Hillsborough Elementary School year-round, achieves higher state testing scores

When Jen Benkovitz was job-hunting, she was attracted to Hillsborough Elementary School for its year-round calendar, but she loves the school for its commitment to excellence.

“Students do really well here,” said Benkovitz, who has just completed her third month at Hillsborough. “It’s everything I hoped and even more than that.”

Benkovitz is opening the school’s doors to prospective students and their parents on Nov. 18 by offering tours of the facility. Registration for the school will open in January.

Hillsborough’s year starts in mid-July. Throughout the year, students attend class for nine weeks followed by a three-week break, ending in five weeks off for summer. The number of school days students attend class is the same as a traditional school—180.

Benkovitz said many people prefer the year-round model because the students retain more from their studies from year to year.

“I haven’t heard a kid complain,” she said. “The kids seem to love it. Right at that time they seem to need a break, it’s there.”

Of the county’s elementary schools, Hillsborough has the highest overall student performance on end-of-grade tests in the district, according to Education First’s N.C. School Report Cards.

More than 80 percent of students scored at or above grade level in reading, and almost 92 percent of students scored at or above grade level in math.

These figures compare to the district’s overall student performance percentages of about 74 percent and 84 percent, respectively.

“There’s a high desire to be here,” Benkovitz said. “And of course, we don’t have space to take everyone.”

Michael Gilbert, spokesman for Orange County Schools, said students living in any of the district’s zones can apply, although preference is given to those with siblings already at the school. Parents find out if their students are accepted around March.

Last year 98 students applied to attend Hillsborough, which currently has 410 students.

Meg Merritt, the school’s office administrator, said different factors are weighed when deciding who will be accepted.

“We can only accept a certain number of children from each of the schools that they’re supposed to go to,” she said. “We have a cap.”

“It’s not a first-come, first-served. It’s based on socioeconomic information because we’re trying to be as diverse as we can.”

Melissa Denney, the school’s counselor, said parents sometimes run into problems with the school when they have one student attending Hillsborough and another who graduates to a traditional-calendar middle school.

“Different people handle it different ways,” she said. “We have a lot of families that make it work somehow. Some families we have had decided not to send their younger child once their older child enters middle school.”

Gilbert said the district used to have a year-round program at A.L. Stanback Middle School, but it ended in the mid-’90s.

“It kind of faded away,” he said.

Gilbert said there likely won’t ever be a year-round high school due to athletic seasons, testing dates and other programs.

And, he said, the year-round calendar isn’t for everyone.

“But the people that are involved in it seem to like it,” Gilbert said. “There’s a percentage of people that really, really like that schedule.”

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.