North Carolina’s Governor’s School is a four-week specialized summer program open to highschool students to apply for each year. The program accepts high-achieving highschool students into ten different specialized academics and arts disciplines. Each year, Leesville encourages its students to look into Governor’s School.
If accepted, the student’s main focus is their chosen discipline they applied into and it acts as their area one class. The area one classes consist of choral music, dance, instrumental music, mathematics, natural science, social science, spanish, theater, and visual arts. Students spend 70% of their instructional time in this class. “The emphasis in all disciplines is on contemporary texts, compositions, artistic expressions, issues, and ideas, and the theories that flow from them.”
The rest of their time at Governor’s School is taken up with area one and two classes, as well as activities, guest speakers, and seminars.
Owen Beal, junior who attended Governor’s school as part of the 2024 Orchestra class, said, “There was one seminar where they taught us a little bit about American Sign Language which I think is very interesting already. There were always so many good seminars, to the point they would have to be rescheduled or repeated because they would get ‘sold out’.”
Attending Governor’s School provides advanced educational experiences, which allow students to explore their interests in greater depth than they would in a normal school setting. They are exposed to new ideas and challenging curriculums that push them out of their normal learning styles.
“The point is you are learning for fun, so if you really love learning, then you’re going to meet tons of people there that are just like you because they really want to be there. It’s a really wonderful experience where you create this community where you get to know a lot of people from all over the state,” said Beal.
Students have opportunities to connect with mentors and experience what college academics will be like. The coursework consists of mainly college level content to help prepare students.
Including Governor’s School on a resume shows a student was accepted past a highly competitive applicant process, displaying their exceptional academic success. The school offers scholarships and opportunities for other financial awards.
Governor’s School is designed to cater to each student’s individual academic needs, setting them up and preparing them for their best chance of success later in life.
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