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Special_projects
Morganton is ideal home for NCSSM's second campus
By TODD ROBERTS
NCSSM Chancellor
The NCSSM-Morganton groundbreaking was held in June 2019.
FOR THE PAPER
As the chancellor of North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, I’m so excited to join with the community in hosting the University of North Carolina System Board of Governors this month. I am confident that they will have a wonderful experience here.
Roberts
Morganton has proven to be an ideal location for the second campus of NCSSM. It builds upon and shares efficiencies with a significant state governmental presence (adjacent to NC School for the Deaf, Broughton Hospital, and Western Piedmont Community College). Alongside the recent opening of Appalachian State’s Hickory Campus, NCSSM-Morganton deservedly extends the presence of the UNC System into a region that previously did not have it.
As I have said many times since my first interactions with members of the Morganton community in 2014, I’ve not been a part of a project in my career where every organization and member of the community has been so engaged and invested in helping ensure its success.
It’s a little hard to believe our Morganton campus is about to complete its fourth full academic year in operation. I’m so grateful to the community for the welcome you have extended to us. Our campus workforce of more than 150 is a mixture of people who already lived nearby and dozens who were excited to move here, often with their families, to take the opportunity to work at NCSSM and become your neighbors.
I’m delighted that our Residential students are enjoying the Morganton setting for their junior and senior years of high school and that their families have so many chances each year to visit Morganton while dropping them off and picking them up. They all have their favorite restaurants, shops, and activities in town (as I do!), and Morganton and the region will always be in their minds as a wonderful place to work, live, and play in North Carolina. Hundreds of other students (and their families), as well as educators from around the state, visit our campus for summer or professional opportunities each year as well. As the years roll on, thousands of people will visit and come to love Morganton through a student’s time here.
What a wonderful partnership. Thank you for helping us welcome and host the governing board of the UNC System this month, and thank you for welcoming us into this amazing community.
Special_projects
NCSSM remains atop list of best public high schools in America
By BRIAN FAIRCLOTH
NCSSM Communications Specialist
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics has once again been recognized as the best public high school in America in Niche.com’s new 2026 ranking of schools in the United States.
This marks the third time in four years that NCSSM has earned the top spot nationally. More importantly for the citizens and students of North Carolina, this also marks the sixth year in a row that Niche.com has named NCSSM the top public high school in North Carolina.
The school’s A+ rating by Niche.com is based on a number of criteria that include qualifications of teachers, rigor and diversity of academic offerings, clubs and activities, parent surveys, and resources and facilities.
“We have two special campus communities and a host of high-impact programs that offer amazing students the chance to explore what’s possible for them,” says NCSSM Chancellor Todd Roberts. “Our school’s founders always envisioned that it would serve as a model for STEM and public education in North Carolina and nationally. This recognition by Niche is yet another indicator among many that, when dedicated individuals — faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends of the school — come together with the full support of the state and its people behind them, it’s a recipe for success.”
NCSSM was founded as a statewide public, residential high school in Durham in 1980 — and opened a second campus in Morganton in 2022 — for the purpose of expanding access to world-class educational opportunities for North Carolina’s students. Though built around an intensive STEM curriculum, the school also boasts an impressive humanities program and has expanded its reach to thousands more students from all corners of North Carolina through programs that include NCSSM Online, NCSSM Connect, Summer Ventures, and Summer Accelerator, among others.
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