Tag Archive for: #kerrvanceacademy

TownTalk: KVA Celebrates 20th Anniversary of State Championship

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The Kerr-Vance Academy Spartans boys’ basketball team takes to the court Friday evening in a  6 p.m. conference matchup with Halifax Academy, but the folks in the bleachers will also get a chance to relive a magical moment in the school’s history as the 2005 state champion basketball team is recognized.

It was 20 years ago that the varsity boys’ squad won the NC Independent Schools Athletic Association championship, and Headmaster Matthew McLaughlin and Athletic Director Mike Joyner said Friday’s recognition will be something special for current students and alumni.

McLaughlin said the event is centered around a basketball game, but he hopes it will be seen as a larger celebration of what is “alive and well” at Kerr-Vance Academy.

He joined the school back in July 2024, and when he learned that KVA was coming up on the 20-year anniversary, he just knew it’d be the perfect way to honor the school’s past and present, with an eye on its future.

An informal class reunion is planned for Saturday night at Norse Brewery in Wake Forest, and McLaughlin said all alums are welcome to attend. Another special event surrounding the game and 20-year anniversary recognition is a raffle for a home HVAC system – complete with installation, courtesy of Ranes Heating. Tickets are $10 each, and the lucky winner will be announced between the 3rd and 4th quarters of the Friday game. Tickets will be sold up until about halftime of the game, McLaughlin said. The winner doesn’t have to be present to win, and tickets are transferrable.

The Spartans will play Friday on a newly installed floor in the Crawford Gym, a shiny investment in the school’s future, which was established back in 1968. The new floor bears the name Bob Walker Court, a nod to the long-time assistant coach who, alongside Head Coach John Whitley, took that 2005 team to the state title game.

Friday’s festivities will be a way to acknowledge the 2005 team and what that state championship means to KVA.

Joyner said it’s important to recognize accomplishments of sports teams – dozens of banners hang in the school gym proclaiming championships in volleyball, tennis, girls’ soccer, baseball,  basketball among others over the years – but success on the field or court is a direct reflection of success in the classroom.

And when current students hear or see what previous students have accomplished, it helps them envision success in their own futures, McLaughlin said.

“A lot of schools and school communities talk about athletics being an extension of the school,” he said. At KVA, “it’s not an extension – it IS our school.” Sports teams are visible, tangible ways that the community can see what KVA is all about. The community doesn’t get a chance to visit the science lab or that elementary classroom, but they can see the student-athletes in a sports contest and have a good idea about what kind of learning goes on during the school day.

Joyner said the school culture with athletics is very important, and that “winning culture comes from across the school, not just athletics.”

 

 

SportsTalk: Kerr-Vance Volleyball Recaps State Championship Win

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Oh how sweet it is for the Kerr-Vance Volleyball Team. On October 26th, Kerr-Vance defeated Lee Christian to win the NCISAA 1A Volleyball State Championship, winning 3-1. It has been an amazing season for the Lady Spartans and they celebrated in style. Head Coach Debra Medlin and her girls join George Hoyle and Scout Hughes on SportsTalk to talk all about it.

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SportsTalk: Kerr-Vance Volleyball Won the State Championship on Saturday

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Kerr-Vance is the 1A Volleyball State Champion!

UPDATE – FINAL SCORE 

Kerr-Vance 3 

Lee Christian 1 

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SportsTalk on WIZS 12:30 p.m. M-Th 

Scout Hughes and George Hoyle were joined by Kerr-Vance Volleyball Head Coach Debbie Medlin and her players Wednesday as they prepared for the Volleyball State Championship on Saturday against Lee Christian. 

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KVA Marks 50 Years Of Accreditation With Latest External Review

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Kerr-Vance Academy Head of School Matthew McLaughlin has announced that the school has achieved 50 years of accreditation from Cognia, a nonprofit improvement organization that provides quality assurance for schools, school districts, and education service providers.

“It is an honor and a privilege to stand with Kerr-Vance Academy today as we reach this milestone,” McLaughlin stated in a letter to KVA parents.  “Accreditation as conferred by the Cognia Global Accreditation Commission provides a nationally recognized mark of quality and sustained excellence for our school. Being able to maintain this distinction for 50 years demonstrates our commitment to excellence, our willingness to enact meaningful change based on evaluation and feedback, and our desire to be the best we can be on behalf of the students we serve.”

