History
The Hawbridge School was born in the minds and hearts of a group of parents and community members who wanted a personalized educational experience for the young adults of the Chapel Hill/Carrboro/Hillsborough community. Among those writing the original charter proposal were renowned charter school proponent Maureen Joy, parents of students home-schooled during their elementary school years, and professors from UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke Universities. The charter was awarded in 1998, the second year of the charter school movement in North Carolina, and the school opened that August as New Century Charter High School.
NCCHS was initially housed in several unconventional and temporary spaces in and around Chapel Hill, including the Chelsea Theater, the Sheraton Hotel club room, the old White Cross School building, and a church sunshine basement. In June, 2004, the school moved into its current permanent facility, a beautifully restored mill beside the Haw River in the historic village of Saxapahaw close to both the Triad and Triangle.
The new location enabled NCCHS to expand both its student base and its curriculum. Following consultation with the Sustainable Agriculture department chair at Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro, a curriculum designed to prepare students for this program was added and a teaching garden begun behind the school. Local organic farmer Kevin Meehan works with the students in the garden, selling what is not used for school lunches at the Carrboro Farmers' Market, and Hawbridge School is applying for Edible Schoolyard status.
The proximity to the Haw River and the 300 acre Saxapahaw Lake makes it possible to offer canoeing and kayaking as PE, taught by an instructor from Elon University. Music classes were added in the fall of 2007, both a survey of music course and a Rock-n-Roll band class. Theater will be added once the remainder of the mill is restored and a community theater opens, possibly in the fall of 2008.
During the 2007-2008 charter renewal process, it was decided to request a name change. The State Board of Education approved the school's new name, The Hawbridge School, at its August, 2, 2007 meeting. Additionally the school initiated a focus on Environmental Studies, or the investigation of the environment from both a natural science and a social science perspective, as well as a philosophy based on the definition of "Land Ethic" written by the conservation movement's early leader, Aldo Leopold:
"All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts," he wrote. "That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics…. The land ethic enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land."
At The Hawbridge School, stewardship of the environment is considered a problem of ethics. Ph.D. candidates from the UNC-Chapel Hill Philosophy Department conduct an ethics class around this topic once each week. The science curriculum includes river stewardship projects designed by the Haw River Assembly.
Relationships have been established with neighboring universities for professional development of the faculty; with the Institute for the Environment at UNC-Chapel Hill for guidance in the Environmental Studies focus; and with community colleges and local universities for dual enrollment of the students who can earn college credit. Students continue to commute to attend the school, and during the 2007-2008 school year the range has grown to eight districts. The current faculty includes two teachers with Ph.D.s, one of whom teaches Science, two who are Ph.D. candidates, and six with masters degrees.