of their success (particularly from those that might have struggled initially in Middle School, but ultimately found their place and flourished).
In her final weeks on CA’s campus, however, it is those early days that have been top of mind as she reflects on her journey.
Inspiring vision
Her eyes light up as she recalls them—pivotal moments that shaped CA’s foundations, long before the first bricks were laid. Together, they represent many intense hours spent collaborating shoulder-to-shoulder with an intrepid group of education visionaries, technologists, and operations experts that were tapped by Cary Academy Founders Jim and Ann Goodnight and John and Ginger Sall to design a ground-breaking, technology-forward, mold-busting middle school for the future.
For Jenkins, it was a time awash with the palpable promise of possibility.
“The opportunity to open a school is such a rare occurrence, such a wonderful opportunity for an educator,” enthuses Jenkins. “There was so much dreaming in that first year, so much exciting and inspiring brainstorming. We got to ask the big questions—the ones that matter. What would our mission be? What would an ideal middle school look like? How do we best serve the needs of our students?”
What emerged from those marathon planning sessions was, of course, the philosophical and physical blueprint for the Middle School we know today—one that broke significantly from the traditional junior-high model that was still prevalent at the time.
“Junior highs were generally envisioned as miniature high schools,” explains Jenkins. “Decisions—about curriculum, wellness, resources, etc.—were made with high-school students in mind and were expected to trickle down to the younger students.”
It was a model that was far less personal, far less human development-oriented and student-centered than middle school concept championed by Jenkins and embraced by CA’s founding leadership and faculty.
“We wanted something different. Instead, we started with a blank slate and the freedom and flexibility to focus specifically on the middle school-aged learner. We put them in the center and designed a program, a building, a school from there—one that would best meet their specific physical, emotional, intellectual, developmental, and social needs.”
A new blueprint
For Jenkins, that focus was personal. “I love Middle School-aged students. I love seeing them change on an hourly, daily, and annual basis. You might be talking to a student one day and that same student will be a little different the next day, just depending on the space they are in. At CA, we focused on developing a program that morphs around their needs, that meets them where they are and prepares and guides them for what comes next.
“I think from all my years here, that’s still what I am most proud of, what I find most exciting. We are true champions of the young adolescent learner,” reflects Jenkins.
Founding Middle School teacher, inaugural Service Learning Director, and CA parent, Tami Polge, remembers well the energy Jenkins brought to early planning and faculty meetings, facilitating lively discussions that would ultimately go on to shape the curriculum, culture, and lasting traditions of the Middle School. She credits Jenkins with setting a pioneering example—one that empowered faculty to dream big, lean into the CA mission, and innovate and collaborate in new and exciting ways.
“I’m grateful for Marti’s leadership—for setting a tone for the Middle School, one that put a high priority on team building, lifelong learning, and the spirit of adventure,” recalls Polge. “When we proposed a new curriculum, or even a whole new program such as service learning, when we pitched field trip ideas or events, or when we requested resources, Marti was actively listening and receptive. For some of the more ambitious ideas, she would have a twinkle in her eye, asking how it would further our mission and what we needed to pull it off.”
And so, under Jenkins’s guidance, the hallmarks of the student-centric CA Middle School experience emerged: a robust advisory program to support physical, social, and emotional growth; an integrated, interdisciplinary curriculum that would inspire curiosity and invite discovery of connections across content areas; and arts, world language, and physical education components that were integral, not elective, to encourage experimentation, safe risk-taking, and exploration. Most crucially, it would all be delivered by a supportive, rallying community of educators working together in grade-level teams to truly know and understand each student as an individual—their needs, passions, strengths, challenges, aspirations, and concerns—to ensure everyone had the best chance to thrive.
“Marti‘s gift to CA was designing a program that always kept Middle School children’s adolescent development at the forefront of our planning,” recalls former founding Head of School Don Berger. “She developed the Middle School team concept that still exists today and orchestrated the student-centered teaching that blended beautifully emerging technology with core academic skill development. She also made sure the arts were an integral part of all students’ learning—a major reason that CA is as renowned for its arts program as well as its technology.”
Firm foundations
It was a forward-thinking vision that was shaped, in large part, by the culmination of Jenkins’s own history and experience as an educator in both independent and public schools across the United States.
Jenkins, who was born overseas, traveled extensively as a child, courtesy of her father’s engineering career. Igniting a love of travel, the arts, and of cultural exploration, these experiences would one day translate to an undergraduate degree in cultural anthropology with a minor in the arts from Vanderbilt University.
The varied elementary and secondary education experiences of her youth—including both public and private institutions, American and European—also sparked an interest in education and teaching that was only furthered after opportunities to work with children both in high school and college. It was a nascent interest that would later lead to the pursuit of a Master in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of New Orleans.
