GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. -- On Wednesday, August 29, Southwest Guilford High School in High Point received the 2018 Hubert B. Humphrey, Jr. School Improvement Award.
Michael Hettenbach, Principal at Southwest Guilford accepted the award at the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce's 2018 State of Our Community annual luncheon. The school will receive $10,000 to strengthen and develop the school and its staff.
The award is named in honor and in memory of Hubert B. Humphrey, Jr., who served as a trustee of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation for more than 20 years and also served as the Foundation’s legal counsel during that time. Humphrey was also named one of the Best Lawyers in America; served in both the NC House and Senate; and was a member and chair of both the Board of Trustees at Wake Forest University and UNC Greensboro.
Southwest Guilford High School received the award, in part because of the Principal Hettenbach's approach to education.
"We meet kids where they are," said Hettenbach. "If we have a student falling behind, we're meeting with them. We're not meeting with them once, we're meeting them as many times as it takes to make sure they graduate."
The graduation rate at Southwest is an amazing 96%. The school has also exceeded growth for three years and grade level proficiency is moving in the right direction with growth in Math I, English II and Biology up as much as 8% in the past two years.
"Typically, the community will look at proficiency as did they pass, did they not pass; but it's not always about that. Yes that may be the end result, but we want to make sure our students are constantly growing," said Hettenbach.
Now the school is ready to tackle a bigger challenge; ending educational gaps.
"When we look at our school's population and we'll use the African American race for example; at Southwest, the data shows they're under-performing, the majority and with a gap," said Hettenbach. "We want to put it all on the table, let's talk about race and education and then let's do something about it. We are going to do something about it, but we have to bring in the professionals to help."
With the $10,000 award from the Hubert B. Humphrey selection committee, Hettenbach will bring in the group Teaching Tolerance to start the process.
"We have to eradicate this gap. It is staring at us from every school in this country."
And it's those bold initiatives to continue to bring Southwest students and staff together as they continue to grow stronger in the years to come.