ACS votes to close Montford North Star, consolidate with Asheville Middle in 5-2 vote

ASHEVILLE - The Asheville City Schools Board approved consolidation of Montford North Star Academy and Asheville Middle School in a 5-2 vote March 11, a decision that left many fleeing the boardroom in tears, and that will close the beloved Montford Avenue school, which opened in 2017.

In the 2024-25 school year, Montford students will move to Asheville Middle School on South French Broad Avenue, creating a single middle school for the district. Montford serves about 220 students.

The decision was the culmination of about three months of public-facing discussion, two dedicated public hearings, and an emotional final meeting. After the vote, there was applause for Liza Kelly — the sole in-person opposing vote. Board member James Carter, who also voted against the motion, was attending remotely.

When applause died, the shouting began.

"This is a sham and a disgrace," one attendee said, standing from their seat. "This is disgusting. You bunch of liars."

They stormed out, as others did, amid Chair George Sieburg's closing comments.

“As board chair, I’ve spoken with all my fellow board members, and I’ve heard them wrestling with the ramifications of this decision," Sieburg said.

"Any time a district chooses to consolidate schools, there is deep sadness. Families, staff and students will need time to grieve the decision. It is incumbent then that Dr. (Superintendent Maggie) Fehrman and her staff, as well as school administrators, work closely with our community to create a middle school culture where all students belong, and where the best of both Montford and AMS are shared with all students with fidelity and integrity."

The vote came as the district approaches a $4.5 million funding cliff, in part due to declining enrollment and the expiration of federal relief dollars. Also at play is the district's Education and Career Academy, which has been without a permanent home for more than a decade.

“For myself, I have not been able to come up with any other alternative that both saves money and provides a home for kids that can no longer be relegated and marginalized,” Vice Chair Amy Ray said. "I won't allow it to happen if it is up to me ... to me it is about repairing harm."

She pointed out that Asheville Middle School, with a $41 million building opened in 2016, now has 543 students with a capacity for 1,000.

'Between a rock and another rock'

A slate of options were presented to the board, with consolidation posed as the lead cost-saving measure by the district and the most equitable. It's been the subject of much heated input, and at a March 4 board discussion, board members wavered on the way forward, describing the decision as "painful" and "difficult."

"These are the things that keep me up at night," Sieburg said.

He noted that as a district they have seen funding pulled back by the General Assembly. When Fehrman brought them the "realities" of the budget in the fall, he said decisions were necessary to keep the district from eating away at its fund balance to nothing.

He could not see a way to pay teachers a living wage without making changes to the layout of the district.

Board member Sarah Thornburg said they've all gone "back and forth on this, many many times," and said twice: "We are not financially stable."

"Whatever we vote on this evening, we are between a rock and another rock and another rock," Carter said.

The options up for debate March 11 were to move Montford North Star Academy to another site, therefore making space for ECA, but not consolidating the middle schools; Combining the two schools into one; or remaining as is.

Before the final vote, Carter motioned for Montford North Star to remain open another year, with ECA moved to the building, and wait until 2025-26 to consolidate the middle schools. The motion failed, with only Kelly and Carter voting in favor.

Another motion came prior to Carter's, this one Kelly's, but did not get the second it needed to move to a vote: For there to be a moratorium in the district on closing schools.

"Our school district has a history of being reactionary," Kelly said, earlier in the meeting. "Not giving things time or doing our due diligence in making thoughtful decisions that impact our kids for a very long time."

More: More details on child with gun at Asheville Middle School: charges, information about gun

'A place of our own'

The reconfiguration of the district's two middle schools has been on the table for only a few months, intended to usher in financial savings for the district, to "increase academic effectiveness," and to find a new home for the ECA, said Fehrman.

The Education and Career Academy, which serves about 32 students, mostly grades 9-12, provides programming for students for whom traditional school is not a match. ECA students have not had a permanent location since 2008. They have been relocated four times to different sites. Currently, ECA is housed at the Arthur R. Edington center, where the district leases space from the Asheville Housing Authority for $26,103 annually, according to a brief, six-page reconfiguration study attached to the agenda.

At one time, the program was housed at the Montford North Star Academy building, then called the Randolph Learning Center, until students were moved into modular units on Livingston Street in 2013 to make way for students from Isaac Dickson Elementary, who were relocated during construction of their new school.

“We need a place of our own,” Randall Johnson, director of alternative programs with ACS and who oversees ECA, told the board March 4. “Our students are like refugees. They are going from place to place, without a home for learning.”

Ray said she remembers when Randolph was closed. When the students left the building, it was promised they would return. They didn't. Now the program is a "shell of what it was," despite being "heroically run," Ray said.

“We have lost children through violence and through incarceration because we don’t have a program like that, and we have no home for a program like that,” she said.

The district did not make any final decisions on future ECA's location at the March 11 meeting.

How did parents react?

Parents have come out en masse to recent school board public comment periods, the bulk of them Montford North Star parents, protesting the consolidation of the 220-student Project Based Learning-oriented school with Asheville Middle School.

Public Comment March 11 was limited to 30 minutes. In past meetings, parents have called for the district to "hit the pause button," questioning accuracy of numbers provided by the district and fearing a loss of school choice and community, as well as increased stress for students at the sudden change. Several noted that the smaller school, and its teaching style, was a particularly good fit for neurodivergent students.

Many of these points were echoed March 11.

Angelica Benevides, who has a son in Montford North Star, said when other schools have been challenging, "Montford North Star has been a home for him. It has made him feel included, equal, he has had one-on-one help whenever he needs it ... I cannot imagine us being anywhere else."

Shrinking enrollment

Since the 2014-15 school year, enrollment in Asheville City Schools has dropped by 600 students, Fehrman said. The district has the same number of staff despite the decrease. Current enrollment is 3,890 students, down from 4,620 in 2016, a nearly 16% drop.

All facilities are under capacity to varying degrees, she said, and state and local budget revenues cannot keep pace with expenditures.

Hanging over the conversation was the specter of Asheville Primary School, the West Asheville school that was closed in 2022 despite widespread outrage from community. Also creating tension, and the subject of an Asheville City Association of Educators press conference held before the March 11 board meeting, was the possibility of Lucy S. Herring, a West Asheville elementary school, being closed for the 2024-25 school year.

The district announced last week that the school would be closed next year as it undergoes renovations, only to send out a new notice days later, noting it would take a "pause" and look at ways it could possibly keep the school open.

Tim Lloyd, president of the ACAE, said they had made three "emergency demands" of the district: for ACAE to have a formal voice at the table in ACS decision making, for the Lucy Herring community to be kept together through construction, and a guarantee that staff and students will return to the school once construction is complete.

“To me, this really is the playbook of people in power to disregard the voice of the community," said Yen Kilday, a Lucy Herring parent and PTO member.

"And what is happening ... with Asheville Primary, with the Middle School, and now with Lucy S. Herring, is that they are becoming more and more emboldened to make these decisions without our input, without giving us a seat at the table and without any consideration of the impact and disruption to this entire community."

Savings?

Combining the two middle schools, with an estimated reduction of 18 positions, realized through attrition, could save $1.8 million to $2.3 million, per the district's most recent presentation.

Of other budget savings efforts, Fehrman said a new staffing allotment formula could be put in place, which would allocate staff based on enrollment — growing and shrinking staff with increasing and decreasing enrollment.

She also proposes a reduction to Central Office staff by approximately $475,000, decreasing its budget by 5% across the board.

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Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email [email protected] or message on Twitter at @slhonosky. Please support local, daily journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: ACS will close Montford North Star, consolidate with Asheville Middle