In that program, she discovered her true passion. “Working on my certifications, I just fell in love with teaching, with working with kids,” recalls Jenkins.
After graduation, she spent years teaching in schools across New Orleans, both independent and public, gaining important insights into the affordances of both—into what worked programmatically and organizationally, and what didn’t—lessons that she would ultimately bring to Cary Academy. She was particularly intrigued by opportunities to combine her passions—education and the arts—in curricular innovations.
“Teaching in New Orleans was a fabulous experience, but I realized right away that I could make more of an impact, have more opportunities to make changes, if I was a school administrator,” explains Jenkins. “I had a wonderful professor at the University of New Orleans that used to say ‘don’t ask why, ask why not.’ It always stuck with me.”
Asking ‘why not’?
Wanting to have the power to push the envelope and advocate for change—to ask ‘why not’ in the transformation of classrooms—she embarked on her second master’s degree. This time, she chose a Master of Education in Education Administration from the University of Texas at Austin which focused on the principalship level.
In Texas, she had opportunities to work in close collaboration with local school boards and communities, making recommendations for programmatic improvements. It was her first taste of effecting real change on the larger education landscape, of making education responsive to community and individual learner needs.
Happily, a successful trimester long culminating internship—as Assistant Principal in an elementary school in one of the top school districts in Texas—turned into a post-graduation invitation to take the position on a permanent basis. She was on her way.
Later, a move to Jackson, Mississippi for her husband’s career would prove serendipitous, coinciding with a career opportunity seemingly tailor made to her interests: a principalship for a new magnet public school program that combined academics and performing arts for grades four through twelve. As principal, Jenkins would transform the entire program, transitioning it from a pull-out model to an on-site program.
“It was exciting!” recalls Jenkins of her four years at the Power Academic and Performing Arts Complex. “We were partnering with the national advocacy organization Parents for Public Schools that was fighting flight from public schools. There were so many cool opportunities to work closely with the community, with the parents. I really valued that, just as I had in Texas.”
Jenkins, pictured here with her husband David, looks forward to more time with family.
Building together
Indeed, for Jenkins, building something more than a mere school—but a true collaborative learning community—has always been paramount. If it was the promise of a blank slate and similar start-up vibe that initially drew her to Cary Academy, in part, it has been the incredible close-knit and mission-driven Cary Academy community that has encouraged her to stay all these years.
“As a community at CA, we all live and breathe our mission. I don’t think all schools can say that. Discovery, innovation, collaboration, and excellence—I see our mission in action constantly. I see it in the dedication and creativity of our faculty and staff, in the forward-thinking vision of our board, in the curiosity and personal growth of our students, and in the support from our wonderful families.” She stops to smile, “Who wouldn’t want to work in such an exciting environment, with such wonderful people?”
Fostering a sense of community—a sense of belonging—amongst the Middle School student body has also been crucial for Jenkins. Having moved many times during her childhood, it is not something that she herself experienced growing up. Recognizing that void in her own past has helped her to prioritize ensuring that her program supports students in authentically connecting with one another to find their place and people.
Cultivating that community is, of course, an important part of her legacy, but Jenkins is humble. She is quick to shift focus away from herself, spotlighting instead the “incredible” group of faculty and staff that she has helped develop over the years.
“It really is about the larger learning team. I view my role as minor compared to what the folks in the classrooms are doing. I’m just supporting that role, making sure their needs and the needs and interests of our program are met,” she offers.
“I’m proud to have built a place that attracts creative, energetic, student-centered, dedicated folks that love teaching Middle School and all it entails. It takes a unique person; not all educators can do it. When you’re working with this age, if something comes up—and it will—the content is not going to take first place; you have to be able to be flexible, to be able to set aside whatever you had planned for that day and, instead, meet them where they are. Sometimes, you have to put yourself in their shoes.”
“I think the best teachers are those that either had challenging experiences themselves as students, or had really wonderful experiences. Either way, they remember and bring the lessons learned from those experiences to the classroom in a powerful way,” she continues.
Longtime colleague and eighth-grade social studies teacher David Snively credits Jenkins with giving him the freedom and flexibility to do just that. “The guiding principle that I took from Marti was something she said to me way back in the 20th century: ‘Do what you think will be best for the students.’ That directive gave permission for all sorts of stuff, from simulations to trips,” offers Snively.
“The message provided a constant, consistent signpost pointing towards an endless number of paths to follow and explore. For me, I think that message is what makes our program so special, and I thank Marti for making it the foundation on which the Middle School is based.”
