Photo Courtesy of Charlottesville High School

Knight School, an alternative schooling program introduced in the past few weeks, is one of the most recent changes in Charlottesville High School to meet the growing needs of the student body. Knight School is an educational option for students in need of additional support that cannot be offered at CHS or Lugo-McGinness (LMA), a CCS funded alternative academy supporting students grades 8-12. LMA is a smaller school with more mental health support for students in need of it. While Knight School will be held at Lugo-McGinness, it has a unique set of assets and purposes that will differentiate it from anything CCS has offered before. 

Knight School will run Monday through Thursday from 3:45 to 6:45 each week. The first session was this past week on Monday, November 27. Each class is roughly around forty five minutes long, and because of limited time, mainly core classes (math, science, history, and English) are prioritized. Knight School is staffed by a mixture of CHS and LMA teachers who the school board reached out to based on their history of working with in restorative programs at CCS. The current capacity of Knight School is thirty students, and seven are currently enrolled. CCS is currently looking at new locations for Knight School with the potential hope of expanding the number of students it can support. 

What differentiates Knight School from current opportunities offered are its emphasis on support pillars for its students. Dr. Royal A. Gurley, CCS Superintendent, explained this through an interview with KTR this week. “The way I look at it is that [students] will have the opportunity and time to access resources at Knight School that they wouldn’t have the opportunity to access here. That’s what makes it different from Lugo [McGinness] and CHS.” 

The resources described by Dr. Gurley includes substance abuse programs, trauma informed sessions, and vocational assessments. Knight School will partner with Virginia Career Works, an organization connecting people in VA to the right employers for them, in order to enable students who want work experience as well as a high school degree. These career assessments aim to place students in paid internships during the day so that they can gain necessary work experience, but still get their education in the evening. 

For student support sessions, students are provided about forty sessions over the course of three or four months. All of these resources are utilized at Knight School because of the small class sizes and limited student to teacher ratio (about five students to each teacher), which allow students support they couldn’t gain at CHS or LMA. 

Additionally, Knight School provides generational resources to try and support a student’s family. “Sometimes there are generational supports we need to put in place because maybe the family needs some assistance with finding a job, or maybe mom, dad, grandma, or whoever is the caregiver doesn’t have a high school diploma,” Dr. Gurley told KTR. These supports enable families to stay involved in their student’s life while being supported in whatever way they personally need. 

“We are doing this to ensure that there is an option for students who have some mental wellness concerns because maybe this school is too large and they just need a smaller setting. There are some students we want to support because we don’t want to suspend them, so [Knight School is] an alternative for them,” shared Dr. Gurley. 

As Dr. Gurley explained, at CHS students can have a “student success meeting” with their counselors in the case that they are struggling with mental wellness, behavioral issues, substance abuse, or anything else. Here, a plan of action is developed between counselors, students, and parents to best support that student. Knight School is now another asset counselors and students have in addressing student needs when they meet, and it can be an option students decide may be best for them.  

In addition to these counselor success meetings, students can also refer themselves to the Knight School program. Dr. Gurley explained that the division hopes students at Knight School will attend for at least a semester in order to maximize the effectiveness of the restorative programs that take place there. In any case, students cannot just be ‘sent’ to LMA or Knight School, but must decide with their counselor and family that Knight School is the best placement for their needs.

This is all part of the continuum CCS is trying to establish for students who need a more stable and consistent option for their personal success. After attending Knight School, students have the option to transition back to LMA, back to CHS, or to remain enrolled there and graduate with a CHS diploma. 

Dr. Gurley and the CCS board are very eager about the potential of Knight School, and hope it provides the necessary support for the students that need it. 

“I’m more than hopeful. It’s a very good plan, the work and the resources are very intentional, and I think we will yield a lot of high results very soon.”