NOTICE: Items in the Uniform Policy are currently being re-evaluated. We recommend holding off on buying new items until more information is available. Please check the March 29th Newsletter for an update. Thank you!

Let’s Go RBA!

Congratulations to all six of The Roger Bacon Academy cheer teams for placing in the top five of their divisions at The Quest National Championship! The competition was held March 10-11 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney World in Orlando, Fla.

RBA athletes and coaches continue to make us proud and always put RBA values into their practice. While growing each year, the RBA cheer teams show what it means to have true character and dedication beyond CS-America’s campuses.

Great job to all athletes and coaches! Check out pictures from their weekend in Orlando at the link below.

Photos

Kindergarten Masters the Alphabet

Throughout this school year, kindergarteners have met the Letterland characters and learned each letter’s correct sound, shape, and spelling. Using Letterland songs and strategies, kindergarten students have now covered all 44 sounds in the English language and their major recurring spelling patterns.

To celebrate, kindergarten students put on the annual Letterland Parade. Dressed as their favorite Letterland characters, they marched through campus to celebrate mastering the alphabet while being cheered on by the rest of the elementary school!

Following the parade, students who have met the goal of being a fluent reader participated in the “I Can Read” ceremony. These readers were awarded a certificate and read a story to all in attendance.

Way to go kindergartners!

CCS-Leland photos

CCS-Whiteville photos

CCS-Wilmington photos

CCS-Southport will celebrate later this year!

CCS-Whiteville Beta Club

The CCS-Whiteville Beta Club had another outstanding performance at the North Carolina Junior Beta Convention in January. Here are the categories won:

The mission of the Beta Club is to promote academic achievement, character, service, and leadership. At State and Nationals Conventions, Beta Clubs compete in various events that relate to classes at CCS-America.

Congratulations to Ms. Allen and all who competed!

Photos

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

Electives Spotlight: Life Skills

Classical Charter Schools of America offers numerous electives for middle school students. Electives provide educational opportunities that allow students to learn skills, work together, and sometimes even compete. Two electives offered are Life Skills I & II that focus on providing students with the tools needed to succeed.

In Life Skills I, students learn the necessary skills for everyday living. This course emphasizes goal setting, decision making, problem solving, communication, healthy lifestyles and relationships, sewing, nutrition, personal safety, citizenship, and consumerism. After students complete Life Skills I, they are eligible to sign up for Life Skills II where they continue to build on these skills.

Each year, Middle School students participate in at least two electives to allow students to explore their interests. For a list of current CCS-America electives, see the link below.

Elective Descriptions

Handwriting Contest Winners

Congratulations to CCS-America’s 2023 Handwriting Contest winners, honorable mentions, and classes that displayed overall handwriting excellence! Winners and honorable mentions will receive a cash prize, and classes with overall handwriting excellence will receive a door medallion.

The classes with overall handwriting excellence are: 

The winners and honorable mentions can be found at the links below. Great job to all CCS-America students for their continuous hard work!

CCS-Leland

CCS-Southport

CCS-Whiteville

CCS-Wilmington

Staff Spotlight

Classical Charter Schools of America is proud to share that Mrs. Katy Bannerman, CCS-Leland’s 8^th Grade English Language Arts teacher, has been selected to serve on the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust. 

The North Carolina Council on the Holocaust works with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to curate resources and develop curriculum content and professional development.

“The Holocaust is and always has been a part of History that I am passionate about. Not only from the perspective of an educator that believes it is so very important for students to learn and understand the significance of the Holocaust, but also as someone with Jewish heritage. My mother’s family is Jewish, and I am proud to be a descendant of this ancient lineage. While I am not a member of the faith, their stories of courage and fortitude during such a dark time in their history must live on in the hearts and minds of all students,” Mrs. Bannerman says.

She continues, “Our school’s focus on character brings an even deeper and more special focus on this time period in History. We instruct and encourage our students to be healthy in spirit, morally straight, truthful, virtuous, courageous, hope for a better future, and to have charity towards their neighbors.

“By participating in this Council, I hope to bring both my personal passions and experiences in our classical curriculum environments for the benefit of this new Holocaust curriculum and students all over North Carolina. I am especially grateful to Dean Lopez for sharing this opportunity, everyone at RBA, and CCS-Leland for mentoring, training, and encouraging me as an educator so that I get to participate in opportunities like this,” Mrs. Bannerman adds.

