Wake Young Women's Leadership Academy

I cannot say enough wonderful things about Wake Young Women's Leadership Academy! We have been tremendously pleased with our experience. The school has helped my daughter renew her excitement for learning. The curriculum is academically challenging and interesting. The principal, faculty and staff are support the young women in advancing the mission of the school. The leadership focus has helped my daughter build self esteem, embracing the knowledge that everyone has gifts and can make a contribution. As a parent, I feel involved and supported by the teachers, the principal and other WYWLA parents. I have enjoyed being part of the WYWLA community as much as my daughter has.
—Submitted by a parent

The positive energy and enthusiasm of the faculty, principal, students and parents is inviting and contagious! The teachers REALLY care if my daughter learns and improves and from the beginning of the year went from feeling apathetic about getting good grades to really caring herself about whether she was earning the highest possible grade to her abilities. He confidence in writing and reading has improved at an amazing rate and she has gained much need confidence in her math skills. True, she was a good student to start with, but her teachers have instilled in her a desire for excellence and her peers (all good students as well) help to hold each other accountable for doing their best. Not only in their studies but also hold each other accountable in character. The character development, and personal growth experiences my daughter has had are invaluable. These girls have FUN with Girls' Leadership Class, dances with the boys academy, after school clubs 3 days/week, school wide talent show, career development classes and seminars, job shadowing experiences, author visits with book signings... I could go on and on with how enriching this experience has been for my 7th grader.
—Submitted by a parent

The faculty and staff are dedicated and engaging, the principal is approachable, caring, firm and on the ball. I volunteer on the campus three to four times a month, the staff are welcoming and the students have always been polite and helpful. They seem to enjoy their environment and are challenged to succeed. The curriculum is rigorous, my daughter is a freshman this year and has challenging homework almost every day and project level work every week and month. The faculty are very responsive to my questions and very supportive of my daughter. The community is small enough to get to know everyone. There is an active focus on service and entrepreneurship. There is also a good relationship with the Wake Young Men's Leadership Academy for social events like school dances and friendly competition like the Jump Rope for Heart event. Where could we do better? We could engage with more of our families to bring more community involvement to our school, we have a great core in our first year, we just need to grow it. Leadership is being taught and modeled at the school, please come and volunteer at the school and you will quickly see the truth of this.
—Submitted by a parent

We were so excited to get "accepted" to this school, and it couldn't have been a bigger disappointment. I can't imagine what the criteria were, but the only leadership my daughter saw was along the lines of gang leadership. The focus was clearly to keep girls in school that were not succeeding otherwise. There were constant fights and bullying, and it was all dismissed as "normal middle school girl drama" in order to avoid filing any reports that might reflect negatively on the school. My daughter and her 3 sweet friends were afraid in the halls and at lunch. There were no homework assignments or projects., and my daughter did not feel challenged at all. If you have a student that is excelling and wanting to learn, I would steer clear. The behavior and language my daughter was exposed to was horrific. We switched to East Cary and she is once again excited about going to school and everything she is learning and loves her teachers and classmates. There was nothing normal about the drama at Wake Leadership, and I would hate to see any families like mine waste their time considering this option.
—Submitted by a parent