By Kate Searcy
Carrboro Commons Writer

Ten-year-old Lucas Griffin may not be a household name yet, but that hasn’t stopped him and other area youths from brushing up on their acting skills in a summer acting program that is the collaborative effort of Carrboro and Chapel Hill arts organizations.

While pianist Mark Lewis plays the keyboards, “Music Man” hopefuls, left to right, Chelsea Alston, Jabari Foust and Khalid Williams practice vocalizing during auditions for the musical. About 40 youths will be involved in this summer’s musical production.
Staff photo by Kate Searcy

“I [applied] to be in a movie with George Clooney,” Griffin said. “I didn’t make it, but he laughed a lot when he saw my video. He said it was funny.”

Griffin and about 40 other children and teenagers, mostly from the Triangle area, auditioned March 15 and 16 to take part in the Summer Youth Conservatory program, a summer workshop that runs from Jun. 23 to July 23 and allows young actors and actresses to rehearse and perform on the main PlayMakers stage at the Paul Green Theatre at UNC-Chapel Hill.

The workshop is put on by the Carrboro ArtsCenter and PlayMakers Repertory Company. The program is for ages 9-18, and the fee is $1,100, which pays for tuition and housing for the students over the summer.

This is the second summer that the program has been offered, according to Jeri Lynn Schulke, director of the Youth Drama Conservatory at the ArtsCenter.

This year’s performance will be the American classic “The Music Man.”

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By Lindsay Ash
Carrboro Commons Writer

On March 7, the four district middle schools competed in the eighth annual Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Battle of the Books competition.

Phillips Middle School Media Specialist and Co-coach Carolyn Parker talks with students Lenny Rosen (left), Deborah Lawrence (center) and Anne Kelley (right), during the intermission after round eight. Parker has worked with these students at least once a week since October to prepare for the Battle of the Books.
Staff photo by Lindsay Ash

The competition took place in the auditorium of Culbreth Middle School. Parents and students attended the event and cheered in support of 56 students who competed to become the district champion.

Five months of hard work reading 26 books paid off for Phillips Middle School students who won the district competition. Phillips won the Battle of the Books after sixteen rounds with 130 points.

Though Phillips won the competition, event organizer Laura Williams said that all the participants were winners.

“Battle of the Books is a truly impressive feat,” Williams said. “The Battle is so much more than winning. It is about reading.”

Battle of the Books forces students to look beyond plot summary and delve into the details. The students were exposed to a wide variety of literature characterized by a range of plots, settings and styles.

The 26 books on the reading list range from classics to adventure to science fiction and more. The list aims to cover subjects that would appeal to both boys and girls. The State Battle of the Books Committee strives to select quality books that will stand the test of time and are suitable for middle school reading levels.

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By Ann Ansley
Carrboro Commons Writer

On March 18, Roger Clemens, Mia Hamm and Tyler Hansbrough visited Carrboro Elementary School.

Or, rather, the 4-feet-tall versions of these superstars.

Bryant Johnson, 8, poses as Michael Jordan at the annual Carrboro Elementary School Wax Museum project. On March 17 and 18, third graders dressed up as famous people in history and performed short skits about their characters’ lives for family, friends and visiting community members.
Staff photo by Ann Ansley

In one of the busiest events of the year for Carrboro Elementary, third graders participated in their annual Wax Museum project on March 17 and 18. Students dressed up as famous historical characters and performed short speeches about their characters’ lives for family members, friends and members of the community.

“I feel the main thing that is special is that the project incorporates the entire curriculum: social studies, writing, researching, theater,” said Amanda Crisp, vice principal at Carrboro Elementary. “I think it engages and energizes the students, but it also builds community by bringing in parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. The home-school relationship is important.”

Parents also thought the Wax Museum was a very special event.

“Kids learn a lot,” said Rachel Ingham, mother of third grader Ben Ingham. “The people they pick come from all different backgrounds, and the project teaches them to work hard.”

The costumed third graders lined up along three long hallways. Whenever a visitor approached a student and stepped on the small laminated square in front of them, the student came alive and spoke of his or her character’s life and accomplishments.

The students’ choices of characters were as different as their favorite aspects of completing the project.

