North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) is a two-year, public residential high school located in Durham, North Carolina. It is state wide, accepting students from across NC. Though the school is public, one must apply to be admitted due to limited room. Admission is competitive. NCSSM is a member of the NCSSSMST.
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The brainchild of former North Carolina Governors Jim Hunt and Terry Sanford, as well as well known author and academic John Ehle, NCSSM opened its doors in 1980 as the first school of its kind in the United States.
NCSSM is located on the site of the former Watts Hospital, which operated there from to 1895 to 1976. One of the school's buildings is still known as Watts. NCSSM's campus is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and it is home to a lunch counter from Woolworth's in Durham, at which a sit-in took place on February 7, 1960.
The student body has grown to approximately 650 students since 1980. Since its inception, the school has been fully funded by the state, meaning no student has ever paid any tuition, room, board, or other student fees. Furthering the state's commitment to what it sees as its top students, legislation was passed in 2003 granting all graduates of the school free tuition to any institution in the University of North Carolina System, of which NCSSM is an affiliated institution.
The school has served as a model for 18 similar schools, many of which are now members of the National Consortium of Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science, and Technology.
Designed with a strong focus on science and math, all students are required to take a minimum of a year of physics, chemistry, and biology, and are required to be enrolled in at least one math course every semester.
Though focusing in science and math, the school maintains strong humanities programs as well. Many humanities offerings are more innovative than those at traditional public high schools, with courses ranging from interdisciplinary combinations of History and Literature to studies of contemporary culture in Latin America and Africa.
A particularly unique aspect to academics at NCSSM is the existence of a two week (eight academic days plus two weekends) "miniterm" in the spring where students are able to design their own independent project or study with staff support, travel abroad in a faculty designed study, or participate in one of a wide range of small classes designed by faculty.
Students also have the option of designing semester-long seminars in topics of their choice for partial academic credit.
Recently, NCSSM has switched to a trimester system.
The mathematics department offers classes such as "Game Theory and Combinatorics," "Vector Functions and Partial Derivatives," and other post-calculus mathematics courses. NCSSM's budding computer science department offers both introductory programming classes and upper-level classes that combine advanced algorithmics with discrete mathematics.
One highlight of the school is "Neverland," the official name of the entirely student-run, Linux-based server. The server, whose web site resides at neverland.ncssm.edu, provides personal and academic web space to students as well as computing resources to research groups on campus. The student administrators, who change each year, also maintain a lab of Linux-based machines, which they use to teach other students about Linux in "seminars" (mentioned above as student-organized, semester-long classes).
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Academics
Demographics
See also