Olympic Community of Schools

Administration / Faculty

Olympic High currently has five principals and two assistant principals.

Students

Olympic is one of a handful of high schools in CMS that straddle the line between a comparable number of low-performing, primarily urban schools and high-performing, primarily suburban schools, and thus its student body largely mirrors the district as a whole. For comparison, Olympic has an ethnic makeup of 44.3% Black, 34.4% White, 6.0% Asian and 1.2% Other. 14.2% is Hispanic(in the 2005-06 school year). CMS' demographics are 42.4% Black, 36.2% White 4.3% Asian, 13.6% Hispanic and 3.5% Other. Its pass rate on the 2006-07 North Carolina End-of-Course tests, used to sample knowledge and mastery of subject areas most students take as freshmen and sophomores, was 63.2%, near the CMS average of 65.7%.

The graduating class of 2006, around 300 students, received $2.3 million in scholarships.

Athletics

Olympic Community of Schools is a 4AA member of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) and plays in the SouthMeck 8 4AA conference .

The football team has made the NCHSAA Playoffs in the following years: 1970, 1991, 1993 (2nd Round), 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002 (1st Round), 2003 (1st Round), 2004 (1st Round), 2005 (1st Round), 2006 (2nd Round), 2008 (2nd Round), and 2009. The best season Olympic had was in 1970 when they finished 10-3, losing 14-0 to Raleigh Needham B. Broughton High School in the 4A state championship game. Olympic has only had 3 seasons of 10 wins, in the years 1970, 1993 and 2006, finishing 10-3 each year. The Trojans most recently won the 2009 MEGA-7 4A/3A Conference. Coach Ty Baumgardner took the Olympic High school Trojans basketball team to 4A state championships in the 2013. Olympic finished a perfect 30-0 on the season. Olympic entered the game ranked No. 4 nationally by MaxPreps.

Programs

Olympic's U.S. Army JROTC has an "honor unit with distinction" gold star, which it has held for 25 consecutive years. The gold star is worn by students, and is the highest honor a high school JROTC can obtain. It is received when a 95% or more is given in what is known as the Annual Formal Inspection (AFI), which audits different areas of the JROTC program, and is conducted by a group of officers sent by the Army. It has also won fourth in the Superintendent's Cup, which is awarded to the 5 JROTC units with the highest overall combined scores from the year's competitions.

The Olympic Trojan Marching Band supports the varsity football team at its games, and competes regularly with other schools in CMS and around the region. It has been known to place well in these competitions despite being a smaller marching band. As a subgroup of the marching band, Olympic High School Winds performs throughout the winter and spring ending their season with Winter Guard International world finals in Dayton, Ohio.

Small Schools

The small schools conversion began with the securing of a grant in 2005 from the Coalition of Essential Schools' (CES) Small Schools Project, a 5-year initiative backed by the education arm of the Gates Foundation. An initial $305,000 was received for planning. This planning process involved 5 committees of teachers, parents, and students forging out the specifics of each school of no more than 400 students, such as its themes and what part of the Olympic campus it would be located in. The hiring of principals and visits to other CES affiliated schools across the country were also covered. The results were presented at the end of the 05-06 school year to CES for a further $1.3 million for the next two years.

Students, at first skeptical and not wanting to be separated from friends, have taken a liking to Olympic's more intimate atmosphere that has afforded principals to get to know them by name. There have been challenges, however, like setting up channels of communication among the 5 schools.

Critics say the small schools movement is new, and few schools have produced long-term academic results. They also emphasize the importance of reform not stopping at smaller settings. For instance, generic courses driven by multiple-choice tests being replaced with challenging projects linked to real-life results. This involves a certain degree of experimentation and creativity that can be hobbled by district mandates, too many teachers relying on routine, budget restraints, and a test-driven culture instituted by an array of local and national achievement exams. There has been some success with project-based learning at Olympic, most notably with a 1,150-square-foot (107 m²), three-bedroom Habitat for Humanity house for a family in northwest Charlotte built on school property by advanced construction students in Olympic's METS school, with the $70,000 required for the project raised in part by students in the Business school.

Most agree that dealing with these obstacles at Olympic will require extraordinary leadership and leaps of faith by all parties involved. There has been a noticeable increase in involvement by parents and the community. For instance, attendance for athletic events in 2006-07 was the highest since 1982, and a multi-million capital campaign was started by parents and community residents for facility improvements. The most recent incarnation of this fundraising is the Olympic High School Foundation, which raised $276,500 in 2015. It is the hoped that enthusiasm like this can be sustained and even grow as Olympic's success is measured in the coming years.

Future

CMS may build a new high school near The Palisades in coming years. Former principal Pamela Espinosa and others worry that it could lead to a "have and have-not school". They say that they are otherwise hopeful that innovation and pride will lead the school into an exciting future.