Culbreth wants to give students iPods

CHAPEL HILL -- Culbreth Middle School could become the first in the country to give an iPod to every teacher and student, an experiment that would challenge teachers and administrators to ensure the hand-held devices are used as learning tools, not toys. It's still not clear how the iPod Touches would be used at Culbreth Middle School. But Principal Susan Wells says that to dismiss the technology as a distraction ignores today's tech-driven world.

"It's a world we better figure out, because we can't ask our students to come into a classroom, put those things aside and sit in a row and think we're interesting," she said.

"We're just not that interesting."

If the project wins funding, Culbreth's teachers, administrators and students during the next year will develop courses for which iPod Touches are central to the curriculum. Other schools could follow Culbreth's model.

Early ideas include letting students get arts credit by taking online guitar lessons in which they can watch a video of a guitar instructor on their iPod and practice at home. Physical education teachers might give take-home fitness assignments for students to track their stats -- calorie intake, number of sit-ups they can do in a minute, etc. -- and create a podcast demonstrating certain exercises.

The Culbreth program, which requires private funding and school board approval, continues a trend in both K-12 and college levels. Students could take them home but would have to return them at the end of the school year.

-- Matt Dees, 956-2433; matt.dees@nando.com

Principals removed to improve morale

CHAPEL HILL -- Children may have been eager to return to school Monday, but their teachers might not have been so excited to be back in the classroom.

A recent survey shows that teachers at some schools in the Triangle and across the state are strongly dissatisfied with their working conditions. Rather than running the risk that this unhappiness could drag down student performance, district administrators removed the principals at some schools with poor ratings over the summer.

"My experience is there tends to be a correlation between positive ratings and academic achievement," said Chapel Hill-Carrboro Superintendent Neil Pedersen. Student performance usually lags, Pedersen said, at schools where significant numbers of teachers surveyed cite an atmosphere lacking in trust and mutual respect.

This spring more than 104,000 North Carolina public schoolteachers took an anonymous survey about the working conditions at their schools. The biennial survey, begun in 2002 by Gov. Mike Easley, is credited with helping shape education policy.

When Carrboro High School Principal Jeff Thomas was reassigned to a central office job in June, school district officials cited the survey results as an example of problems there. Pedersen, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro superintendent, said he was concerned that 63 percent of the teachers in the survey didn't feel there was an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect in the school.

Kelly Batten was named the new principal in July.

-- From staff reports

Triangle joblessness hits a five-year high

RALEIGH -- For the first time in four years, unemployment in the Triangle broke the 5 percent barrier, coming in at 5.1 percent.

"Five percent is considered to be full employment," said Mark Vitner, a Wachovia economist. "5.1 percent is still a relatively low unemployment rate but higher than we usually see in the Triangle."

The 5.1 unemployment rate for July, up from 4.8 percent in June, is the highest rate for the eight-county Triangle region -- including Durham, Johnston, Orange and Wake counties -- since December 2003.

Local unemployment data for July was released Friday by the N.C. Employment Security Commission. The driving force in the higher unemployment rate was an uptick in the number of people, especially teenagers, looking for work, Vitner said. But the number of jobs fell as well.

The state reported a 6.6 percent jobless rate for July, up from 5.9 percent in June. U.S. unemployment in July was 5.7 percent.

-- David Ranii, 829-4877; dranii@nando.com