Carrboro High School revamps international studies program

When UNC freshman Eliza Filene was at Carrboro High School, her involvement in the Academy of International Studies took her from Carrboro to Decatur, Ill., to Haiti — and due to the redevelopment of the program this year, more Carrboro students will be following in Filene’s footsteps.

This year, Carrboro High revamped the program, known as AIS, which started in 2008.

Students in the program take a set of classes and participate in extracurricular activities that focus on international issues. Filene discussed global poverty with philanthropist Howard Buffett over dinner in Decatur, Ill., and spoke at an international conference in Haiti.

Anthony Swaringen, the program’s director, said it lacked rigor and cohesiveness in previous years.

Swaringen, who is also an English teacher, said Carrboro High’s principal, LaVerne Mattocks, wanted to put available funds toward reorganizing and revitalizing the program this year.

“She really wanted it to flourish a lot more than it was,” Swaringen said.

This year, the program’s 49 freshmen are taking three specified classes — English, world history and biology. The curricula of all three are coordinated to have a global focus.

This semester, the curricula highlighted the recent Ebola outbreak, requiring students to read nonfiction about Ebola, study the science of the disease and examine its historical impact. The students will also complete a common research project.

“Through its expansion, I hope the Academy of International Studies can bring valuable global experiences to students of all different backgrounds,” Filene said in an email. “It should open up doors to involvement and deep learning.”

Swaringen said the reaction from students and parents to the program’s redevelopment has been positive.

“Students are already engaged with these big global issues, so giving them a more formal way to be able to play on that interest they have — they’re really happy for that,” he said.

Swaringen said having three classes with the same group of students will help ninth graders of all performance levels with the transition to high school.

The program receives $3,666 from the district in discretionary funding. The money goes toward textbooks, lab equipment and trips — the freshman class will travel to New York City in March.

Chapel Hill resident Carolyn Christians enrolled her ninth-grade son in the program.

“They really reorganized it,” Christians said. “They got a better direction of what they were talking about.”

Christians saw her older son, now a Carrboro High senior, lose three teachers in one school year. She hopes AIS will be a motivator for teachers to stay in the district.

“I’m just hoping that it becomes challenging enough to the teachers. Maybe it’ll help them stick around and not feel that they just need to abandon ship,” she said. “I was desperately trying to figure out ways that the school would have good faculty.”

Matthew Cone, who teaches the program’s ninth-grade world history class, said while the program might not stop teachers from leaving for financial reasons, it keeps the ones who choose to stay, including himself, animated and engaged.

“I think our school has done a really good job of tapping into speakers and taking kids on field trips and having them read about a bunch of issues — I think we’ve always done a good job of that, but in the past, people have been doing it more in isolation than they’re doing it now,” Cone said. “I think most people are finding it pretty encouraging.”

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