Integrating Fee Paying Students

Initially, almost no parents of fee-paying students were willing to enroll their children at NMS because the School was unproven. There was no reason to believe that an educational model mixing destitute and fee-paying students as equals would succeed.

However, word of early success among the NMS students spread encouraging more fee-paying families to consider enrolling their children. By January of 2010 in the second year, 73 students were enrolled, 55 OVCs and 18 fee-paying students. The School had grown to 130 by January of 2011 with a closer balance of 70 OVCs and 60 fee-paying students.

Initially, there was a concern on the part of the staff that the students from different social classes might not be able to work together in the classroom. Because most students entered at such a young age, wore the same uniform, and were treated the same, this concern was unfounded. As the students approach graduation in eighth grade it is impossible to tell the two groups apart, one of the goals of the magnet school model.

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