THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 11, 1996 TAG: 9603110035
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
Two local high schools suburban Frank W. Cox in Virginia Beach and inner-city Norview in Norfolk - are in select company: They are among 155 high schools to make Redbook magazine's prestigious annual best-in-nation list.
Cox, which made the list for the second time in five years, earned high marks for overall excellence. Norview, which several years ago garnered a prestigious national Blue Ribbon School award, made the grade for trail-blazing in classroom innovation.
The schools were selected from nearly 400 nationwide by a dozen education experts assembled by Redbook, the magazine said in a press release issued Friday. The schools are listed in the April issue, which is at newsstands now.
``I was really happy when I heard about this,'' said Norview sophomore Rebecca Mann, 15. ``It's nice to be in a school that got something big like this. We've been working hard trying to do different things and stuff.''
Third-year Cox Principal Perry B. Pope said: ``I'm delighted out of my mind. We have students coming to school from homes where parents expect them to learn and their teachers expect them to learn. Year after year, they're just right at the top.''
While the two schools may share the will to succeed, they face dramatically different challenges.
At Cox, 85 percent of the school's 2,100 students are white, and most are the sons and daughters of suburban middle- and upper-middle class professionals. At urban Norview, a majority of its 1,600 students qualify for the federal free- and reduced-price lunch program, and nearly 60 percent are African American.
In 1992, Redbook named Cox the best high school in Virginia. This year, Cox was among 63 high schools nationwide cited for overall excellence and the only one in Virginia.
The magazine described Cox as a school that offers students ``a strong mix of intellectual challenges and stimulating extracurricular activities. Dedicated teachers and parents produce an atmosphere that ensures the high academic performance that distinguishes these winners.''
Cox senior Porter Mason, a National Merit Scholarship finalist who has applied to Harvard and Duke universities, among others, said students there are motivated to continue the school's long tradition of excellence in academics and athletics.
``People care about the school and they want to be involved,'' Mason said.
Cox is a top performer in academics and in athletics. Six of this year's 12 National Merit finalists in Virginia Beach attend Cox, for instance, and the girls field hockey team just won its seventh consecutive state title.
``There's just a very strong sense of community here, and there are extracurricular activities and clubs for every possible type of kid,'' said English and journalism teacher Susan Buchanan, who said the school offers everything from a fishing club to a creative expression club.
Since 1992, Norview has been involved in a national ``break-the-mold'' reform effort to improve America's schools, participating in a program called ATLAS, for authentic teaching, learning and assessment for all students. The goal is to teach for meaning and ``deep understanding.''
Redbook's education experts said a hallmark of Norview and the other 19 schools cited for innovation was an effective curriculum that shows a ``sensitivity to students' different learning styles.'' Norview was the only high school in Virginia in the category.
Among Norview's ``winning ideas:'' requiring students to orally defend research projects before a panel of adults; sending students into the community to learn first-hand, rather than relying solely on textbooks; and tapping computer software and networks for independent study projects.
The school also has changed to ``block scheduling,'' in which students take fewer classes each day but spend more time in each.
Dorothy Valencia, an honors biology teacher at Norview, said students work on computers nearly every day, searching documents in the libraries of Old Dominion University and Norfolk State, scouring CD-ROMs and exploring the Internet.
``I think we meet the needs of all of our students, where the high academic achievers and the low achievers are all involved in something that will make them productive citizens,'' Valencia said.
``When you think in terms of all those schools, and with Norview being an inner-city school, it is quite, quite an honor,'' said assistant principal Rufus Banks. by CNB