MOCKSVILLE
Davie County officials say they want to make sure that today's students are prepared for tomorrow's jobs, and they hope that a new pilot program will help.
"We're trying to position ourselves so that when this economy does turn, we can play at the next level," said Terry Bralley, the president of the Davie County Economic Development Commission.
Davie is one of three communities in North Carolina to take part in a nine-month study sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MCNC, a nonprofit that focuses on education, innovation and economic development.
The other two communities are Lenoir County and the areas surrounding Fort Bragg, including Cumberland County. The idea is for these communities to find ways to better prepare students in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The study would involve forming a committee of people in Davie who would first figure out what kind of jobs the county wants to attract. Once that is figured out, experts from the Gates Foundation will help them come up with ideas to help prepare students for those jobs.
The study is especially important in Davie, where Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center plans to build a new $100 million hospital.
The hospital could bring new jobs to the area. Davie is also near Winston-Salem, where the Piedmont Triad Research Park is being expanded, Bralley said.
"K-12 is the basic building block," Bralley said.
Davie has moved aggressively to include technology in its schools, officials said.
Several years ago, Allen Mebane, a philanthropist who died last year, challenged Davie County Schools to raise $1.5 million for technology. If the school system raised the money, the Mebane Charitable Foundation would provide $750,000 over three years.
As a result, money that was raised went toward building preschool buildings on each of the county's six elementary schools. And the rest went toward such instructional technology as SMART Boards, which are touch-screen chalkboards.
Davie Elementary recently became one 12 schools around the country to test the SMART Table, a kid-sized table with an interactive screen on which students can do different kinds of activities with the touch of a hand.
The school system also entered into a partnership with Appalachian State University's Reich College of Education to start the Mebane Masters Program, which helps teachers learn how to better use technology in the classroom.
Those efforts got the attention of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MCNC, said Assistant Superintendent Linda Bost.
Officials with both organizations were impressed with Davie County leaders' willingness to collaborate, she said.
"We proved that we can pull it together for the good of our county," Bost said.
Karl Rectanus, who is leading the study, said that innovation is sorely needed to prepare students for an economy that doesn't rely as much on manufacturing as it once did.
"The pace of change in our economy has outstripped the pace of change in our education system," he said.
Leaders of all three communities will meet for the first time in Raleigh on June 29.
That will begin the study, Rectanus said.
Davie County Manager Beth Dirks said that this process will help the county figure out where it wants to go in terms of economic development.
With the new hospital, it could focus on the health-care industry, for example.
"What is going to be our niche?" she said. "What do we do well?"
Rectanus said that what comes out of this nine-month study could be a model for North Carolina and the country.
But even more important is bringing everyone in the community together for a common purpose, said Larry Colbourne, the executive director of the Mebane Charitable Foundation.
"This should bring every member together to really lay out a good plan for Davie County in the future," he said.
"That's key for our county."
■ Michael Hewlett can be reached at 727-7326 or at mhewlett@wsjournal.com
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