Superintendent’s Business Advisory Council Leadership Awards

Strong leadership is essential to a school’s success.  That’s why Durham business leaders chose to honor principals and their leadership teams at the second annual Superintendent’s Business Advisory Council Leadership Awards.

The awards event, held on Monday, Sept. 14, serves to recognize exemplary school leadership in meeting annual school Scorecard goals.  State Superintendent June Atkinson was the event’s keynote speaker.

There are three categories of awards.  For the first time, our business supporters provided cash awards for leadership teams for the Leadership Excellence Awards to apply to professional development activities.  The categories of awards and the winners are:

• Leadership Excellence Awards:  Creekside, Oak Grove and Parkwood Elementary, and Rogers-Herr Middle Schools, for achieving the highest percentage of Scorecard High Growth Goals. Winners will receive a night at the Washington Duke Inn, a check for $2,000 for leadership development, and commemorative clock.
• Advanced Academics Leadership Awards:  Southwest Elementary and Rogers-Herr Middle Schools for being the elementary and middle schools with growth in and the percentage of students in the Academically and Intellectually Gifted program, percent of staff who are AIG certified and the growth performance of AIG students on state tests; and Durham School of the Arts for being the high school with highest progress on SAT, AP pass and participation rates and Academically Gifted students’ growth performance on state tests. 
• Leadership Improvement Awards:  Fayetteville Street and Parkwood Elementary and Lowe’s Grove Middle Schools for being the three schools that made the most improvement in meeting goals from one year to the next. 

Winners of the second and third categories mentioned above will receive a night at the Washington Duke and a commemorative clock.

Sponsors of the Awards program are: Platinum Level—GlaxoSmithKline, IBM and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA); Gold Level—Cisco, Bank of America, BB&T, BlueCross BlueShield and the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club; Silver Level—Time Warner Cable and L.A. Downey and Sons, Inc.

“One of the signs of a successful entity is that they celebrate their successes and that is what we are all about today,” said Superintendent Carl Harris. “I want to congratulate every single person in this room for being a high quality leader on this team.”