OFS Publication Features North Rowan High’s Design Thinking
We recently published a blog about the amazing impact of North Rowan High School challenge-based learning class, which uses design thinking and entrepreneurship. Now North Rowan High School has been featured in an article written by the OFS Publication.
“When Meredith Williams became principal of North Rowan High School two and a half years ago, it was a poetic homecoming.
Meredith grew up across the street from the school, eventually attending and graduating in 2001. She then went on to attend the University of North Carolina, one of the very first students from North Rowan to receive the prestigious, full-ride Morehead-Cain scholarship. After her time in Chapel Hill, Meredith completed a masters degree at Wake Forest University.
Meredith Williams, Imagine a Place OFSWith her qualifications and talent, Meredith could have written her ticket to go anywhere in the educational world, but she chose to stay in North Carolina. After a stint in Charlotte schools, she became an assistant principal at a middle school in her home district. When the opportunity came to become principal of her old high school, there was no hesitation. “I set up my office right by the cafeteria. Looking out my office window I could see the house I grew up in, where my parents still lived—and I knew I had come home. I knew my job, here at home, was to improve the system for everyone,” Meredith tells us in her office.
When Meredith arrived at North Rowan, the situation was less than hopeful: a struggling high school located in an impoverished district, under-resourced and underperforming. Almost three-quarters of students qualify to receive a free or reduced-price lunch.
Administrators felt handcuffed by regulations and standardized testing requirements, and student outcomes were grim.”
