William G. Enloe High School

History

William G. Enloe High School was originally organized as two different schools that shared athletic facilities between adjacent campuses – William G. Enloe Senior High School (named after Raleigh Mayor William G. Enloe) and Charles B. Aycock Junior High. The original Enloe campus was opened in 1962 as the first integrated secondary school in Raleigh for the education of students participating in grades seven through twelve and served as the secondary educational institution for the Longview Gardens community. Enloe's mixed population was drawn from the white student body at Needham B. Broughton High School and the black one at John W. Ligon High School. It was deemed undesirable to pull Broughton's upcoming seniors out, so Enloe had only 160 juniors for its highest class out of a student body of 910 during its first year. Enloe's first black students were Ben McCollum and Bernice Johnson. George A. Kahdy was the school's first principal. He held the post for five years.

Three years after Enloe opened its doors, Aycock was created on an adjacent campus as a junior high school to educate students in the seventh through ninth grades, taking the place of recently shuttered Hugh Morson Junior High. Enloe became a senior high school with concentrated education for grades ten through twelve. In 1973 Enloe became the first fully integrated high school in Raleigh to hire a black principal. Enloe absorbed the Aycock campus in 1979, becoming a modern high school focused on educating ninth through twelfth grade students. The Aycock building became the East Building, while the original Enloe complex became the West Building.

In 1980, Enloe began providing magnet courses for "gifted and talented" students in Wake County. Around 300 students participated in the first two years of the program's existence. The school was promoted to full magnet status in 1982. Until the mid-1990s, Enloe was the only magnet high school in the Wake system, leading to high concentration of academically talented students. The 1993 graduating class included 42 National Merit Semifinalists, a number that remains a state record.

In July 1997, Enloe became an IB World School, allowing students to pursue the challenging International Baccalaureate Programme. Enloe IB students are occasionally invited to attend special events or trips through their involvement in the IB Programme. Enloe IB students participated in exchanges with high schools in China (2004–2005) and Germany, and started a relationship with students at a high school in Turkey through the use of video conferencing technology (2005–2006).

Enloe was the first high school in the state of North Carolina to form a Gay-Straight Alliance.

In 2006, Enloe finished the construction of a new building adjacent to the West Campus and consequently closed the 50-year-old, outdated East Campus for renovation. Almost all of the classes migrated from the East Campus to the new building, reducing the need to share classes with its larger capacity. The East Campus was reopened on January 22, 2008 at the start of the second semester. It included autotech classes, the new East Gym, student services, healthful living classrooms, and other classrooms. The next stage of Enloe's renovation was completed in January 2009, and involved the locker rooms in the West Gym being converted to house the audio-visual classrooms as well as the television studio.

The Wake County School Board considered removing the International Baccalaureate and magnet status from Enloe in 2008, but this decision was overturned due to the intense lobbying of students and their parents.

On June 29, 2010 historian Timothy Tyson and North Carolina NAACP President William Barber II spoke before the Wake County Public School System Board about racial segregation, arguing that Mayor William G. Enloe had been in favor of it. As result, the school board announced it would review its school naming policy. Many students and alumni from Enloe High School feared the name of the school would be altered, and quickly organized to protest any potential moves to do so. NAACP officials later clarified that the mentioning of Enloe was intended to bring in historical context, and that they did not desire for the school's name to be changed.

After much debate in 2015-2016, it was decided that Enloe would move from a seven period schedule to an A/B block schedule. Enloe was the last high school in the Wake County Public School System to switch to the block schedule, which all other public high schools in the county had been using since 2003. The school adopted the new schedule for the 2016-2017 school year.

As of 2016, Enloe had 35 AP courses and 24 IB courses.

Evangelist controversy

In February 2007, the school came under fire from Muslim advocacy groups and the American Civil Liberties Union after history teacher Robert Escamilla invited Kamil Solomon, a Coptic Christian evangelist and head of Kamil International Ministries, to speak about his experiences with Christianity and Muslims. The Council on American Islamic Relations and parents of Muslim and secular students accused the school of breaching federal civil rights laws and promoting hate in a public school. Escamilla was suspended with pay for 90 days while the school district investigated the complaint. He was later transferred to an alternative school and reprimanded by Superintendent Del Burns. In addition, Burns apologized to Muslims for Solomon's visit. He subsequently issued new guidelines that require guest speakers to sign forms saying they will not denigrate any culture, race, gender, national origin or religion. Escamilla appealed the punishment, but the grievance was rejected by the school board. In a controversial move, the school board voted to release part of Escamilla's confidential personnel file to justify its decision. Escamilla filed a lawsuit asking to be transferred back to Enloe. Escamilla and the school district reached a settlement in which Wake agreed not to punish him any further over the evangelist controversy.

Security and crime

Following a gang fight involving 30 students in September 2008 school security was strengthened. Police and school security was increased in December 2008 following the armed robbery of a student and the assault of another student while both were walking to school.

Student body

With students from various ethnic, cultural, social, and economic backgrounds, Enloe is one of the most diverse schools in Wake County, something it is well known for.

In the 2008-2009 school year, Enloe had approximately 2,640 enrolled students. Of this population, 12% were of Asian descent – the largest population of students with Asian ancestries found in any school in Wake County. The remainder of Enloe's student population were composed of students with ancestries of White (42%), African (35%), and Hispanic (9%) descent.

At the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year, a cap was placed on Enloe's enrollment at 2,650 to prevent overcrowding. As of 2016, Enloe had 2,610 enrolled students. Of those, 38% were African American/Black, 29% were Caucasian/White, 18% were Asian/Pacific Islander, 12% were Hispanic/Latino, 4% were multi-ethnic, and less than 1% were Native American.

