Translators have been called in for open houses at Evergreen Community Charter School. The school in the Haw Creek area of Buncombe County wants to ensure language barriers won't stand in the way of parents considering sending their children to the environmentally themed school.
School representatives make presentations in child care centers in minority communities. Advertising goes into publications reaching a multicultural audience.
While Evergreen's steps might be unique, charter schools statewide face a similar and growing challenge in attracting students from minority communities.
Publicly funded but with more freedom than traditional public schools, charter schools increasingly in North Carolina are becoming "segmented," according to a recent Duke University study.
More students are going to schools that are predominately white, a trend that raises concerns about resegregation of schools. At Evergreen this year, 89 percent of students are white.
This matters because the schools are supposed to be serving the public interest, said Helen F. Ladd, a professor of public policy and economics at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy and one of the study's authors.
It's also important because of the history of segregation in the South, she said.
And critics, too, have raised concerns that because the schools don't have to provide transportation or offer free and reduced-priced lunch, they can be inaccessible to poor families.
"I'd like to think there are really two visions for charter schools. I like to think of them as an addition to the traditional educational system that is designed for purposes of experimentation and specifically to provide more options for disadvantaged students," Ladd said.
But the other view of charter schools is that they represent "the new American revolution and choice, per se, is good, and we ought to have as big a charter school sector as we possibly can," she said.
"And my concern about that view of charter schools is that it leaves out the public interest in education, and we need to keep in mind that taxpayers are paying for all of these charter schools," Ladd said.
The steps taken by Evergreen show the school values diversity and recognizes accessibility is important, said Susan Gottfried, Evergreen's executive director.
"We know the value of having greater diversity in our student body, in our teachers, in our board," she said.
Problem increasing
The Duke researchers found a racial imbalance in North Carolina's charter schools has "intensified" over time. The study found the share of students in predominantly white charter schools has nearly doubled to just over 47 percent.
The study also found that the percentage of white students attending charter schools has grown. That trend has occurred as the percentage of white students in traditional public schools has gotten smaller.
"We're not saying that black students are way underrepresented in the charter schools," Ladd said. "But we are saying there's a clear trend for white students. The white students initially were underrepresented in charter schools, but now they are increasingly over-represented in the charter schools relative to their share of the public school population."
The research also suggests students who are enrolling in charter schools are "more able" than their peers in traditional public schools. That's a change from when charter schools first began operating in North Carolina.
The researchers conclude that charter school population is becoming more segmented, "with one segment increasingly serving the interests of middle class white families."
Charter school advocates counter that the schools are giving more children from low-income families "the opportunity to exercise school choice and to select schools that better meet their children's needs."
"I find the claims that public charter schools perpetuate segregation across our state to be both false and disingenuous," Darrell Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, said in a statement. "To the contrary, what I honestly believe is that we have both white parents and black parents aggressively utilizing various school choice options in order to find schools that will best educate their children."
Allison said charter schools enroll a greater percentage of black students than traditional public schools and that the number of black principals heading charter schools has increased since the state began allowing more schools to open.
The state began allowing charter schools in 1996, but capped the number at 100 schools. In 2011, that cap was lifted. The state now has 147 charter schools operating, including five schools in Buncombe County.
Two new schools, Invest Collegiate Imagine and the Franklin School of Innovation, opened just last year.
And more new charter schools are in the pipeline. Up to 15 could open this fall including two new virtual charter schools, according to Joel Medley, director of the state Office of Charter Schools.
Ladd said she doesn't believe charter school segmentation is intentional, but "I think it is inevitable."
"And it's inevitable, in my view, because of the way parents choose schools," she said.
A different charter school
One Asheville charter school has managed to draw a diverse group of students in part because of parents like Michael Carter, who wanted his daughter to attend a school where she'd get to know all sorts of different people.
"It's not a hom*ogeneous type of planet," Carter said. "She sees people from various races, different sexual orientations and this is the real world. We wanted her to see that."
The Carters, who are a multiracial family, chose Francine Delany New School for Children.
