Equipping students with viable, marketable skills to help them navigate a rapidly changing college and career landscape by establishing high expectations is what has landed the Durham School of Technology among the upper echelons of small high schools in the state of North Carolina.
“It is a collective rally around high expectations that we have here,” said DST Principal Lamont Dixon. “Those high expectations permeate everything we do in the building from the time the students enter our doors.”
These high standards have served students well when it comes to teaching and learning excellence. The school, which currently serves 215 students, exceeded growth expectations for the fifth consecutive year for the 2024-25 school year. And the 5.6 index the school earned that year exceeded the previous year’s index by well more than one point (4.2 for the 2023-24 school year).
Focused learning, collaborative work cultivate academic success
As its name implies, the Durham School of Technology offers intensive studies around the latest in technology and engineering while still offering instruction in the core academic areas of English, math, science, and social studies. As with many Durham Public Schools small high schools, students can earn college credit while in high school (DST has a partnership with Durham Technical Community College).
“Our program is highly aligned to the emerging workforce,” said Dixon. “It catapults students into the workforce seamlessly.”
Courses include computer science, cybersecurity, network engineering, CISCO programming, and Python programming. An Artificial Intelligence course is currently being developed for the 2025-26 school year. DST graduates who pursue jobs instead of going to college can graduate with certifications that can lead to well-paying jobs right out of high school.
Dixon said that his teaching team works closely with students to foster an environment where learning is taken very seriously and classroom time is sacred.
“It’s ‘Put your phones away, power them down, make sure you’re in class,’” said Dixon. “We are prompting students to embrace academic excellence. We have a firm commitment from our teachers to engage students in higher levels of learning.”
“Students can appreciate the sanctity of that environment. They can say, ‘This is a safe space. This is my space.,’” said Dixon. “I want this to be a haven for them.”
Much attention is paid to ensuring that students are self-learners, and that they become comfortable working together. This is crucial to what they will find in college and in the working world.
“Our students are always collaborating with one another. Our students are also often given opportunities of doing the actual teaching,” said Dixon. “All the research about learning shows that teaching is actually the highest form of learning. To know how to take the standards and analyze, synthesize, and evaluate them is the most effective learning there is.”
High levels of staff, family support for students
Whitney Ross-Gunter is the professional school counselor at DST. Much of her time is spent helping students find appropriate internships for their career interests. She also reaches out to families, helping them to identify college scholarship opportunities and information around obtaining financial aid and student loans.
“These students have constant support throughout their whole time here at DST,” said Ross-Gunter, who added that parent involvement is essential to the school’s success.
“One of the things I have learned is to heavily involve parents on all levels,” said Ross-Gunter. “I overwhelm them with communication because I believe it’s important to give families too much information than not enough.”
Dixon added that DST is a “close-knit family.” The teacher-student relationships are so strong that many students take their meals to their classrooms so they can spend time with their teachers during break. This is a key attribute for a small high school that serves to reiterate how much teachers and staff care about the students they serve.
“What I am big on is viewing our parents and school community as our clients; we don’t exist without these people,” said Dixon. “We are all public servants. You make yourselves available to the public because they have needs, and we are constantly collaborating to figure out how to meet the needs of our students.”