Congratulations to Mrs. Bannerman on this opportunity, and we can’t wait to see everything she accomplishes on the Council!

The Danger of Rewriting Children’s Books

Each year, CCS-America’s fourth-grade students typically read George Selden’s Newberry Award-winning novel, Cricket in Times Square. But next year will be different after the beloved modern children’s classic was altered to placate woke critics, who complained that the Chinese characters’ speech was presented in an offensive manner.

Rewriting books is a slippery slope, especially when the authors (George Selden passed away in 1989) are no longer here to defend their work or give permission.

If this becomes the norm, other modern classics such as The Joy Luck Club, The Indian in the Cupboard, and To Kill a Mockingbird also will be modified or banned to satisfy critics. Mark Twain’s classics, Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, already have been removed from many libraries and reading lists across the country.

To rewrite books to fit an agenda is an assault on literature and freedom of expression. In sports there’s a saying: No harm, no foul. A similar rule should apply to literature.

National Handwriting Day

National Handwriting Day is celebrated each year on January 23^rd, the birthday of John Hancock. He is best known for being the first and most prominent signature on the Declaration of Independence and because of this, a person’s signature is sometimes referred to as a “John Hancock.”

In 2019, CCS-America began hosting a Handwriting Competition on National Handwriting Day where students in all grades are given a phrase to copy and a prompt to answer in their neatest handwriting. Grades 4-8 are required to write it in cursive. First-place winners and honorable mentions receive a cash prize and classrooms that display overall handwriting excellence receive a door medallion.

There are numerous benefits to writing in cursive, also known as “longhand” writing, most notably that it seems to increase information retention. Many studies also show that pairing cursive writing with reading aloud improves both skills; so, they should progress hand-in-hand in the curriculum. Be on the lookout for the announcements of the 2023 Handwriting Competition winners soon!

Read more here

Students of the Month 

Character education is an important part of the CCS-America 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.

January’s character trait was Honesty. Students who show honesty are truthful in what they do and say. Honesty is seen in the School Pledge as “I Pledge to be truthful in all my works.” Honest students apply these words to their everyday lives by telling the truth, playing by the rules, and not exaggerating facts.

Congratulations to all students who demonstrated exemplary honesty. Check them out on the links below!

CCS-Leland

CCS-Southport

CCS-Whiteville

CCS-Wilmington

CCS-Wilmington Marches in the Annual MLK Parade

Classical Charter Schools of Wilmington joined the Wilmington community on Monday in the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parade.

Students and staff at CCS-Wilmington have participated in this event for nine years in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King’s birthday is an opportunity to bring people together and pay tribute to the positive changes he brought to our country.

Dr. King was due to visit Wilmington on April 4, 1968, the day he was killed, but postponed his trip to assist striking sanitation workers in Memphis, where he met his untimely death.  

Pictures

Even the King Bust Follow the Law

In 1215, King John of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta, or great charter, which placed the king under the rule of law (rather than above it) and documented a series of rights and liberties that for more than 800 years have served as the foundation for individual rights in England and the West. The Magna Carta had a significant influence on America’s founding documents and the concept of Americans’ unalienable rights. CCS-America schools therefore, ensure our students understand the Magna Carta’s importance. Our classical history program spends four days devoted to teaching the Magna Carta. Students learn its significance and its relevancy today. The mini unit culminates in a play where students re-enact King John being forced to sign the Magna Carta by his nobles.

Learn more about the Magna Carta by clicking the links below.

History the Magna Carta in the United Kingdom

The Magna Carta at the United States’ National Archives

CCS-Southport Pictures

Alumni Spotlight

Meet Rebecca Applewhite Hester! Mrs. Hester graduated in 2007 as the salutatorian of the first RBA graduating class and is now working in the pharmaceutical industry.

Mrs. Hester says, “RBA laid the foundation and supplied me with tools that I still reach for fifteen years after my graduation. I am forever indebted to my teachers who ensured I was set up for success and for supplying me with a safe environment to achieve my goals.”

Learn more about Mrs. Hester and how her RBA education has continued to benefit her here!