Graduation rate

Enloe's graduation rate is below the county average. In the 2014-2015 school year, 81.6% of Enloe students graduated in four years, compared to 86.1% of all Wake County high school students.

Poverty

During the 2013-2014 school year, 32% of Enloe's students were eligible for free lunch and another 4% qualified for reduced-price lunch. Enloe maintains a food pantry to serve economically disadvantaged students inside and outside of school.

As of November 2015, Enloe worked with about 75 families designated homeless as per the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Principal Scott Lyons petitioned Wake County Public School System's central office for the transfer of an additional social worker from a less disadvantaged school to help address the problem.

Faculty and staff

There were 148 members of the Enloe teaching staff in 2006, and many support personnel were employed in administration, guidance and similar positions. Twenty-five members were certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and 39% possessed an advanced degree (Masters or PhD) in their respective fields.

During the 2015-2016 school year, Enloe employed 210 staff members, of whom 157 were classroom teachers. Twenty-four were certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, 78 had an advanced degree, and 19 had over 25 years of teaching experience.

Science and technology

From 1994–1995, Enloe teachers were trained in the use of computers and technology. Instruction occurred in two phases. The first phase involved basic computer skills, word processing, data management, email, and multimedia (including handling of laserdisc players, Quicktake cameras, and camcorders), while the second focused on educating teachers on technology that could be specifically applied to their curriculum.

In 2007, three Enloe students, Vivek Bhattacharya, Hao Lian, and Daniel Vitek, placed second nationally in the Siemens Competition for their work on a computer model of gene sequencing.

In 2008, a team from Enloe won the Team America Rocketry Challenge.

In 2015, 17 year-old Enloe student Arjun Arora won 4th place in the Biomedical and Health division of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his work with Duke University on cancer research. He developed a new technique for looking at lab-created three-dimensional inflammatory breast spheroids that were subjected to various tests and trials. Arora was then inducted into the National Gallery of Young Inventors.

Enloe's computer science team ranked 5th internationally following the 2015-2016 American Computer Science League competitions.

Arts and humanities

As of 1997, Enloe had the largest arts facilities of any school in Wake County. The school was one of only three high schools in the United States to host a production of the play Miss Saigon in the Spring of 2015.

As of 2011, Enloe was the only school in the state to offer a Russian language course.

Newspaper

The student newspaper, The Eagle's Eye, has been in circulation since the 1960s. The first attempt to publish the paper failed. In 1966, the paper briefly lost the financial support of the student body. In response, the staff stopped distributing the publication freely and renamed it Enloe News. By 1968, the change had been reverted. In 1998 senior Matt Williams, an editor on the paper, sold ad space to the North Carolina Lambda Youth Network, a self-described leadership development group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and straight young people. Principal Lloyd Gardner objected to the wording and potential political message that the ad could convey. Students argued that they should publish it on the basis of being allowed to run a Christian group's ad in a previous edition. Gardner responded by banning the Christian ad from being run a second time. Williams appealed both decisions to the Wake County Public School System's board. The censorship was unanimously upheld by a three-member panel, which asserted that the county policy allowed the principal to make final decisions regarding school publications.

Unofficial publications

In the fall of 1992, Chrissy Kistler and two other juniors founded a different newspaper, Vanguard. Taking in submissions from students, it was seen as an alternative to The Eagle's Eye, which some students thought didn't fully address controversial topics of the time. Principal Bobby Allen found a series of jokes in one article offensive and asserted that he could review each monthly issue before its release, as per county policy. He also maintained that if the content were inappropriate it couldn't be distributed on campus. Kistler argued that the review process would interfere with the paper's printing schedule and infringe upon students' first amendment rights, and appealed to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for assistance. In May 1994, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the public school system on behalf of the paper's editors. After months of negotiation, the school board reached a settlement whereby students could publish free from prior review as long they did not distribute during class.

By 1995, two other independent newspapers, Glass Butterfly and Spare Ribs, were also being published in the school.

Magazine

Enloe's original student literary magazine, Image, was first published in 1964 and was issued at least through 1968. A succeeding publication, Stone Soup, has been in circulation since the 1980s.

Television

Enloe also has its own control room and broadcast desk where students produce the school's live television news show, the 'Loe Down. It has won numerous National Academy Television Student Awards for the Nashville Midsouth Chapter.

Through its video and audio production classes, Enloe High School has also gained multiple Emmys. This includes two awards and six nominations since 2012.

Athletics department

Enloe's sports image was designed by the Broughton sophomores allotted to attend the school their junior year in 1962. During a meeting in Broughton's gymnasium, it was decided that the mascot would be an eagle, the colors would be the same as the Green Bay Packers', the football helmets would be all gold like the Fighting Irish, and the fight song would be University of Michigan's The Victors.

Enloe's current sports teams are as follows:

The men's swimming & diving team won nine consecutive state championships from 1999 to 2007 and had additional wins in conference and regional championships.

Enloe's historical rival is Needham B. Broughton High School.

Rankings and awards

In 2012, the school posted the sixth highest average SAT score in the Raleigh Durham area: 1692 with 77.1% of students taking the test.

Until 2010, Enloe was ranked in the top 100 high schools in the U.S. according to Newsweek magazine's annual rankings:

Enloe was recognized in 2014 as a School of Distinction by Magnet Schools of America.

For the 2014-2015 school year, Enloe's graduating class received over $15.4 million in scholarships, the highest of any high school in the Wake County Public School System.

In 2015, according to the U.S. News & World Report, Enloe was ranked 854th in the nation, 18th in North Carolina, and 112th in the nation for magnet schools.

In 2016, according to the Washington Post, Enloe ranked seventh in the state and 280th nationally for most challenging high schools.