KVA Board of Trustees President Robert Bowen – who also is a KVA alumnus and a KVA parent – reflected on a half-century of accreditation.

“We are reminded of the dedication and commitment that have brought us here. This achievement reflects our unwavering focus on providing an exceptional education for our students, ensuring that they are prepared to thrive in the world. On behalf of the KVA Board of Trustees, we are proud of the hard work of our educators, students and the community, and we look forward to continuing this legacy of excellence for many years to come.”

Throughout its more than 125 years of service, Cognia has recognized schools across the globe that meet rigorous standards focused on productive learning environments, equitable resource reallocation, and effective leadership. To receive Cognia Accreditation, a school must submit to an external review. Earning accreditation from the Cognia Global Accreditation Commission is a recognition that the school meets Cognia Performance Standards and maintains a commitment to continuous improvement. Schools in good standing can maintain their accreditation for a six-year term.

Dr. Mark A. Elgart, president and CEO of Cognia, stated, “Cognia Accreditation is a rigorous process that focuses the entire school and its community on the primary goal of ensuring that all students can flourish in engaging and equitable school environments. Kerr-Vance Academy has continually met high standards and made progress on key indicators that impact student learning. Maintaining their accredited status for half of a century can only be achieved with a steadfast commitment to high quality education and continuous improvement.”

Cognia is the parent organization of the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement (NCA CASI), Northwest Accreditation Commission (NWAC) and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (SACS CASI). Parents and interested community members can learn more about Cognia Accreditation at https://www.cognia.org/.

Visit https://www.kerrvance.com/  to learn more.

TownTalk: Introducing Matthew McLaughlin, Kerr-Vance Academy

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Matthew McLaughlin said he didn’t set out to be a school administrator – he really wanted to be a middle school band teacher.

And McLaughlin was quite happy doing just that for many years.

Now, after close to two decades in the field of private education, he finds himself not in front of a bunch of tweens and teens learning music, but as the Head of School at Kerr-Vance Academy.

“School leadership and administration wasn’t on my radar,” McLaughlin said on Tuesday’s TownTalk. But as he took on various leadership roles, he was led to the University of Notre Dame to pursue a graduate degree that is specifically designed for private school leaders.

Since private schools are funded differently and governed differently than public schools, McLaughlin said private school leadership inherently involves aspects of business that public school leaders may not have to contend with.

He described his studies at Notre Dame as training that marries education and business, which he said is critical for private school leaders.

“We have to have some different conversations,” McLaughlin said. “The facilities are our facilities,” and they have to have some “pretty tight operational procedures” in place to make sure those facilities are maintained properly.

And although McLaughlin has only been on the job a month or so, he’s already witnessed one capital improvement project at his new workplace.

The school is finishing up work on a major renovation project at the Crawford Gymtorium, a multipurpose facility on the KVA campus that has been used over the years for everything from basketball games to graduation exercises.

They’ll have a ribbon-cutting on Friday, Sept. 13 at 3 p.m. to unveil the new gym floor, which McLaughlin said looks amazing.

A crew gutted the floor down to the concrete pad and built it back, he said, noting that it’s rated to last for 100 years.

Elected officials, alumni and others from the community are invited to attend the ribbon-cutting, which will take place during the KVA Fall Classic, which will bring several area schools together for two days of volleyball and soccer matches.

McLaughlin said he sees value in having a school like KVA in a community like Henderson, and you’ll never hear him say negative things about charter schools or traditional public schools. There’s room for all.

“I’ve made a career out of private schools,” he said. “There are some things that we do really, really well that can’t be recreated in the public schools…(but) they can do things that we’ll never be able to do.”

One of KVA’s advantages, he said, is the way it intentionally creates a feeling of community among its students and their families. There’s a day care on campus, so a child spend his or her entire school career at one school. That’s a long time to build community, McLaughlin said.

That dovetails perfectly with what McLaughlin said he has worked throughout his career for – watching and overseeing “the development of the whole person – it’s not just about reading and math. I love being a part of that and being a part of their story.”

Want to learn more? Visit https://www.kerrvance.com/.

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SportsTalk: Youth Lead KVA Baseball To Championship Game

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Mike Rigsbee, Kerr-Vance Academy baseball coach, is proud of his young team.  With only two seniors in the lineup, the team advanced all the way to the state championship series this past week.

