A proposed charter school in Swain is pitting education advocates against one another.

On one side is a group of parents concerned about the education their children will receive in the public school system. They have applied to the state board of education to open Mountain Discovery Charter School, which would serve up to 144 students in grades kindergarten through eight if it attains one of the few charter school slots left open in North Carolina.

“We feel like that if a child is not being served well by the public school system, and the parents are unable to home school, then they have no choice now in Swain County,” said Mary Ellen Hammond, one of the parents interested in starting the charter school. “That’s what we’re looking at. There is now no alternative, and we will provide an option.”

The Swain County School System, however, does not want the school to open. In an impact statement it plans to submit to the state by the middle of this month, administrators will argue that Mountain Discovery will negatively affect the 1,730-student rural school system.

“For a small school system in a county with an extremely limited tax base and the first- or second-highest unemployment rate in the state, that money they will take will hurt,” said Assistant Superintendent Glenda Callicutt.

“It frustrates me because I don’t understand where they are coming from, if we are doing something wrong,” she said.

Ortho Tucker is the director of the Office of Charter Schools in the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. He said there are no studies which make definitive conclusions about whether charter schools help or hurt local school systems. Usually the impact is mixed, depending on one’s perspective, he said. At a recent state school board meeting in Cullowhee, Tucker said school officials from Swain explained their opposition to a charter school.

“Their situation might be somewhat unique, due to the small size of the system,” Tucker said.

Tax-supported school of choice
The charter school movement in North Carolina officially got off the ground in 1996 when the General Assembly approved the Charter School Act. That law gave the state school board permission to approve charters for 100 schools. There are now charter schools in 48 North Carolina counties, but the only one west of Asheville is in Cashiers.

Callicutt thinks Swain’s unique characteristics make its school system particularly susceptible to being hurt by the opening of a charter school that could take up to 8.5 percent of its student body.

Swain is among the poorest counties in the state, and 86 percent of its land is owned by the federal government. That means it has a small per capita tax base. It receives no money from the county for operating expenses in its annual budget and has no locally paid teachers.

“When we start talking about a charter school, about pulling kids out of the system and pulling money based on ADM (average daily membership), then we have to talk about positions,” said Callicutt. Up to seven teaching positions could be lost if Mountain Discovery Charter School opens, she said.

The proposed budget prepared by the charter school’s board of directors estimates it would need $858,000 to operate in its first year, tax money that would follow students who choose to attend.
Students from Swain, Jackson and Graham counties, along with those from the Qualla Boundary, would be accepted at Mountain Discovery. Organizers have discussed the school with two people who own buildings and think they will have little problem obtaining a site. One of those is the old Whittier School.

According to the budget prepared by the board of directors, approximately $525,000 would come from Swain’s state ADM funds and $31,000 would come from local county appropriations.

Linda Dills, who is director of instruction for Swain County Schools, said the shifting of students to a new school could also cause other problems.

“We have worked hard to eliminate combination classrooms. If this happens we may have to go back to that,” said Dills.

Dills and Callicutt also fear that if too many students from one school decide to attend Mountain Discovery, it could force the school board to redraw distinct lines so that elementary school populations would remain relatively even. One hundred students might not have a large impact in larger counties, but it will be substantial in Swain, Callicutt said.

Tucker said one thing public school officials have to remember is that the opening of a charter school means there will be fewer students to educate, which means it will cost less to operate the school system.

“Fewer kids can have a positive effect on the system,” said Tucker.

But Callicutt said there would still be buildings to heat and air condition, buses to put on the road and the same routes to run, and the same number of custodians.

“A charter school will affect our system across the board,” she said.

Tucker said that there is almost always an outcry from the local system when charters are first proposed. However, after a couple of years, public school administrators often discover the financial impact is not as significant as first thought.

“There is a settling. The first message is that ‘we are not happy with what you are doing.’ Afterwards, systems maybe realize,  one, two, three years down the road, — that it’s not as great a problem as first thought,” said Tucker.

Dills, however, thinks the school will indeed hurt Swain County. In addition to its financial drain, it could very well divide the community and splinter overall support for public education.