“I liked typing it up,” said 8-year-old Ben Ingham, who was dressed up as Christopher Columbus.

“He picked Christopher Columbus because they both liked maps,” added Ben’s mom.

Eight-year-old Bryant Johnson dressed up as Michael Jordan.

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by Morgan Siem
Carrboro Commons Writer

Visitors to Frank Porter Graham Elementary School might notice a change of scenery at the “Home of the Lions.” Along the sidewalk of painted lion paws is the greenhouse, which until last week was in obvious disrepair. Now it is ready to welcome classes of young scientists after being renovated on Saturday.

Luke Martin, 20, and Danny Randolph, 21, use rakes and shovels to move gravel on the floor of the greenhouse so they can place down plastic sheeting to prevent weeds from growing.
Staff photo by Morgan Siem

“It looks beautiful,” science teacher Livy Ludington said Monday. “It was so nice to come in to school today and see it like that.”

Going Above and Beyond

The renovation project began after Ludington asked her classroom aide, Randall Berg, if he might be able to do some minor repairs to the greenhouse, which has a base of 12 square feet and a height of 8 feet.

“He ended up exceeding all expectations,” she said. “He really took it on and found friends to help.”

Berg, a 20-year-old from Miami, is studying history and the “Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense” at UNC-Chapel Hill while preparing for medical school. He volunteers on Tuesdays with Ludington’s science classes.

“I think it’s great for the kids to have the experience growing things,” Berg said. “Because it was one of my favorite things when I was in elementary school. I liked watching things grow and continue on. Some students will even get the chance to eat what they’ve grown.”

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En Español

by Morgan Siem
Carrboro Commons Writer

Overcoming his fear of the microphone, a preschool boy said, “A mi me gusta hablar en Español,” which means that he likes to speak in Spanish. He was among the many passionate supporters of the dual-language program who came to the Jan. 17 meeting of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education.

Kindergartner Jennifer Gonzalez works on her journal in Spanish with Luzma Henao, teaching assistant from Colombia.
photo by Morgan Siem

Dual-language programs began six years ago in two of the district’s schools: Carrboro Elementary and Glenwood Elementary. Since then, tremendous support and demand have prompted the board to consider expanding the program to Scroggs, McDougle and Frank Porter Graham elementary schools.

The program forces students to use visual cues, work with others and ask for help, said José Nambo, dual-language coordinator for the district.

“This program encourages students to think in a different format,” he said. “It gives them the ability to look for other ways to complete a task.”

Classes are formatted so that 50 percent of the students are English language learners and 50 percent speak English as their first language. For half of the day, the instructors teach in English. For the other half, they teach in a second language.

At Glenwood Elementary, the target language is Mandarin, and at Carrboro it is Spanish. If Frank Porter Graham, Scroggs and McDougle add dual-language programs, they will target Spanish.

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by Lindsay Ash
Carrboro Commons Writer

Students and community residents took an inventive step toward linking Carrboro to a more sustainable future Sunday at the Carrboro Century Center.

Chapel Hill High School students Alicia Cohen and Erin Holdaway display their fictional sustainable island named Kabuki. Kabuki is an island in the Caribbean that had areas that were developed, including a downtown and business area, but also had reserved green space that was left undeveloped.
Photo by Lindsay Ash.

Chapel Hill High School students and environmental groups dedicated to climate change, sustainable growth and water resources joined forces to explore how to conserve.

The event, called “Celebration of Earth and Sky,” centered on Robert Greenberg’s Earth and Environmental Science class that created models of fictional islands. The islands required extensive research into the notion of sustainability and its relevance in the community.

“Our research triggered the question, why aren’t we doing any of this here?” said Alicia Cohen, 16, a sophomore at Chapel Hill High School.

Greenberg assigned the island project with William McDonough and Michael Braungart’s “cradle-to-cradle” design in mind. Cradle-to-cradle design suggests a framework in which the effective, regenerative cycles of nature are models for human designs.

Writing in their book, “Cradle to Cradle,” McDonough and Braungart explain. “Imagine a world in which all the things we make, use and consume provide nutrition for nature and industry—a world in which growth is good and human activity generates a delightful, restorative ecological footprint.”