The population at Francine Delany is a mix of black, white, Hispanic, Asian and multiracial students. White students make up about 54 percent of the student population.
Francine Delany, with 165 students, is the smallest of five charter schools in Buncombe County. It opened in 1997.
And it is unique, not just in Buncombe County, but in the state. It is the only North Carolina charter school that falls under a federal desegregation order, according to Medley.
The federal order covering Asheville City Schools was first put in place in the early 1970s. It was updated in 1991 to ensure racial balance when Asheville City Schools moved to its magnet-themed elementary schools.
"The theme of our school is social justice, and so we wanted to have a diverse population of students," said Buffy Fowler, operations coordinator for Francine Delany. "When we chose to be inside of the Asheville City Schools district, that also meant that we would be under the same federal desegregation order as the Asheville City Schools."
Fowler sees the federal order as an advantage.
North Carolina charter schools with more applications than available slots select their students via a blind lottery. At Francine Delany, because of the desegregation order, the school has two waiting lists — one for African-American families and one for non-African-Americans.
The school tries to make sure that its kindergarten class "reflects the racial balance of the rest of our school or what is equivalent of the city school district," Fowler said.
This year, the student population within Asheville City Schools is 61 percent white, 25 percent black, nearly 8 percent Hispanic and 5.5 percent multiracial.
At Francine Delay, the student population is 54 percent white, 26 percent black, 8 percent Hispanic, 6 percent Asian and more than 5 percent multiracial.
"If we didn't have that federal desegregation order that allows us to have two separate waiting lists, we could not guarantee that the students who came up in the lottery would be as diverse a crowd as what we are getting now," Fowler said.
Charter schools cannot discriminate based on race. At the same time the state law says schools should take steps to try to "reasonably reflect" the racial and ethnic composition of the general population within a school district.
Officials at Francine Delany have focused on outreach to minority families, and unlike some other charter schools, the school provides transportation for students. The school also offers support for families of students who qualify for free or reduced priced lunch.
Families receive gift cards so they can purchase lunches at Ingles. The grocery store chain gives the school a discount when it buys the cards in bulk.
Parents say they like that the school has a diverse student population.
Carter moved to Asheville from New York City and he says he's grateful his daughter got into Francine Delany.
"We were very blessed to have her chosen to get in. She enjoys it," he said. "She sees all of creation in all of its splendor in the people there and also how to relate to what goes on in the world."
Another parent, Leslie Sharpe, also sought out a school with diversity.
"We are members of a multiracial society. I think it's important to learn how to negotiate that," Sharpe said. "In our specific case, our daughter is Asian, and we did not want her to be in a school where she would be one of the very few people of color."
Other Buncombe schools
Based on the latest Census numbers, Buncombe County's overall population is about 84 percent white. But the traditional public school population is more racially diverse.
The student population within the Buncombe County school system is about 72.5 percent white, 14.6 percent Hispanic, just under 7 percent black, just over 4 percent multiracial and 1.5 percent Asian.
Schools within the Buncombe district vary widely depending on location. At Emma Elementary, for example, 43.6 percent of the student population is Hispanic. Less than 32 percent of Emma students are white. At Barnardsville Elementary, 93 percent of the students are white.
Comparing the four charter schools within the Buncombe district to the overall student population of the district, all four have a higher percentage of white students.
At Evergreen, one focus has been on trying to get more minority families to apply.
"As you know, charter schools can't choose which number they pull out of a lottery. The best we can do is to make sure we have more applicants of minority students, for example, in our lottery so that there's a better chance they will get in," Gottfried said.
Medley said even if the applicant pool is diverse, charter schools are allowed sibling preferences. That can leave fewer open slots to be filled via lottery.
"That's where this gets difficult," he said. "That's why those first couple of years are extremely important to make sure that the schools are marketing to all groups."
At ArtSpace Charter School, Lori Cozzi, ArtSpace executive director, says her school does reflect the community "we are located in."
