Andrea M. Runyon

Welcome to our school! Greenway Park opened in 1995 as a neighborhood school serving the east Charlotte community.  The school has changed over the years but has remained true to its core values of embracing every child with a warm sense of family and ensuring an unwavering commitment to identify and cultivate each child's talent through a unique educational approach.  

In 2018, Greenway Park became CMS's first creative arts and sciences magnet school. A significant update of our facilities helped us expand our offerings and maximize learning spaces.  Today, Greenway Park serves more than 650 students in pre-kindergarten through grade five, offering creative arts programming in dance, chorus/music, band, orchestra, visual arts and theater.  Students at Greenway Park also explore academic content in our state-of-the-art science lab and maker space.

We have a highly effective faculty well-versed in integrating arts and sciences into core curricula, as well as in differentiating learning opportunities to meet the needs of each child in a classroom.  We take a standards-based approach to instructional planning, which has led to significant gains in student growth and proficiency in recent years.  We also place a high priority on social-emotional learning and offer a comprehensive mindfulness program, as well as a behavior-support program called the GreenWAY.  Specifically, we utilize the Caring Schools curriculum and emphasize the mantra, "Be safe, be respectful, be responsible, and show your Panther Pride the GreenWAY."  We have several full- and part-time support staff members, including counselors, a social worker, a translator/interpreter, social-emotional learning interventionist, mental health therapists, and a psychologist.

We also support learning and growth opportunities beyond the classroom. Our students can participate in such clubs as Girls on the Run, Let Me Run, Club Basketball, Club Cheerleading, Club Soccer, Recycling Club, and Safety Patrol.  We have strong partnerships in the community with New Charlotte Church/Church at Charlotte, Matthews United Methodist Church and St. Stephen United Methodist Church. Our school's vision is to foster a collaborative environment in which scholars take ownership of their path to the future.

The mission of Greenway Park is to:

--Prioritize the whole child while maintaining high expectations

--Provide rigorous core instruction while integrating the arts

--Involve our entire school community, including staff, students, families, and community partners, to cultivate strong, trusting relationships

--Celebrate growth and model perseverance as students work toward their goals

In the past two academic years, our students' grade-level proficiency in math has increased more than 20 percent.  Additionally, our literacy proficiency increased 6 percent last school year and our science proficiency increased by 13 percent. In the 2017-2018 school year, Greenway Park was one of the top five CMS elementary schools for student growth in literacy and in the top 10 for overall student growth.  We were recognized by North Carolina as a school that exceeded expected growth in 2017-2018.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself.  I grew up in the Midwest.  I attended Miami University of Ohio where I earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education.  I worked in various school districts before settling in CMS where I have been an elementary school teacher (J.H. Gunn) and elementary school assistant principal for several years (Olde Providence).  Most recently, I was the assistant principal here at Greenway Park from 2016 until 2020.  I am delighted to now serve as the school's principal.

My diverse experiences have taught me that the best way to increase and sustain high student achievement is to nurture a strong school culture and sense of community where the principal, staff, and families work collectively to best meet the needs of individual students. 

On a personal note, I am a parent to my daughter, Tori, who is the light of my life.  Tori is a Kindergarten student this year.  In my free time, I enjoy cooking, traveling, and spending time with my family.

Again, welcome to Greenway Park. I look forward to working with you and your student this year!