A Boarding School for "Brains

North Carolina starts catering to gifted teen-agers

"I used to just breeze by in school," I says Saralyn Hawkins, 16, a high school junior from Gastonia, N.C., "but now I have to work." That is the idea at Saralyn's new school, the nation's first free residential public high school for gifted students, which opened its doors this term in Durham, N.C. The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, a pet project of Governor James B. Hunt Jr., offers free rooms, meals and a precollegiate curriculum to 150 bright, technology-oriented eleventh graders selected from 900 statewide nominees. The two-year school's eventual enrollment target is 750. The students, 30 of whom are blacks, include sons and daughters of university professors and tobacco farmers; among them is a boy who missed only one math question (out of 60) on his Scholastic Aptitude Test. Another, at age nine, discovered an error in a book on rocketry and space travel by Wernher von Braun. All were chosen after lengthy screening: high school grades, SAT scores, teachers' recommendations and personal interviews. "We weren't looking for bookworms," explains the school's development director, Braughn Taylor. "We were looking for movers and shakers, students who have the potential for achievement."

Educators at North Carolina's school for the gifted share a growing concern that the nation's most talented students are being neglected. Counting room, board, and salaries for a 15-member faculty that includes eight Ph.D.s, per pupil educational costs at N.C.S.S.M will be about $6,000 --nearly three times the average statewide per pupil expenditure. Private industry has so far pledged about $1 million to help pay for costly lab equipment.

The most expensive feature, and the most unusual for a public high school, is the residential plan, which Director Charles R. Eilber describes as the key to the educational experiment. Says he: "We don't put the kids on the bus at 3:30 p.m. The computer room can go full blast until 10 p.m."

Though it was attacked as elitist by some educational officials in North Carolina, the school managed to win endorsement from the state legislature. Recalls the Governor: "I pushed it because I'm concerned about the loss in productivity in American industry and the loss of our competitive edge in the whole technological field. At the high school level, we simply are not doing the best job we can do."

Faculty are chosen for a complete mastery of their subjects, plus an ability to talk about values. Students are offered a range of seven algebra and calculus courses. They must take at least one course each in physics, chemistry and biology, plus interdisciplinary American studies dealing with history and culture. Writing is studied and practiced in special seminar groups.

So far there are no formal interscholastic team sports. Students tend to play brain games like Dungeons & Dragons, or fool around with one of N.C.S.S.M.'s four computers. Boys and girls live in separate dorms and have no visiting privileges in one another's rooms. All students must be in their dorms by 10 p.m. "They're all risk takers here," says Dean of Academic Affairs Cecily Cannan Selby. "They gave up football and girlfriends and being cock of the walk for an unknown challenge." So far only one student has withdrawn--because of homesickness.

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