Measuring success
As any good educator, Jenkins evaluates her success and the program she helped to found and build through the lens of her students. “Kids showing up every day, happy to be here, wanting to come back every day. Former students that come back and say ‘I just loved Middle School.’ Feedback from new parents that say ‘this is such a change for my child, they’re excited about getting up and coming to school’—these are huge for Middle School,” offers Jenkins. “I love watching as our students grow, get older, and go through the Upper School with a critical eye, one that is truly reflective of their own voice and thinking, their own perspective; that feels like success.” A success, indeed, and one that Laneta Dorflinger, a longtime member of CA’s Board of Directors, credits to Jenkins.
“I have had the good fortune of witnessing Marti’s visionary leadership through two lenses: as a parent and as a Board member,” reflects Dorflinger. “Always pleasant, calm, and in control, Marti embodies a rare combination of experience and qualities, including an unwavering commitment to CA’s mission and students, that has always inspired a strong sense of confidence in her leadership and the Middle School she helped to create.”
“Cary Academy owes Marti a debt of gratitude,” agrees Head of School Mike Ehrhardt. “With dedication and vision, she has helped build a remarkable foundation for our Middle School—one that sets us apart and on which we can build for the next 25 years.”
The future ahead
Now, as Jenkins looks toward retirement—a decision influenced by pandemic-inspired reflection—she’s excited to spend more time with her family, with her husband and stalwart support of over forty years, David, and her two daughters, CA alums Quinn ’12 and Anna ’15, and a grandchild on the way.
After dedicating so much time and energy to CA, she’s looking forward to crossing some long-postponed items off her bucket list. Ever the lifelong learner, she’s working towards getting a master gardeners certification—“It’s all about the chemistry,” she explains—and anticipating a long-awaited return to travel, including a tour of the United States by motorcycle and the intracoastal waterways of North Carolina by boat.
The moment is admittedly bittersweet. Undoubtedly, she will miss her colleagues, in particular, her office staff and those faculty with whom she has worked side-by-side so closely all these years.
“That first year, we cut a piece out of the foundation of the Middle School building, and some of us have those bricks hanging on our walls,” Jenkins reflects. The people that have those bricks, and all the others that helped build the foundations of this program, a program that is so wonderful because of their efforts—I will miss them.”
And, of course, she’s gets a little misty thinking about precious moments with students—those that are so quintessentially Middle School: the din of excited voices in the hallway, a random saxophone solo that trickles into her windows from a student waiting for pickup, and all the impactful one-on-one conversations she’s had over the years from which she has learned so much.
“There is so much wisdom in our students’ voices, so many important insights they have to share,” says Jenkins. “If we really listen to what they are saying, really give their voices the consideration and weight they deserve, we can learn and do amazing things—not only for them, but for us as educators, and as an institution.”
Rest assured, retirement does not mean Jenkins won’t be watching eagerly to see what comes next, to see exactly what CA is learning and we will respond as a community. With unwavering faith in the mission and the school she pioneered, she smiles: “I have no doubt that it is going to be amazing.
Written by Mandy Dailey, Director of Communications
CA Curious
Patience, flexibility, grace, and oodles of kindness
While this school year has been the most unique and challenging that I have experienced in my career as an educator, I am thrilled to note that, as we bring our 2020-21 school year to a close, this last week in the Middle School feels wonderfully almost normal. Students are enjoying the typical year-end bonding activities from chalk drawing to rock climbing, sharing remembrances in yearbooks, turning in last-minute assignments, and filling the building with the energy and enthusiasm of anticipation of summer break, relaxation, and travel.
If it were not for the facemasks and reminders to socially distance, it would be hard to believe how much has transpired over the past nine months. From the isolation of working at home to the hybrid configuration of blue and gold cohorts (with virtual and on-campus classes) to all three grade levels back on campus, this has been a year of adaptation and adjustment.
I am hopeful when, as adults, our students look back to this time in their Middle School years that the disruption they experienced will be just one memory in a rich and varied assortment of memories of their educational journey and that the skills they acquired and applied during this time will be life-long: flexibility, patience, resiliency, collaboration, and the ability to deal with uncertainty.
As this is my last blog before I head on to my own journey of a life outside of school walls, I want to express my deepest gratitude to our students, parents, and faculty for coming together during this time of crisis to truly embody the tenants of our mission of a learning community committed to discovery innovation, collaboration, and excellence. Our mission has always driven us forward; for the past 17 months, it has successfully informed our response to a global pandemic.
Thank you, students, for putting your best selves forward– you prevailed through Zoom fatigue.
Thank you, faculty, for your hours of preparation and delivery of creative, challenging, and student-centered learning opportunities.
Thank you, parents, for your support and flexibility with ongoing changes from carpool patterns to health checks to schedule changes.
And thank you, colleagues, in other CA divisions, for your amazing logistical support, including furniture moves, COVID signage, dining flow patterns, lunch supervision, and answering a million health questions.
