Seventh-grade students shared their voices at Cary Academy's first annual Middle School Poetry Slam. 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 two artists-in-residence.

On Sunday, March 28, dozens of Cary Academy parents and employees got a taste of Flex Day -- a new addition to CA’s schedule introduced in August 2020. Flex Day is a designated day each week when students are free to explore ideas, interests, and activities beyond the classroom.

The Middle School’s annual Ubuntu program is CA’s celebration of community that allows students to experience different cultures, food, work, and other topics through different lenses. This year, each Middle School grade attended virtual discussions with scholars, activists, and artists whose work serves to inspire us to think about ourselves, our roles in our communities, and our place in history.

At CA, one of our primary goals in world history is to instill a mindset of genuine, respectful, and ethical curiosity about other cultures and empathy for other people. Through exploration and discovery, we aim to broaden our students’ perspectives, encouraging them to develop a more nuanced and intricate understanding of other countries, peoples, and cultures. As Middle School social studies teachers Lucy Dawson and Alicia Morris explain, earlier this month, the seventh grade took part in our first-ever annual Celebrate Africa Day. An immersive experience designed to supplement the world history curriculum and study of the African continent, this community event was an opportunity for students to move beyond a single story of Africa and its people.

Last week Tony Hinton joined the CA leadership team, replacing Jess Garcia, who retired at the end of 2020, as Director of Facilities. Tony joins us with his family from Baltimore, where held facilities and compliance roles for the State of Maryland in the Department of General Services. Tony has a broad background, having previously served as a director of facilities and operations, quality assurance manager, property manager, and police officer.

This past week, Marvin Koonce '21 joined the “best of the best” for the National Association for Music Education 2020 All-National Honor Ensembles Virtual Event, as the top high school jazz pianist in the nation. At the district level, six Cary Academy students were selected for the NC Bandmasters Association All-District Ensembles

After the first of four contests in the American Computer Science League (ACSL) Programming contest, Cary Academy’s student-led teams rank at the top of the leader boards, having scored 30/30 and 29/30, against some of the best programming teams in the U.S., Canada, Croatia, and Romania.