ENROLLMENT NUMBERS BY SCHOOL YEAR

Asheville City Schools

County Schools

Private Schools (all of Buncombe County)

Opportunity

STUDENT SEEP: Attendance in both public school districts in Buncombe County has trended down over the last 10 years, while private schools have grown. Graphic by Scott Southwick

That loss of funding means school administrators have to consider what services to cut. Whether it’s elective offerings from arts to athletics or student services such as mental health counselors, there are no good options, Elliot says.

“In the midst of a mental health crisis where we need to be as close as possible to the recommended ratio of school counselors and school social workers, we have to keep cutting them. We have to, but it’s those student services that are really critical,” he says.

“There’s no doubt that given the laws that the state has created around charter schools and around the voucher system … that families who have the resources to go somewhere else can figure out a way to go somewhere else,” says George Sieburg, chair of the Asheville City Schools Board of Education. “And the shame of it is that it comes from a fundamental false narrative that our schools are a problem, which is not the case. Our schools do amazing things,” he adds.

FREE REIN VS. NO ACCOUNTABILITY

Unlike traditional public schools, private schools have the ability to be more creative, free from having to meet state accountability standards for teacher certification and standardized testing scores. For some parents, such as Ellie Childs, that’s what makes them attractive. Childs

CONTINUES ON PAGE 10 says the public school’s teaching model is antiquated.

“That model, which fits into state standards, is really only addressing one learning style. And there’s multiple intelligence styles, multiple learning styles. A lot of people learn experientially and not through rote memorization,” she says.

The lack of accountability also means there’s no oversight of what is being taught on private school campuses. Many of the state’s private schools have a religious affiliation, and 92% of vouchers awarded in the Opportunity Scholarship program as of 2020 went to religious schools, according to an analysis conducted by Duke School of Law.

For public school advocates, that’s problematic.

“We could be using state dollars to support schools that actively teach discrimination against vulnerable communities, like minorities, like LGBTQ kids and families. I mean, that’s just unacceptable. It is absolutely 100% unacceptable. State dollars should not be going to schools that teach those things,” Mayfield says.

Additionally, unlike private schools, traditional public schools are charged with serving every student, including providing transportation and meals, which costs money, Sieburg says.

“Any public school system is serving every single person who comes to the door. Resources get stretched. And so yeah, for sure, in a small charter school or a small private school, where they can kind of, forgive the language, but pick and choose the families that are there, and what they want to teach, and what programs they want to have, they can be a little bit more nimble. But that doesn’t mean that the education that we provide at Asheville City Schools is any less than what they can provide. We have educators trained in the same way, and sometimes in even more complete ways than the educators at private schools and charter schools,” Sieburg says.

WHO BENEFITS FROM VOUCHERS?

Opponents of the voucher program argue the scholarships provided aren’t truly enough to help lower-income people access pricey private schools, leading the scholarship money to just pad the pockets of families who can already afford a private school education.

In Buncombe County, private school tuition averages more than $18,000, nearly twice the statewide private school average tuition cost of about $9,700, according to privateschoolreview.com.

LeeAnna Rahim and her co-parent have not taken advantage of an Opportunity Scholarship thus far because they made too much money, but she said they might consider it under the pending law because tui- tion at Asheville Waldorf School has gotten untenable.

Rahim says her 11-year-old has thrived in the Waldorf curriculum since preschool. She is pulling her 7-year-old daughter out to attend FernLeaf Community Charter School, which has no tuition, and plans to tran- sition her older daughter to FernLeaf after the upcoming school year as well to save money, she says.

Childs moved to Buncombe County from Colorado a year ago and used an Opportunity Scholarship to help her pay for her daughter to attend kindergarten at Odyssey School. She is attending the private Rainbow Community School this year, even though the scholarship only covers about half of her daughter’s tuition, she says.

“I strongly believe in alternative education and private schools, and it’d be great if they were all publicly funded. But if they were, then (they wouldn’t) be able to do anything that’s outside of the norm. So, I am very grateful that there is a scholarship for people that can’t afford private school,” Childs says.

’FISCALLY IRRESPONSIBLE’

Ultimately, Elliot, Sieburg and Mayfield all expressed support for school choice generally and said they understand there’s a place for private schools in the general fabric of our education system. But they all drew a line at sending public funds to private schools.

Elliot says it is fiscally irresponsible to take taxpayer dollars mandated by the state constitution to be spent on traditional public schools and hand them over to an unaccountable system.

“Once that money goes over to that private system, the public loses 100% of its voice and how that money is spent by that institution. That institution can take that tuition money and do with it whatever in the world they want to do,” he says.

Instead, Mayfield says, we should invest that money in an already starving public school system because that is what the state constitution mandates. (Specifically, it says, “The people have a right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty of the State to guard and maintain that right.”)

“Everybody should be offered the opportunity to get a good education, and the foundation in our country for that is our public schools,” Mayfield says.

Shanna Peele, Buncombe County Association of Educators president, says the voucher expansion program is another reason public school teachers feel as if they’re under attack.

“Why would the GOP leaders do this when the majority of North Carolina students are in traditional public education, and the (state Supreme Court), students, parents, teachers, school personnel and principals have all told us that those same traditional schools are being drastically underfunded?” asks.