The Elon School, located on South O’Kelley Avenue, has partnered with Elon Homes for Children, an organization that formerly ran an orphanage in that location, to bring the area its first independent, college-preparatory high school.

The Elon School opened in August with 44 students in grades nine through 11, grade 11 consisting of only six students. The school currently only takes up one wing of its building, but plans for expansion are in the works.

Students faced a competitive and rigourous application process before being accepted at The Elon School. Applicants must present their previous school performance, collect teacher recommendations, take an admission test and do an interview.

“I wanted to challenge myself,” a freshman girl said.

Headmaster Raymond Broadhead said that a big part of the school’s philosophy is that the students play a very active role in their education, from a hands-on science curriculum to a free period during the school day that is truly free of structure.

“They’ve really embraced it,” Broadhead said.

Three different freshmen students named “better education” and “challenge” as their number one attractions to The Elon School.

The school focuses on giving students “a fairly rigorous education with lots of support,” Broadhead said. “Students are given the responsibility to make their own decisions.”

Classes end for students at 2:50 p.m. every weekday, followed by a 30-minute tutorial period, but every student is required to participate in a school activity on campus until 5 p.m. The current choices students have for spending this time are soccer, volunteer work and girls’ tennis.

“I believe in the three points of education: academics, arts and athletics or extracurriculars,” Broadhead said.

The school’s gym is housed in a small building up the hill with a fitness room and practice basketball court. Broadhead hopes that the building just behind the school will soon be renovated as a science center with full laboratories.

Currently, The Elon School employs one teacher per subject, but Broadhead said they are looking to at least double by next year.

The hallways of the school are decorated with watercolors by a local artist Rodney Moser, who also happens to be the art teacher. Broadhead said these prints will soon be replaced by student art.

The library is made up of two classrooms with the adjoining wall removed. There are currently about 50 donated books on the shelves, but the rest are on order, Broadhead said.

The classrooms are small, but accommodating, since the average class size is ten students, with the largest capping at 16.

All of the classrooms are in one hallway, which also houses lockers with no locks. Broadhead said the school has formed a very trusting community.

“There have been two cases where students turned in cash they found,” he said.

A carpeted multi-purpose room serves as the venue for the daily school-wide meeting at 10:45 a.m. and as the cafeteria, in which all students are currently “brown-bagging it” until food services are secured, Broadhead said. The Elon School was founded based on the original mission of Elon Homes for Children, which wanted to make sure that the educational needs of the students of the Burlington area were met.

The students think that the benefits of their new school outweigh any disadvantages. They don’t seem to feel that they are missing out on too much by not going to a bigger, public high school. One junior girl did, however, lament the lack of football games, dances and “hot guys.”

“I think it will take a little more time to adjust to tough classes, and going from public to private [school],” a freshman boy said.

“I commend the students they’re pioneers,” Broadhead said. “They’re leaving friends to take a leap.”

News Editor: Kaitlin Ugolik - 10/03/07