Unfortunately, KVA lost two games out of three to Lawrenceville Academy.  “Our goal was to get there,” Rigsbee said on SportsTalk Wednesday.

KVA lost the first game 5-4, rebounded in the first game Saturday by winning 3-2 but lost the second Saturday game by the score 10-0.  “It was a great season overall,” Rigsbee stated.  “I knew we could make a run,” the coach continued.

Rigsbee has already started preparations for next season.  Schedules are being prepared now, and he fully expects that KVA will be back in the running for a championship next year.

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SportsTalk: KVA Looking To Advance In Playoffs

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Kerr-Vance Academy’s baseball and soccer teams have begun the playoffs.  Mike Joyner, KVA athletic director, was on Wednesday’s SportsTalk and said both teams got off to a great start in the first round with the soccer team defeating North Hills Tuesday 1-0 and the baseball team winning 10-0 in six innings, also against North Hills.  “The kids step it up a notch in the playoffs,” Joyner said.  The season has been a challenge for KVA. “The schools we play against are significantly bigger,” Joyner added.

The KVA soccer team will play Pungo this (Wednesday) afternoon, weather permitting and the baseball team will have to wait on the winner of the Halifax vs. Ridgecroft matchup to know when they will play next.

 

SportsTalk: KVA Graduate Joins The Iron Dukes

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Duke, NC State and UNC…them’s fightin’ words around here.  Loyalty to your favorite university sports team is just part of growing up in North Carolina.  What do you do if you are a graduate of NC State, UNC and work for Duke?  That’s the unique situation that Kerr Vance Academy graduate John Averette finds himself in.

Averette, who was a guest on Wednesday’s SportsTalk, started off as an undergraduate at NC State.  “Getting into sports management at NC State was an accident,” Averette said.  He was thinking about going into business but was placed in the sports management program.  “I didn’t know anything about it,” Averette added.

During his time with the Wolfpack, he interned with Wolfpack Sports Properties and when he completed his time at NC State he moved over to UNC to work with the Rams Club as an intern.  Once he graduated from UNC, he went into the job market where he landed a position with the Iron Dukes.

“I do a lot of fundraising,” Averette said. According to Averette, sports management is more than just fund raising.  “There are hundreds of people behind the scenes,” he said.  All of the athletic events and people fall under the sports management umbrella.

Averette credits Kerr Vance Academy for giving him the foundation to succeed in his current profession. “They are a great school for having a college prep environment.  They teach the little things to get you ready for the college environment,” Averette said.  They just don’t teach you who to pull for.

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SportsTalk: KVA Finds WIns On The Baseball Field

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Practices cancelled and losing games from the schedule are just a couple of the problems that Mike Joyner, Athletic Director at Kerr-Vance Academy, has faced this season. It’s been a challenging year for Joyner and KVA with all of the rain that has happened this spring. “Seven of the first 10 games were rained out,” Joyner said. But it’s not just the rain and it’s not just the missed practices, “it’s juggling the schedule to find officials,” Joyner said on Wednesday’s SportsTalk.  Despite the rain and despite all of the events that have been cancelled this season, KVA finds itself at 5-1 in baseball.  They lost their first game but now have been on A five  game winning streak. Recently KVA’s baseball team took a trip to see Rutgers take on UNC in Chapel Hill, which Joyner described as a great trip for the team.  As for his girls soccer team, he says the team is young and inexperienced and although the team is winless so far this season, he hopes that further games will help them find a few victories as the year continues. KVA is on spring break next week but will return to action in April.

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SportsTalk: Former KVA Baseball Standout R.J. Johnson Returns To NC

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Rutgers University in New Jersey may seem like a long ways away from North Carolina but former Kerr Vance Academy and current Rutgers standout baseball player R. J. Johnson gets back to the area more than one might think.  “We are here almost every weekend,” Johnson said on SportsTalk.  Johnson and Rutgers were in the state this week as the school took on UNC.  The school plays a lot of teams in the south due to weather conditions during the early spring.

Johnson, an outfielder, is having a great season as a leadoff batter with a .300 batting average helping Rutgers to a 10-5 record so far this season.  Johnson, a Franklin County native and 2021 graduate of KVA, is looking forward to the rest of the season.  “We are in a rough patch right now but the future is bright,” Johnson said.

His advice for younger players?  “Always work hard and have fun everyday,” he says.  His former coach at KVA, Mike Rigsbee, had this to say about his former player: “He’s a great player and a great student.”

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