North Carolina State University and Shaw University have emerged as the top contenders to partner with the Wake school system’s two leadership academies. The chosen university would replace Saint Augustine’s University, which will no longer provide any classes to the academies’ students, for the 2025-26 school year.
Under a temporary arrangement, next year leadership academy students will attend Wake Technical Community College to complete their college credits. The campus’s location on Louisburg Road in northern Raleigh has irked some families who live farther away and found the SAU location near downtown Raleigh much more convenient.
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But that arrangement won’t change, even as the school system is already in talks to replace Wake Tech.
Superintendent Robert Taylor said Wake Tech took enormous steps to hire staff and make arrangements to host the students for next year. Taylor doesn’t see propping up another arrangement before the 2025-26 school year as a possibility.
“Ultimately, we will stay the course,” Taylor told the school board during a work session Tuesday. “That may displease some parents, but we are talking about stability.”
The school system’s two leadership academies — the Wake Young Women’s Leadership Academy and the Wake Young Men’s Leadership Academy — are in search of a permanent four-year college partner.
The school board severed the schools’ agreements with SAU earlier this year after months of concern over the university’s accreditation and complaints from parents and students about the declining quality of education at the university, where classes had moved online and students were taking them in the school library.
The academies enroll about 600 students, and more than 150 juniors and seniors take college classes nearly full-time.
School system officials met with leaders at North Carolina State University, Shaw University, Wake Tech, William Peace University, Meredith College and North Carolina Wesleyan, which has a satellite campus nearby. Area Superintendent Seydric Williams said leaders already ruled out Meredith, with whom conversations never went in-depth; WPU, which has insufficient space; and NC Wesleyan, which also has insufficient space; and Wake Technical Community College, after parents said they wanted a four-year university partner.
The school board will pick a new partner later this summer, and a handful of board members will provide feedback on exactly what to look for. Board Chairman Chris Heagarty said he’d see who was interested and expected the group would include Sam Hershey, whose district includes the academies.
“Everyone is looking to see a final resolution to this,” Heagarty said.
The district must submit a letter of intent to apply to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction next month, and the district must apply by Oct. 4, meaning the board needs to pick a new partner soon.
Early colleges are high schools the have special authorization under state law. They have students complete almost all of their high school credits in their first two years before attending a two or four-year college partner. Students can earn up to an associate’s degree and even stay for a fifth year of high school. That fifth year is something a handful of students take advantage of every year. Tuition is covered by the General Assembly, rather than by families.
A bill passed by the House and awaiting a vote in the Senate would allow the leadership academies to keep their early college statuses in spite of the end of their agreement with SAU. That would allow students who just finished their fourth year of high school to stay for a fifth year and earn more college credits. It would also let the school board partner with a new university as soon as possible instead of having to go through a competitive process. Normally, early colleges and other “cooperative innovative high schools” must go through rigorous application processes and ultimately be approved by the General Assembly, and only three can be approved each year.