Teachers cleaning bathrooms, overflowing trash cans: Wake County students, frustrated with St. Aug crisis, demand change at leadership academy
Students at the Wake County Public School System’s leadership academies say they’re unhappy with the education they’re getting from the program’s partner, Saint Augustine’s University, as the university grapples with accreditation and budget crises.
Many of the students say they plan to transfer or graduate early, even though that could jeopardize their college plans.
For a decade, Saint Augustine’s has provided college-level courses for students in the program, which enables them to earn up to an associate’s degree for free while in high school.
Participants in the program say many of their classes have moved online. In some cases they’re taking classes quietly clustered together in the university’s often-sweltering library, where they say the heating and air conditioning systems are spotty.
“Right now the education we're receiving is very dismal,” said Camila Reyes, a junior in the women’s leadership program.
The challenges now threaten the future partnership between the university and school system, which is the biggest in the state.
The Wake school board will discuss next steps during a meeting on Tuesday, four days after the deadline for students to apply for a simple transfer back to their base schools. The application window for magnet schools closed weeks ago.
Board Chairman Chris Heagarty declined to comment beyond saying information is still being gathered ahead of the board meeting.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges revoked Saint Augustine’s accreditation in December over financial troubles and improper accounting at the university, which has been late to pay staff and faces property liens and millions of dollars in debt. For now, though, the university is still technically accredited as it enters arbitration over the revocation.
‘Partly our fault’
Federal law requires colleges to be accredited for students who attend them to be eligible for federal financial aid. But whether colleges are accredited also matters if students want an accredited degree for future employment, licensing or graduate programs. Course credits are far less likely to transfer if they are earned while a college is unaccredited.
Marcus Burgess, Saint Augustine’s interim president, told WRAL News he doesn’t expect the school system to continue partnering with the university next year.
“It would be a tragedy that we lost them, but that would be partly our fault,” he told WRAL. “I want to look for the day that we can welcome them back.”
A breakup could cause headaches for hundreds of students at the academies, including the roughly 150 juniors, seniors and 13th-year students who are supposed to be earning college credits at Saint Augustine’s. The academies enroll more than 600 students from sixth grade though the 13th year.
“There's no solid solution being given to us,” said Iman Nazir, a junior at the women’s leadership academy. “This is our education, and a lot of people that go to the school are economically depending on getting these credits so that they can pay for college. And it's just really disappointing to see what's going on and to not know what our futures are going to look like.”
Students will remain at Saint Augustine’s for the rest of the semester and have been told their courses will be accredited. The university’s loss of accreditation isn’t yet final, and all credits already earned while the university’s accreditation has been active will reflect that accreditation.
But if arbitration doesn’t favor the university, its accreditation could be lost by the beginning of the next school year, jeopardizing the university’s full-time students and the academies.
The partnership falls under the state’s Cooperative Innovative High Schools program, as an early college program, requiring and receiving both State Board of Education and General Assembly approval. That means it can’t be easily undone, even if it’s falling apart.
School System spokeswoman Lisa Luten told WRAL News that the system likely can’t partner with another college or university by the next school year because there isn’t enough time to get approval under the cooperative program.
That’s frustrating for academy students, who noted that Saint Augustine’s was placed on accreditation probation — for the second time in a decade — in December 2022.
Luten said the school system has been learning about accreditation concerns at the same time as the public: when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on College issues its decisions.
She said the school system wasn’t exploring changes to its partnership with the university during the probationary period from December 2022, until December 2023, when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on College decided to revoke accreditation. Now system officials are exploring options including and outside of Saint Augustine’s, but caution a new partner may not be possible until the 2025-26 school year.
“We’re aware of some of the challenges that are occurring,” Luten said.
Students and parents say they want a new four-year college partner for the next school year, beginning in August.
Blair Miller, a junior at the young women’s academy, said the school system and school board “failed” the leadership academies by not planning for a change before the university’s accreditation was revoked. “The only sufficient solution would be to move us to another four year university by the fall,” she told WRAL News.
Other options
The school system has floated to parents two other options.
The first is to find other college classes students can take.
The second would be a temporary arrangement with Wake Technical Community College to offer classes similar to what the students were already planning to take next year.
Luten said officials don’t yet know whether all of the same courses would be offered or if students would be able to take the same number of classes under a temporary arrangement. Students also wouldn’t be able to stay enrolled at the early college for a fifth year, because entering a partnership with Wake Tech would remove the academies from the early college program. That means any current seniors who were planning to stay next year won’t be able to. They’ll need to start applying for college now or take a year off between this school year and the 2025-26 school year. Typically, just a handful of students at the academies stay for a 13th year.
One challenge in looking for other colleges for next year is that most colleges have already set their schedules for next fall, Luten said, meaning the school system needs to find an institution with enough capacity to take on the high school students.
Students told WRAL News they want their school to stay an early college. They signed up for an early college program and worked hard for it, they said, completing most of their high school credits in just their freshman and sophomore years. Early college students sacrifice a lot of traditional high school experiences for the promise of getting a head start on their higher education, they said. No homecoming, no co-ed environment starting in the sixth grade, more rigorous academics.
Miller’s mom, April Miller, said she’s disappointed that the school system wasn’t doing more sooner.
“It was clearly in the news that they were struggling with accreditation,” she said. “It’s unfair what’s happening to these kids.”
Even before accreditation was revoked, things were getting worse, Reyes said. Courses weren’t keeping pace with their syllabi, she said.
Students who spoke with WRAL News also said they didn’t see any janitors on campus and that the academies’ leadership staff sometimes takes out the trash and tidies and buys paper towels for the bathrooms. Trash sometimes overflows in the library, where students take their online classes and eat their lunches.“There have been signs for a while that Saint Augustine's is not up to the quality of education, the quality of facilities, or just the general standard and rigor,” Blair Miller said.
Gabriella Titus, a junior at the women’s academy, says she doesn’t want to change for her last year of school. But her parents want her and her sister and brother, who also attend the leadership academies, to transfer. She’d go from earning college credit at a university to taking advanced-placement classes, and she’s worried about how many credits she’ll be able to get ahead of going to college.
“It's just frustrating because we've all put a lot of our lives into this school,” Reyes said, referring to the leadership academy. “We love this school, and we love the program, and what was promised to us, and it's just really sad to see what's going on and how badly it's affecting us and our staff members and other students at our school.”
WRAL reporter Matt Talhelm contributed to this report.