The philosophy, that emphasizes the continuing community over the individual’s cradle-to-grave experience, inspired all of the students’ and other environmental groups’ projects.

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By Allison Parker
Staff writer

Nicole Atwater, 10 years old, completes a writing assignment with her tutor.
Commons Photo by Allison Parker

Matthew Coplin, a 10-year-old fourth grader at McDougle Elementary School, says he wants to build things just like his father.

“My dad wants me to follow his dream,” he says. “I think I’ve got the building genes.”

Matthew looks up to his dad as his role model.

Suddenly, he busts out in a song about multiplication. “I have trouble memorizing my timetables,” he explains. “But I have cool rhymes that I use to make me learn them.”

He says tutoring allows him to learn from past mistakes. “I like to be tutored in writing because the tutors can help you spell words,” he says. “They tell you to read words, like, 100 times, so you can memorize them.”

Why does he like reading? “Reading is cool because you get hooked on the beginning,” he said. “If the book is magical or mysterious, you want to read more.”

Tutoring 101

After-school programs, student tutoring sessions and parent-volunteer programs are just a few of the tutoring options available throughout the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School system to help students like Matthew.

“Through the Parent Teacher Association, parents can sign up to be a tutor,” said Kathie Guild, McDougle school counselor. “The recruits in the county’s district office also advertise in the retirement community and recruit retired teachers to tutor.”

Students of UNC-Chapel Hill are also doing their part to educate younger kids. Through an “Education In American Society” class taught by professor Gerald Unks, college students tutor at the county’s elementary schools for an hour twice a week. “The young kids really like the college students,” Guild said. “They work really well with the kids, and some, such as athletes, are recognized by the kids.”

Angela Alcala, a junior at UNC-CH from Charlotte and student in Unks’ class, said she enjoys the one-on-one interaction tutoring allows. “It’s interesting to watch the children develop, especially since I tutor the same child every week,” she said.

Eye on the prize

“What times what gives you 64? What two numbers?” asks fourth-grade teacher Diana Barefoot during her daily math lesson. About 15 hands shoot into the air as each child competed for her attention. Like with Matthew, multiplication seems to be a popular, sometimes troublesome, subject among elementary school students.

“I like math because I like doing multiplication problems,” says 9-year-old Brittney Gardinier. “When I grow up I want to be an eye doctor, so I want to do the best that I can in school.”

Reading is another one of her favorite activities. “I like reading different book series to see which I like the best,” she says. “Tutoring gives me good reading experience.”

High-stake testing

With the new rules of accountability in North Carolina, children that move from other areas sometimes struggle to keep up in the classroom, Guild said. After-school programs provide students with the help they need to stay on track.

Tutoring sessions held after school are taught by teachers. “The program is meant to support kids that have a hard time with the End-of-Grade Test in May,” Guild said.

She said the after-school program focuses on students who are caught in the achievement gap. “English as a Second Language students and students with learning disabilities have the hardest time.”

Guild said tutoring helps students grasp the material necessary for them to pass the tests. “Kids that move around from school to school and are in transition need continual exposure to the material,” she said.

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Note: This is a follow-up to a previous story about Because We’re Still Here (and Moving).

By Justin Smith
Staff Writer

East Chapel Hill High School Senior Thomas Moore, UNC-Chapel Hill sophomore Jessica Ra and UNC-CH freshman Maura Bladiga walk through Chapel Hill’s Northside community on their way to conduct an interview for Because We’re Still (and Moving).
Commons Photos by Justin Smith

The three students set out on foot into Chapel Hill’s Northside community armed with a notebook, a digital audio recorder and a disposable 35mm camera. They have everything they need to conduct a field interview – almost everything.

“Do you know where Caldwell Street is,” asks UNC-Chapel Hill freshman Maura Baldiga.
UNC-CH sophomore Jessica Ra responds, “I have no idea.”

Navigating through sometimes unfamiliar neighborhoods is just part of the challenge for students participating in Because We’re Here Still (and Moving), a project in which area high school students team up with UNC-Chapel Hill sociology students to document Northside and Pine Knolls, two of Chapel Hill’s historically black communities.

Ra uses her cell phone to call the interviewee to ask for directions. The woman cancels the interview, saying she is too busy – and it turns out she doesn’t live on Caldwell Street anyway.

