NCSSM families in Morganton got a chance to work on some of the same problems their students tackle every day in class. (photo: Robin Beets)
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They’re going to be alright! Families reflect on their students’ growth
October 7, 2026
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For every student at NCSSM, there is a collection of people back home who make a tremendous sacrifice when their young person packs their bags and sets out for America’s best public high school.
Each year, NCSSM brings those folks to the Durham and Morganton campuses for Family Day to share in the experience their student is having at NCSSM. From getting to meet teachers to touring dorms and labs to sitting down with staff and administrators to learn more about how NCSSM is helping care for their kids, the day allows the most important stakeholders in a student’s future to come together in support of that student.
“These families are extremely proud of their children for earning this opportunity,” said Todd Roberts, NCSSM’s chancellor, who spent the day in Durham chatting with families as they moved about campus. “That opportunity resonates with them even more when they’ve had a chance to spend time with and get to meet the people that make NCSSM special. After Family Days, I always hear the parents say ‘Wow, I wish I could go back to school.’”
For many students, the last two years of high school stand as some of the most transformative years of their lives. Their march toward adulthood gains steam as students become more aware of their ability to shape the world around them. For parents, that evolution can seem abrupt when the child isn’t in the home every day.
Cary residents Atul and Suruchika Bhatia have certainly seen their son Ekansh, a senior at NCSSM-Durham, become a fuller version of himself. The level of personal growth he has experienced has shifted their perceptions.
“This year, we are feeling much, much, much more comfortable with things and the maturity he has developed, the changes we have seen, and the independent decisions he has taken,” Atul said. “When he was at home, we were seeing him more as a child. Now we see him more like an independent person.”
Kristin Newnham, of Charlotte, was nervous when her son Braydon, a senior at NCSSM-Morganton, left home and Corvian Community High School to go to school in the foothills. The anxiety returned when he traveled back to campus for his senior year. But the feedback she had received from her son, and the interactions she had with faculty and staff at NCSSM during Family Day, helped alleviate the worries she felt.
“I was not ready for him to leave the nest two years earlier than I had anticipated,” she said. “But I know how happy he is, how safe he is here, and [so] that’s definitely been much easier to allow him to come here and grow on his own.”
Manny and Trish Garza are from Shawboro in Eastern North Carolina. Their daughter, Aubree, is a junior at NCSSM-Durham. Aubree came to NCSSM-Durham from JP Knapp Early College.
The idea of Aubree going away for the last two years of high school seemed to occur suddenly for the family. When word came that Aubree got in to NCSSM, “everything just kind of spiraled really quickly into ‘We’ve got to go,’” says her father.
“There were a lot of logistics,” says her step-mother, Trish.
But they made it work to the point that Manny has made it to campus a number of times for functions and volunteer opportunities while Trish managed the lives of Aubree’s two siblings still at home.
“The more I come out, the more I’m like, ‘All right, she’s going to be all right,’” Manny says. “As long as she adheres to what they’re asking her to do, she’s going to be fine.”
The Garzas are feeling confident, too, that NCSSM will provide Aubree with the tools she needs to pursue her dreams, whatever they may be.
“Whatever her desires are,” says her father, “whatever she wants to do as an adult, we’re like, ‘Go chase it all the way.’”
