ROANOKE (WSLS 10) - A Roanoke school is giving students a world education by partnering with China. North Cross-Xinhe is a second campus.
North Cross provides the teachers and curriculum and gets paid royalties in return.
This year there are eight faculty members and enrollment has grown from 50 students to 130. Their Chinese partners pay for the building and infastructure spending more than $1 million in renovations including a new computer library, chemistry lab, and substantial improvements to exterior.
"It's been a very successful year. We have our first senior class this year and their average SAT scores are in the high 1200s so they are very bright students all intending to go to university in the United States," said Chris Proctor, North Cross head of school. "It really helps us in multiple ways but ultimately as educators we look at it as a way for our kids to be aware of what's going on in the second largest economy in the world and that's a pretty significant advantage that our students will have when applying to college as well as going into the business world eventually."
Next year they expect to reach capacity at 200 students. The students take classes in English using a North Cross curriculum. They hope to attend American universities.
In Roanoke, the students take Mandarin and can visit China to attend class and stay in their dorms.