Situations like this have forced the project organizers to make adjustments to their original plan, said Hidden Voices Director Lynden Harris.

“It’s become very flexible, but I think that’s great,” Harris said.

During a period of four Saturdays, 10 teams, each with two UNC-CH students and one high school student, interviewed residents and business owners in the black communities.

Team members share the roles of photographer, oral historian and producer.

Thomas Moore, a senior at East Chapel Hill High School, lives in the Northside community and participates in Because We’re Still Here (and Moving).

“We’re trying to save the community,” Moore said.

The 18-year-old said he has seen Northside change in recent years with increased development and the rise in the number of college students living in the area.

Moore said some families have moved away from the area.

“It seems like they’re getting forced to move out,” he said.

Harris said one of the goals of the project is to document the stories of older residents before it is too late.

“Some of the older residents have been interviewed many times, so one of the things we wanted to do is ask them questions they have not been asked before,” Harris said.

On a Wednesday evening, Moore and three other students gathered in a conference room in the Midway Business Center in Chapel Hill as they prepared to interview Fred Battle, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

“Who are your parents?” Battle asked Moore. “Most of the people around here, I know their parents.”

After the small-talk is done, UNC senior Leniqua Blue gets Battle to sign a release form while UNC junior Amelia O’Rourke-Owens places an audio recorder on the conference table.

O’Rourke-Owens did not have to ask many questions. Battle spoke freely about the changing face of Chapel Hill’s historically black communities.

Hidden Voices Director Lynden Harris.

“The taxes are at a point, they’re so high, a lot of our seniors can’t afford to live here,” Battle said.

He added that many of the houses are being sold or turned into rental property.

The local civil rights leader also complained about the public education that black students in the area receive.

“The biggest difference between the schools today and the schools in the past is back then we felt like a family,” Battle said.

The transcript of Battle’s interview along with the other oral histories will be used to create a live stage production to be performed in February in conjunction with Black History Month.

Harris said the performance, like the field work, is a work in progress.

“On stage, we’re going to have images projected, maps, students, maybe some seniors, and that’s as much as we know right now,” Harris said with a laugh.

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Justin Smith
Staff Writer
Commons Photo by Justin Smith

At 3 years old, Allison Garren had her first performance in a play about the history of her hometown of Rutherfordton, N.C. Twenty years and many plays later, Garren is organizing a performance about the history of Chapel Hill and Carrboro’s black communities.

The project, “Because We’re Still Here (and Moving),” will focus on two historically black neighborhoods — Pine Knolls and Northside.

“I think that part of town is either unknown or people have a lot of assumptions about it,” said Garren.

Garren, an AmeriCorps member, will recruit volunteers and sponsors for the project, but she will not write the play. Local high school students with connections to Pine Knolls and Northside will partner with sociology students at UNC-Chapel Hill to document the oral histories that will become the basis for the performance.

“I think we’re providing bridges that otherwise would not exist between these two communities,” said Garren.

During the next few months on four Saturdays, 10 teams — each with two UNC-CH students and one high school student — will interview residents and business owners.

Team members will share the roles of photographer, oral historian and producer, Garren said.

Oral historian Ann Kaplan and photojournalist Ellen Ozier Hayes will provide guidance to the students throughout the process.

Additional students will conduct interviews this summer, and their work will be compiled in the fall. Students then will produce a stage performance based on the interviews and photographs.

The first public performance, slated for next February, will coincide with Black History Month.

Garren graduated from the UNC-CH in 2005 with a degree in political science. While at the University, she choreographed several shows and even played the part of a tub of Crisco in “The Goodbye Girl.”

When Garren directed “The Vagina Monologues” her senior year, it allowed her to combine two passions — political activism and theater.

After graduation, Garren worked with the Orange County Literacy Council where she helped organize a stage performance that featured adult learners telling their stories called “Respect Has Seven Letters.”

“These are people who aren’t necessarily asked their opinions,” Garren said. “But they have the answers to the problems because they face them every day.”

The performance generated by “Because We’re Still Here (and Moving)” will be presented next year at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro. In addition, Garren said she hopes to perform the play at a UNC-CH venue such as the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.

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