New Website Touts High Point Schools

As seen in the High Point Enterprise on June 11, 2018.
 

HIGH POINT — High Point business advocates have launched a website aimed at countering what they call misperceptions about schools in the city.

Business High Point-Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the High Point Community Foundation, on Friday unveiled www.schoolsinhighpoint.org, which is billed as a one-stop shop for information on all public, private and charter schools within High Point.

“There’s this false narrative out there that High Point doesn’t have great schools, and the reality is there are some great things happening in our schools, and we need to change the perceptions,” said BHP Chamber President and CEO Patrick Chapin. “Any great community has to have great schools, and any healthy economy has to have great schools.”

The site accentuates the positives, such as 100 percent graduation rates at high schools and STEM/robotics contests and studies at middle schools. It’s geared toward parents, students and prospective residents who want to review local schools and learn about their programming.

Chapin said he hopes it will eventually supplant other websites that use standardized test score data and other information to score and rank public schools, some of which are deemed underperforming.

“Now when people (internet search) High Point schools, it will often come up with sites like Zillow, with (school) scores that are not telling the whole story,” Chapin said. “The more our site is linked to other organizations, that helps the online optimization, so that it bumps it up to where it will be at the top of the list of High Point schools (online searches). We know that will happen quickly as we get this link out to all our partners and other organizations throughout the community.”

The idea for the site originated about 18 months ago.

Chapin said Brian Norris, senior director of strategic initiatives for BHP Chamber, along with Phil Driscoll, a retired American Express executive and chairman of the agency’s education committee, were instrumental in coordinating with public, private and charter school representatives to get the site established.

He said the site is another example of the kind of broad initiative on behalf of the city that BHP Chamber was formed to undertake.

“We’re fortunate. With our vision investors, who are our very generous trustees in supporting us financially, we focus on education and workforce development in ways that a typical chamber wouldn’t have the resources to do,” he said. “That’s what’s so exciting about this organization, and it’s really fun to see some of these things coming to fruition.”