“Our schools are the center of our communities, and the communities have tremendous support for them,” said Dills. “The teachers and the community take a lot of pride in our school system. A charter school may divide that support.”

Public school options
Heather Green is a mother and a member of the board of directors of Mountain Discovery Charter School. Her child is in the second grade, and she will have a second starting kindergarten next year. She wants them to attend a school where diversity is celebrated, where arts, music and foreign language are taught every day, where there is less emphasis and fewer resources directed toward sports, and where elementary school class sizes are smaller.

“We want children in Swain County to have a choice. We see a charter school as an opportunity. We have an idea, and this is the vehicle to it,” said Green.

And while Green and Hammond do see some shortcomings in the Swain County public school system, they say Mountain Discovery is not a direct response to any specific problems. No school system is perfect, said Hammond. Starting the charter school is more about having a vision and running with it.

“The way I look at it, we are not only accountable to the state, we are accountable to the community,” said Hammond. “If parents don’t like what we are doing and how we are doing it, they can choose the public school. We can’t exist if we aren’t doing our job.”

Green said the fear being expressed by Swain County school officials is understandable, but she argues that the charter school — instead of dividing the community — will enrich it.

“We will be going after grants, conducting large fund-raising projects. Our intention is not just to benefit our school but to benefit the entire community. We want to work with the schools and the community,” said Green.

If the school does open, Hammond said the financial drain may not be as detrimental as some public school administrators are saying. The charter school board of directors will be accountable for its spending, and perhaps the school system needs to rethink how it spends, she suggested.

“They will have to re-adjust. I don’t want to be a school system basher, but it might negatively affect the football program. A couple of assistant principals who make $60,000 per year might be impacted,” she said.

The charter board of directors, instead of focusing on the negative impact on Swain’s public school system, are more interested in talking about their curriculum and plans. Just to apply for a charter school is a gargantuan task, says Tucker. The application is 100 pages, and it must cover educational, administrative and financial information.

The curriculum, according to Hammond, will be based on “expeditionary” learning. That is an innovative but not revolutionary curriculum, she said. It tries to teach students by integrating lessons across curricula and involving projects and hands-on learning.

She gave an example of a quilt making project. Students would research the history of quilt making, design squares, choose colors, buy fabric, make the quilt, raffle it off and donate the proceeds to a community charity.

“I heard someone say it was like education for the gifted offered to all,” she said.

The school would initially have grades K-6 with nine teachers and assistants in grades K-3. The average class size would be 16 students, and starting teacher salaries would be $30,000 per year.

Green said board members know students will have to learn multiplication tables and spelling in the more traditional methods, but teachers will be encouraged to always try new ideas.

“We are going to start with the premise that innovation is great,” said Green. “The plan we want to implement will require innovative, creative teachers. So we want to pay them what they are worth.”
Hammond said many argue that charter schools are elitist, but she says that is a myth. Many of the schools serve underprivileged populations and are showing good results.

“Children learn different and need different motivations,” said Hammond. “We see ourselves as a place where new ideas can be tried out to see how they work for this county.”

Green thinks some who are critical of the plan for Mountain Discovery simply have the wrong idea.
“We’re not saying that this school is going to be better, just different,” she said.

The challenge
Tucker said that often charter schools do improve local school systems.

“Sometimes some good things happen. One size does not fit all, and some children who are having a difficult time in the traditional public school do extremely well in a different environment,” he said.
He referred to Moore County, a small, rural county that has two charter schools.

“The school system thought it was the worst thing that could happen. But this year, they had their highest test scores ever,” said Tucker.

So far, there have been next to no discussions between the charter school board of directors and Swain County school personnel. A couple of members of the charter school board went to the central office this spring and advised administrators they were considering starting a charter school.

While Tucker said it remains to be seen what will happen with Mountain Discovery’s charter application, he also said the two groups could benefit each other by talking about the proposed charter school.

“I would hope Swain County administrators and the school board would sit down with the charter school group and see if there are any differences,” said Tucker. “It would be appropriate to have that conversation.”

 

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