"We constantly attempt to put ourselves out to the community at large. We follow all laws regarding the lottery. In the end our numbers are determined by the names that are randomly drawn," Cozzi said via email.
ArtSpace is in Swannanoa and pulls a large percentage of its students from the Owen school district. The school is about 86 percent white. About 2 percent of its students are black and 5.4 percent are Hispanic, according to numbers from the state.
Owen High School, by comparison, is just over 80 percent white. The student population is 9.2 percent Hispanic, 4.4 percent black, 4.4 percent multiracial and 1 percent Asian.
About 80 percent of ArtSpace students come from within the Buncombe County district and about 15 percent from Asheville City. The school also draws students from Haywood, Madison, Henderson and McDowell counties.
Of the two new Buncombe charter schools that opened this year, Invest Collegiate is just under 84 percent white and the Franklin School of Innovation is nearly 90 percent white, according to numbers from the state.
Franklin School, which is in the Enka area, draws students from eight counties, but most live within the Buncombe school district, according to Michelle Vruwink, school executive director.
A breakdown of the school population at the start of the school year showed the school is also attracting a number of students from home schools, private schools and other charter schools.
"I think you have to first recognize that this is our first year. We're drawing the people who were interested in supporting a new school. And I think that's part of it (the school's demographics)," Vruwink said.
But another issue is funding, Vruwink said. The school has not been able to offer bus transportation. "It would be great if we had the financial support that would allow us to provide more transportation," she said.
Charter schools aren't required to provide transportation, but they do need a transportation plan that prevents transportation from becoming a barrier to students, according to Medley. That could take the form of bus or taxi fare or carpooling, he said.
Vruwink said the school does provide meals to students.
And the school settled on its location in the Enka area because it wanted to be accessible to a diverse population, she said.
"And we look at diversity in terms of socioeconomic as well as racial," she said. "It is absolutely a stated part of our vision for the school that it be reflective of the community."
Matt Ellinwood, policy analyst with the North Carolina Justice Center, said the lack of free and reduced-priced lunch as well as the lack of transportation can affect student access to charters.
"If you don't offer transportation, that's going to really limit the ability of a ton of families to be able to attend the school. Anybody who is a single parent or if both parents are working, it's going to be very difficult for them to provide their own transportation to school," he said.
Another factor that can affect demographics is the school's mission, Ellinwood said. Some schools are set up to serve high performing students while others target at-risk students.
How and where schools are marketed also makes a big difference, Ellinwood said.
"In some instances, you could only market it to one particular neighborhood, that can cause segregation right there," he said.
Medley said that's one area the charter school advisory board "has really looked hard at."
"If you're going to market and the only way you're going to market is through a website, well there are some parts of the population that are going to struggle with that," he said. "If you're only going to market in English, you're going to have some populations that are going to struggle with that."
Racial breakdown of charter schools
Buncombe County Schools
White – 72.48 percent
Black – 6.69 percent
Hispanic – 14.65 percent
Asian – 1.46 percent
Multiracial – 4.09 percent
Pacific Islander/American Indian – .63 percent
Asheville City Schools
White – 61 percent
Black – 25 percent
Hispanic – 7 percent
Multiracial – 5.5 percent
Asian/American Indian – 1.5 percent
ArtSpace
White – 86 percent
Black – 2 percent
Hispanic – 5.3 percent
Multiracial – 6 percent
Evergreen
White – 88.7 percent
Black – 1.35 percent
Hispanic – 5.85 percent
Multiracial – 3.8 percent
Francine Delany
White – 54.5 percent
Black – 26.3 percent
Hispanic – 7.8 percent
Asian – 5.9 percent
Multiracial – 5.3 percent
Invest Collegiate Imagine
White - 83.6 percent
Black – 3.1 percent
Hispanic – 6.9 percent
Multiracial – 3.7 percent
Asian – 2.5 percent
The Franklin School of Innovation
White – 89.8 percent
Black – 1.45 percent
Hispanic – 3.2 percent
Multiracial – 4.4 percent
Source: Schools, school systems and the statistical profiles compiled by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction
