Educational Program

About

Central Park School for Children is a K-8 public charter school in downtown Durham.

Founded in 2003, CPSC was the first Project Based Learning public school in North Carolina and the first “diverse-by-design” public charter school in the Southern United States. We prioritize small class sizes with 15 children in lower grade classrooms and 20-23 per classroom in upper grades. We serve 530 students from Durham and surrounding counties, with most students from Durham County.

Nurturing your child’s natural eagerness

At Central Park School for Children we know children have a natural eagerness to understand the world around them. Through a supportive environment, child-centered approaches using Project Based Learning (PBL), arts integration and outdoor learning, we nurture your child’s natural eagerness. Our graduates are confident, courageous learners who find joy for learning through compassion and curiosity in all they do for themselves and their communities.

Our Story

CPSC’s vision for education has always been child-centered. Our mission has always been to see All Children Thrive. How we deliver on our vision and mission is always evolving, though continually based on what is best for children, the best available research on how children learn, and the genius of all in our community (especially the children!).

Central Park School for Children founders Vicky Patton and Bob Chapman were deeply inspired by their involvement in the founding of The Duke School, a research-driven child-centered learning lab (previously, The Duke University Pre-School and Primary [DUPP]). In 2003, working with a committee of community members and experts in education, they founded CPSC as an experiment to bring the organizational structure, values, child development goals and pedagogy of DUPP to a public school setting.

At the time this was an outrageous ambition that begged a question: could a progressive, experiential, community-based program focused on respect for children and the latest child education research flourish as a public school, and with the budgets and procedures of public education? The CPSC you see today, 20 years later, is the outcome of this question, and we’re thrilled with the results!

Community

Critical to our success is the cultivation of community; with our students, teachers, staff, families, and community partners. Together, we are all owners and believers in the CPSC vision. Collectively we are worker bees for our children, and do whatever work needs to be done to best support them. In return, we all have agency – we all own this amazing school!

Spending time together, working and playing together builds this community that nurtures all our members, and especially our children.

NC School Report Cards

Central Park School for Children demonstrates that a child-centered approach to learning that integrates outdoor, project based, social emotional and integrated arts learning leads to lasting growth for our children.

During our last NC School Report Card, Central Park School for Children outperformed our local district and state performance averages and showed significantly increased growth for all of our student sub-groups, especially our low income and exceptional children. In 2021-22 CPSC received a C School Report Card Grade, very close to a B score that we have received 2 out of the last four years. You can access the full report at 2021-22 CPSC School Report Card Site.

CPSC believes in authentically and richly documenting and assessing our students’ growth. Through daily natural assessments, end of quarter culminating events, conferences and narrative and milestone reports we capture the whole child and their progress. All 3rd – 8th grade scholars participate in the state’s End of Grade assessments. We integrate all of these data and analysis to make the best decision for each child. To read and learn more about our North Carolina Department of Public Instruction School Report Cards from the last four years access our reports below.