Not many adults remember their middle school years fondly. For those in the Asheville City Schools system at that awkward stage of life, the district has given students another source of anxiety: a forced move to a new school.
In March, the Asheville City Board of Education made the controversial decision to consolidate the district’s two middle schools for the 2024-25 school year in an effort to save money and free up space for its alternative program. That means the families of rising seventh and eighth grade students of Montford North Star Academy (MNSA) were left with a choice: Send their children to Asheville Middle School (AMS) or leave the district.
“We all know that middle school is like the roughest time in a kid’s life. And so every parent, every teacher tries to keep transitions and changes to a minimum. So to have this big of a change for middle schoolers is a lot more disruptive than people have acknowledged,” says Sarah Armstrong, parent of an eighth grader and former PTO president at MNSA.
ACS officials project the middle school population will grow by a third in the upcoming school year, adding about 180 students to its classrooms.
A reconfiguration team composed of about 60 administrators, teachers, students and parents from both middle schools and the central office spoke in April with a meeting facilitator and formed five action teams to work over the summer on a transition, says Kim Dechant, chief of staff for ACS.
Group members focused on consolidation communication, community engagement, a procedures and expectations handbook, staff planning and bonding, and sense of belonging, according to the district’s reconfiguration webpage. The district held a social for rising seventh graders earlier in the summer and has another planned on the front lawn at New Belgium Brewing Co. for rising eighth graders Tuesday, Aug. 13.
Armstrong, who argued against the merger in March, says the groups have been especially successful in bringing together teachers from both schools, and she feels as if the district is really trying to make a difficult situation easier.
Dechant says she’s been impressed with how much time the entire community has given over the summer to make the consolidation a success, from assistant principals to students.
“While the decision [to close Montford North Star Academy] was a challenging decision, I do think everybody’s like, ‘OK, that decision has been made. And we’ve got to make the best of this.’ I’ve been very impressed with that outlook of ‘OK, we’ve got to make this work for our kids, you know?’”
New school, new leader
Adding to the turmoil is a nearly wholesale leadership turnover.
Former AMS Principal Jo Landreth was promoted to a position in central office April 17 and later left the district for a principal job at Oakley Elementary in the Buncombe County Schools district.
Former MNSA Principal Shannon Baggett was promoted to central office in April. Assistant Principal Miranda Wheeler, who served as interim principal at MNSA after Baggett left, also left the district in June to become principal at Woodfin Elementary in Buncombe County Schools.
Leading AMS will be Blair Johnston, who was promoted from assistant principal to principal.
Johnston has worked in ACS for 17 years, including as a science teacher at the former Vance Elementary (now Lucy S. Herring Elementary).
The district is looking for an assistant principal for eighth grade, while last year’s assistant principals of sixth and seventh grade, Jennifer Adams and Brian Powchak, respectively, remain in their positions at the school, Dechant says.
Johnston acknowledges there are a lot of moving parts, and he is focused on making everyone feel comfortable in the new environment at AMS and with him as a leader.
“The one thing that was important to me as I became principal here is giving everybody an opportunity to [meet with me]. I wanted to meet with everybody that wanted to talk with me over the summer. So I’ve had these one-on-one conversations with staff,” Johnston says.
Montford staff members have taken that opportunity, he says.
“It’s been really good to hear their perspective about how they formed that kind of tightknit community at their school. One thing that they’ve kind of all said was just having the opportunity to be heard and then to problem-solve with each other. There wasn’t an expectation for somebody to bring up a concern, and then one person to solve it, but it was really this school community that was working together to do the best things they could for kids,” he says.
While the added change of a new leader at the school might add to the uncertainty, Armstrong points out that in some ways it might be beneficial to have a new principal to help create what is essentially a brand-new community.
“He’s got a great reputation among parents and among teachers, and I feel like to make all of those groups happy separately means you’re doing something really well,” she says.
Lingering doubts
One of the biggest gripes from MNSA parents about AMS was the difference in size between the two schools. With the merger of the two, AMS only got bigger.
Landreth, the former principal, and Johnston both say the school’s “pod” system — a group of teachers in adjacent classrooms in which the same students rotate through daily — helps break it into smaller communities, making it more accessible to students who are used to a smaller school.
Armstrong, who taught at a large middle school in Buncombe County before becoming PTO president at MNSA, isn’t so sure they’ll be quite as effective as advertised.
“I don’t know if it matters. I used to teach at a huge middle school, and we also had pods like that, and it still felt like a huge school. I’m curious to see how that plays out. I hope that my kid comes home and feels like it’s still a small school, but I think that’s something I’m going to have to wait and sort of see how that goes,” she says.
Daniel Shetley, whose daughter is a rising seventh grader, says he and his wife looked into transferring to a charter school after the decision was made to close MNSA, but his daughter decided she wanted to stay in ACS despite her anxiety about going to a bigger school.
“[MNSA] is a more family-type building, and going into a three-story massive compound, she is worried, and there’s definitely some angst there,” he says.
Shetley says it has been a tough few years to be supportive of ACS. His daughter was in second grade when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down in-person learning in the district, and just when it felt as if she was back on her feet in a middle school she loved, the district closed her school.
Because of all this, he is running for a seat on the Asheville City school board as a write-in candidate, partly because he says the district failed to be adequately transparent with parents in its middle school reconfiguration.
The school closure also played a role in the loss of good teachers, he added.
Of Montford North Star’s 20 teachers last year, seven have moved over to Asheville Middle School for the upcoming year. Two have moved to Asheville High School; two have stayed in Montford to teach at the Cougar Academy and Education and Career Academy at William Randolph; and nine have left the district altogether, Dechant says.
The district’s seemingly constant turnover in leadership positions, mixed messaging around why the school had to close just two years after it closed the beloved Asheville Primary School and its ranking as worst in the state for teacher turnover, according to a report conducted by the Department of Public Instruction, have many parents and teachers wondering if they should stick with the district, Shetley says.
Year ahead
Despite the lingering resentment from some parents about the closure of MNSA, there are some acknowledged benefits for students attending AMS. A major upgrade is the plethora of electives available to students and the school’s sports programs and facilities.
Armstrong’s daughter plays softball, and as an MNSA student, she had to take a bus to be on the AMS team.
Shetley’s daughter participated in the award-winning Science Olympiad team at MNSA, which is being carried over to AMS.
For Armstrong, as much as she regrets MNSA being gone, it’s time to invest in the AMS culture. She hopes her daughter and the other MNSA students will be able to adjust. Events like the rising seventh and eighth grade socials and special orientations for all new students, instead of the usual sixth grade orientations, should help, she adds.
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