Picture the scene.  It is one month in the future. The Labor Day holiday ended yesterday.  It is 8:15 on the morning of Tuesday September 2, 1997 out near the armory on the south side of Asheville, NC. To be precise,  we are entering a two-acre site at 119 Brevard Road in a largely residential neighborhood . 

If all has gone according to a plan now being feverishly implemented, then at this very moment, a chief administrator, a board of directors and scores of volunteers and other well-wishers, are now welcoming us to Asheville’s newest public school.  We watch the arrival of its first 98 students assigned to kindergarten and grades one through five.

We make up part of the pioneer crowd at THE FRANCINE DELANEY NEW SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN. It is a public CHARTER school, made possible by legislation passed in Raleigh in 1996. Five years ago it would have been unthinkable that North Carolina would authorize such an innovation. 

The Delaney School is managed by a private non-profit organization operating under an agreement first sent to  the Asheville City Public Schools system and ratified months later by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Delaney School must  provide education at least 180 days per year but need not have a fixed number of contact hours per day.  The school may not charge tuition but may receive tax-deductible gifts from private parties. Its basic operating expenses are provided  through the Asheville Public Schools system, which funnels certain State and Federal Government funds. Badly needed Federal start-up money has so far totaled $54,000.  The Asheville charter school is one of the first 35 so far approved by State government.  Current law authorizes a statewide total of only100, with a limit of one per school district. For all charter schools in North Carolina 1997-1998 is their first year of existence.

The new public school honors Mrs. B. Francine Delaney, wife, mother of three, graduate of UNC-Asheville and Western Carolina University, and a nationally recognized long-time teacher in the Asheville City Schools system, which in 1988 named her principal of its well known Alternative School.

There are certain days when  the direction of history shifts a little or a lot: e.g., the day a century ago when Oklahoma Territory was thrown open to non-Indian settlement, the day the first men landed on the moon, the day Asheville’s own Thomas Wolfe was born.  And,  perhaps as well, September 2, 1997 when teachers and students will walk through the doors of the made-to-order brand new modular buildings of the Francine Delaney New School for Children.

First, the education offered these 98 public school students will approximate some of the best features of home schooling, including very small classes (maximum 14 in any one group) as well as teachers who are intimately known to parents (in several  cases their teacher will be their  mom). The youngsters will be gently guided to learn at their own pace and will have no little  personal and group input into what they read (no textbooks, though!) and will be motivated to accuracy and achievement in spelling, writing, calculating and defining problems and then solving them . Their seven teachers are thoroughly educated, crisply convincing professionals  who have persuaded very bright parents that the Delaney charter school offers something extra to its students. After all, no children will be at Delaney School unless  their  parents have freely chosen to   place them there.

Secondly, parents correctly see themselves as active partners of the teachers.  Parents commit to make the school work for their own children and those of the other parents. There are only about 150 parents behind these 98 students--a group no bigger than a medium-size Lions, Rotary, Kiwanis or Civitan club. So those parents, if they choose,  can come to know one another very well.  The school board and teachers have provided  generous channels of volunteer service for the parents both to co-found the school and to make it grow.  On hand September 2nd will be on hand parents who have roamed the neighborhoods looking for second-hand children’s classics at garage sales, parents who have helped solve engineering and regulatory challenges from city and county and parents who have contributed to the emerging policy and actions to date regarding school lunches, transportation and after-hours enrichment activities. 

The third group to be changed are the teachers at Francine Delaney New School for Children. For some of them Delaney has meant giving up the security of  future retirement eligibility in a more traditional public school system (the legislature in Raleigh may offer them some later relief).  For all teachers, being “present at the creation” has meant reaching out to other non-teaching co-founders and taking on dozens of administrative chores previously and traditionally done by non-teachers.  At the Delany charter school teachers will have no  paid teaching assistants. This drawback is, however,  balanced by classrooms with no more than 14 students, each usually combining two traditional grade levels, e.g. K-1, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5.

The fourth group whom September 2, 1997 will change, if only a little bit, is all the rest of us in Buncombe County.  Change will sweep across elected city officials, the Asheville school board and public schools throughout the county, as well as among home schoolers.  Some of the Delaney school’s pupils will come from outside Asheville.  Some have been home schooled. All of the 98 “charter students” will be watched  with fingers crossed and hearts in their throats by parents everywhere who are rightly concerned to improve local education of the young by whatever means available.

The dominant mood of the founders and guardians of Delaney School is harmonious and non-confrontational.  They say that they are not out to provoke or challenge the traditional public schools or to insist that their methods are for all students everywhere.  If Delaney does not produce academic achievers, then the state will take back its charter.  If parents do not like what the school is offering, its doors will close. That is accountability to government and accountability to the market place. Without a waiver from Raleigh, there can  be only one charter school within the boundaries of the Asheville City Schools system. So the Delaney School will ostensibly be only a small catalyst of change.

In future articles the ASHEVILLE TRIBUNE  will introduce the individual women and men who have boldly created this new school.  Weighed in the balance, in due course  will be their administration, their accountability, their theories of pedagogy.  Described will be some of the families and some of the students. Inevitably,  politics, culture and religion will also be touched on.

Nothing like Francine Delaney School has ever been tried in Buncombe County or, indeed, in North Carolina before: this new blending of public funding and accountability with private management of a school in  the public interest. To function as an experiment in a democratic society. the Delaney School needs to be given a fair chance.  As with any bold experiment, there is a time to praise and a time to carp.  Now is the time to welcome our newest neighbor.  May our newest public school make itself known, win friends and help parents educate their children as parents freely  choose to have them educated!

For more information from school officials themselves, telephone  704-683-4985. Or write to Board Chairman Donna V. Smith or Chief Operating Officer Mark Lawing at P.O. Box 1616, Asheville, NC 28816.

-000-

for Asheville TRIBUNE

[NOTE: this almost four year old article goes up to my web site 05/30/2001 amidst Asheville-Buncombe media attention to celebrations of the end of another successful year at Delaney. Children interviewed, black and white, radiate and express their joy at having been part of this bold experiment. TPK]