Durham Public Schools: Leaders in the State

  • Only school district in North Carolina—and one of only eight districts in the Southeast—selected to host the SECME Early College High School program.
  • Only school district piloting biodiesel fuel to operate school buses, significantly reducing the amount of toxins released into the air.
  • Only K-12 school district in the United States in 1999 to receive National Science Foundation grant to establish RAMP (Realizing Achievement in Mathematics Program).
  • Only school district in North Carolina to be featured in the 2004 “Quality Counts” annual report, published by Education Week, a national education publication.
  • Third highest SAT participation rate in the state.
  • First school system in North Carolina to offer FEMA training (Campus Emergency Response Teams-CERT) in every school.
  • The only school district in the state to receive Safe Schools, Healthy Students federal grant in 2000, at $7.8 million—the highest ever for DPS.
  • Home of the 2000 North Carolina Superintendent of the Year, Ann T. Denlinger
  • Seventh largest school district in the state.
  • One of five school districts selected to receive NC Health and Wellness Trust Fund Commission grant to fight obesity.
  • One of five school districts with a Hospital School. Instruction in the Hospital School and homebound is delivered by certified teachers, frequently at bedside and naturally in the homes.  We use online instruction to fulfill foreign language needs or for students who are academically independent and do not require as much of the personal teacher contact to succeed, while out of school.
  • Durham Public Schools is one full year ahead of reaching goal to close achievement gap by 2007.
  • DPS is the fourth largest employer in Durham County.
  • A diverse school district with students from more than 60 countries and who speak 79 languages.
  • Community support of schools demonstrated in 2001 with overwhelming bond approval of $51.8 million, and again in 2003, with record approval margin (79 percent) for $105.3 million to build new schools and renovate many others.
  • Partner with the Hill Center as recipients of a $640,000 grant to improve reading achievement in certain elementary schools. 
  • The divide between African-American students’ achievement levels and those of white and Asian students has narrowed by one third between 1999 and 2003.
  • The number of African-American students reading proficiently in grades 3 through 8 has increased by 50 percent since 1997, while the same group of students performing mathematics at or above grade level has jumped 59 percent.
  • Most wide-ranging Schools of Choice plan in the state, with many options for parents and students, including Magnet Schools, Career Pathways, and the state’s most flexible transfer policy.
  • K-3 Literacy Initiative recognized with the Governor’s Award of Excellence, and used as a national model.
  • One of three school systems in North Carolina to receive a Teaching American History grant for approximately $1 million from the U.S. Department of Education in 2002. 
  • District with the only school, Forest View Elementary, cited as a leader in teaching students about other countries and cultures when North Carolina won the first Goldman Sachs Foundation Award for Excellence in International Education. 
  • DPS is one of two districts in NC (and one of six total) to be profiled in Leader to Leader: Meeting State and Federal Accountability Requirements by Betty Jo Munk (Baylor University) in a joint publication of the Texas Association of School Administrators and the NC Association of School Administrators (2003).
  • DPS is the only school district in the Southeast using the Reading Apprenticeship framework to improve reading. 
  • DPS is one of three North Carolina school districts moving toward a districtwide Positive Behavior Support Initiative. 
  • Club Boulevard Humanities Magnet Elementary School was named one of 18 Magnet Schools of Excellence by the Magnet Schools of America in 2001-02.
  • Jordan and Riverside High Schools were ranked in the top 5 percent of academically rigorous high schools by Newsweek magazine in 2003.

Last updated 11/04