This year has been one HUGE learning community team project. We are stronger for this effort and have learned so much. To borrow this week’s quote on the sixth-grade hall bulletin board: “Well done, Chargers!”
Transitions mark the end-of-the-year, and we send congratulations to our eighth graders on their move to Upper School and bid fond adieux to our departing Middle School faculty members, Matthew Ripley-Moffit, Leslie Williams, Beth Popp, Brennan Liming, and Laura Price. With optimism for a return to school in August with fewer restrictions and less fear and uncertainty, I wish everyone a lovely summer of relaxation, time with loved ones, and good health!
Sixth-grader shares vaccination experience, hopes with national audience
May 14, 2021
How does it feel to be one of the first young people in the world to receive the COVID-19 vaccine? That’s exactly what MSNBC’s Chris Jansing asked Sophie Holland ’27, during a live interview conducted from Cary Academy’s campus, yesterday afternoon.
“I just really wanted a way to help out all of the community and a way to get out of this pandemic, so that we can all be safe and go back to normal lifestyles,” Sophie told Jansing.
Sophie – who participated in a double-blind vaccine trial of 12- to 15-year-olds conducted by Duke University and Pfizer-BioNTech – appeared with her father, Thomas Holland, MD. Dr. Holland, a hospital physician and infectious disease specialist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, has been working on COVID-19 since the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic, leading in-patient clinical teams caring for COVID-19 patients while helping other infectious disease experts better understand the virus and the health emergency it posed.
Hours prior to the interview, Sophie was “unblinded,” receiving word from vaccine trial officials that she had, in fact, received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, rather than the placebo. Sophie says she’s looking forward to spending time in person with close friends, now that they can receive the vaccine.
Written by Dan Smith, Digital Content Producer and Social Media Manager
Students make their voices heard during CA’s first-ever Poetry Slam
May 13, 2021
After a four-week study of spoken word, poetry, and rap with artists-in-residence Josh “Rowdy” Rowsey ’09 and Lauren Bullock, seventh-grade students shared their voices at Cary Academy’s first annual Middle School Poetry Slam! Student performances on identity and current social justice issues took place on May 12 in the Cary Academy Fitness Center. Students shared poetry and rap that touched on racial injustice, climate change, recent violence towards Asians, female empowerment, gender identity, and much more! Students blew their audience away with their ability to take risks, lean into discomfort, and voice their most deeply held beliefs, feelings, and passions! After a challenging year of disconnection and isolation, it felt so good to have such a bonding and communal experience!
This community-building and advocacy-focused event was the culmination of a month-long study of spoken word, poetry, and rap under the tutelage of Rowsey and Bullock. These two guest experts have been working with 7th graders in the Language Arts classroom, coaching them up on the history of spoken word and hip-hop, poetic form and devices, and performance techniques involving voice, body language, and gesture. Based on this guidance, students have been busy writing, revising, and practicing their delivery for weeks! As Josh and Lauren say, “Peace, love, and family!”
Kevin Joshua Rowsey is a National Recording Artist, Writer, Actor, and Educator based in the North Carolina Triangle Area. “Rowdy” has been featured on BET, NPR, PBS Kids, and has given a TEDX talk on the importance of Hip Hop Culture. Rowsey is a U.S. Hip Hop Ambassador through the U.S. Department of State and the Next Level Hip Hop Program. On stage Rowsey is part of the national collective No9to5 Music and plays with a live Jazz Band (J) Rowdy & The Night Shift which was nominated for a 2017 Carolina Music Award. They’ve been able to share the stage with the likes of Rakim, Busta Rhymes, Ari Lennox, Childish Major, Snow Tha Product, Murs, 2 Chainz, Juicy J, and a plethora of other national recording acts. Currently Rowdy is the founder of two triangle area cyphers – The UNC Cypher (UNC-CH) and the Med City Cypher (Downtown Durham). He also holds the position of Program Director at the Downtown Durham – Afrofuturist Teen Center Blackspace. Through UNC Greensboro’s Masters of Arts in Teaching Program Rowsey continues his mission to spread southern hip hop at a national and international level through performance, writing and educational workshops inspiring the culture through the craft.
Lauren Bullock is a queer multiracial writer, performer, teaching artist, events organizer, and model. Her work appears on AFROPUNK.com, Button Poetry, The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and more. Lauren earned acclaim for her pop culture commentary through editorials on Black Nerd Problems as well as serving as poetry editor for FreezeRay Poetry. To date, she has organized 7 international and regional arts conferences or festivals, and 5 monthly series. Lauren’s modeling work has also been featured by publications such as Gmaro Magazine and Out-and-Out Magazine. When not creating she enjoys fighting crime as a costumed vigilante of many aliases.
Written by Dan Smith, Digital Content Producer and Social Media Manager
