Frequently Asked Questions

What makes CCSG different?

• Our scholars are all girls and we believe in all of them
• Our classes are small and our school is a family
• We provide extended day and extended year programming
• We support our scholars throughout middle school, high school, and college
• Our scholars experience, explore and evaluate
• We challenge our scholars to serve in their community
• We provide each scholar with a laptop

Why a single-sex middle school education?
Research has shown that single-sex education improves student performance and allows students to break free from gender stereotypes.  

Why a year-round education?
Year-round schools with more equally distributed vacations than traditional 9 month schools have been associated with better attendance, increased motivation, and sustained student learning.

What are the school hours?
7:30-5:00 Mon-Thurs
7:30-4:00 Friday

Do you provide daily transportation?
At this time, CCSG does not provide daily bus transportation.  Parents are responsible for the transportation to and from school for their child.

Why uniforms?
We want our scholars to show individuality from within rather than from without.  Our uniform consists of shirts provided by the school and navy blue shorts, skirts, or slacks and white shoes.  Skirts and shorts must extend below the fingertips. We want our scholars to be proud of belonging to our community.  We wear uniforms to show our pride and our commitment to completing higher education.  

What is the student-teacher ratio?
We seek to keep our student-teacher ratio at or below 15:1.

Are Super Saturdays mandatory?
Yes.  This is an opportunity for us to provide additional instruction to scholars.  Super Saturdays count for attendance.

Are meals provided?
Yes.  We hope to provide breakfast, lunch and snacks for our scholars. We are still searching for a donor of breakfast.

Do you have a cafeteria?
No.  We cater our meals when necessary and scholars eat in the classrooms.

How do you measure success?
We will use a variety of measures to follow our scholar’s successes, including standardized testing and qualitative assessments.

What standardized tests do you use and how often are they administered?
We will administer the Iowa Test of Basic Skills in the fall and spring of every year.

Why spend the money on laptops for every student?
According to the Children’s Partnership, youth in families who earn less than $15,000 annually are eight times as likely not to use computers at home as youth in higher-income families. Yet, research shows that technology can benefit youth by helping them with schoolwork and preparing them for a workforce where more than half of jobs in the United States require computer use and 91% of the top 50 companies use websites for hiring purposes.

Why support students through college?
We consider our commitment to our scholars to be at least twelve years.   Our faculty and staff work to help our students become young women who are prepared for the rigors of college preparatory high schools and higher education. CCSG will continue to follow each graduate’s progress throughout high school and college years in order to further emphasize our commitment to our scholars. We hope our graduates will return and serve this community following their college graduation. 

Graduates who are in ninth grade will be expected to return to the school for bi-weekly meetings with our counseling staff and teachers to ensure that they are receiving the academic help and guidance they need as they transition to high school.  They are also encouraged to volunteer at CCSG during high school and college. All graduates are welcome to join our study times at the end of each day.  To track our success, we maintain contact with our scholars throughout high school and college.

Why do you require so many hours of parental volunteering?
We need parents to help us help scholars so we expect parents and guardians or other family members to serve the school as volunteers, showing their support of and commitment to higher education for our scholars.  We believe it is important for all family members to support and reinforce all of the values and practices of CCSG. Parental involvement and support will help CCSG serve children better.

Do you offer gifted education?
Rather than providing separate gifted/talented instruction, we use an inclusion program.  Our mission is to provide every child the opportunity to succeed in ways that reflect her own gifts and talents.  With our low student to teacher ratio, we are able to differentiate instruction  throughout the day.  

Do you have a library?
We are currently building our collection of books and offer all scholars and their families a membership in our book and film club, enabling them to borrow books and films from our collection.

What sports do you offer?
All of our scholars receive physical education instruction.  We hope to offer competitive sports for our 6th-8th grade students.
    
How do you teach organization?
We believe very strongly that organizational skills are essential to academic success, especially in high school and college.  We teach our scholars organization from the outset.   Notebooks are color coded by subject matter for all scholars.  From day one, scholars are taught to use the Cornell note-taking system for all classes with cue words in the left column written in the same color ink as the notebook, class notes in pencil or black, and 2 sections at the bottom of the page with practice questions and summary materials in the same color ink as the notebook.  Recent research has led scientists to believe that doodling while learning improves memory, so we allow our scholars to doodle in their notes.  

How much homework do students have?
While every scholar will be assigned homework on most school nights, most work will take place at school. We do believe that homework is part of the learning process; it helps teach self-discipline, responsibility, and time-management. It also helps to reinforce and prepare scholars for what they are learning in the classroom. Our teachers work as a team to ensure that assignments and projects are not all due at the same time. We expect scholars to manage their time in order to turn in each assignment when due.

What is your discipline policy?
We emphasize positive discipline.  We set very high standards for behavior.  We focus on underlying causes of disruptive or unacceptable behavior and help scholars find and use appropriate ways to resolve conflicts.  Respect is expected from staff and volunteers, scholars and parents alike.

What is your inclement weather policy?
We follow the local public schools, CMS.   It is vitally important that all parents provide us with current contact information so we can contact families if necessary.

Can staff administer medication  to my child?
School employees are allowed to administer medications prescribed by a doctor upon written request of the scholar's parent or guardian.  The medication used at school must be in its original container with the child's name, the dosage information, the drug, and the physician's name printed on it and we must have the completed medication form with the doctor’s signature.  

How is the school funded?

CCSG is 100% privately funded. We receive no federal, state, or tax dollars. We do not charge our scholars.  There is no endowment or business to generate revenue.

How can I help?
We in are great need of financial support to pay our teachers, purchase equipment and bring exciting field trips and other learning opportunities to our scholars.  We are also in need of volunteer tutors from 4:00-4:45 Mon-Thurs.  If you are interested in volunteering, email us at cathy@charlottecommunityschool.org or phone704-439-6740.  To make a donation, click here.