County could soon have three charters

The number of charter schools in Johnston County could grow from one to three by 2017.

Among the 28 applications filed last month to open charter schools in North Carolina, two were for Johnston County. If approved, Emereau: Johnston and Johnston Charter Academy would be the second and third independent public schools in Johnston, joining Neuse Charter, which opened in 2007.

“We’re not threatened by them; we welcome them,” said Chris Johnson, a Neuse Charter board member and Johnston County’s director of economic development.

“I hope they’re equally successful, and I think it raises the level of competition,” he said. “We’ll be sure to step up our game, but we’re excited.”

Charter schools operate independently of local, elected school boards and their administrations, governed instead by boards of directors responsible for budgeting and curriculum. Funding comes from the state, though, and students are subject to the same performance requirements as their traditional school counterparts.

Until 2011, North Carolina capped the number of charter schools statewide at 100. But state lawmakers lifted the cap, and last year, the state OK’d 17 charter schools after receiving 40 applications. The year before that, 71 schools applied, and the state approved 11.

Neuse Charter is a K-12 school with 860 students and a 280-student wait list.

Johnson said Neuse Charter has had a wait list since its second year. But with proposed enrollments of 308 and 576, respectively, Emereau: Johnston and Johnston Charter Academy could end the wait for parents seeking an alternative to the county’s traditional public schools.

“There is a need, and we welcome them,” Johnson said. “It’s a very tough task to create something like this. I’m glad we did it when we were younger; I’m not sure we’d have the energy today.”

The name “Emereau” is a mash-up of the last names of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, said Kate Alice Dunaway, who would be executive director of Emereau: Johnston.

Emereau: Johnston is one of five charter applicants for 2017 bearing the Emerau name, with others submitted for Wake, Nash, Halifax and Bladen counties.

Dunaway has a history of starting and running charter schools in North Carolina, all in the southern and western parts of the state. Over the past two decades she’s worked in five charter schools as either an administrator or board member. Now she aims to be the executive director of all five Emereau schools.

“Looking at the educational landscape now, an area of Eastern North Carolina remained underserved,” Dunaway said. “There’s a disparity between the state’s university system and its public schools, where the quality of a student’s education may be different because they may not live in the right ZIP code. We believe all children should have equal opportunities.”

Wake County, with its high numbers of charter schools, might seem a crowded market for Emereau to enter. But not every charter school caters to every population equally, Dunaway said.

“Even though there’s quite a bit of choice for everyone, it’s sometimes going in the other direction for students who are at risk or minorities,” she said. “They can slip through the cracks.”

In its first year, Emereau Johnston projects an enrollment of 308 students in grades K-6. It would add a grade each year, bringing enrollment to 830 students by 2021 and graduating its first class in 2024 with a student body of more than 1,000.

Similarly, Johnston Charter Academy plans to open with grades K-6, but with an enrollment of 576. Its five-year plan is to add grades 7 and 8 and grow to 772.

Stefanie Rachis, who teaches elementary education at Shaw University, would be Johnston Charter’s board president. She serves on the board of Apex’s Peak Charter Academy, which is slated to open next year. Like Peak, Johnston Charter would be managed by National Heritage Academies, a for-profit based in Michigan.

Rachis’ daughter was a Johnston County student until recently, when her mother enrolled her in a Wake County charter school.

“We were not satisfied with the personal attention,” Rachis said. “The main thing for me is personalized learning plans.”

Rachis said she helped draw NHA’s focus to Johnston County and its demand for more than one charter school. The mission of Johnston Charter, she said, would be individualized learning.

“I really like the curriculum and what they were about,” Rachis said of National Heritage Academies. “Our school focuses on preparing students for college and making sure they have the [technology] background to be successful.

“We want to make sure they think critically, develop problem-solving skills and target their learning styles.”

With Neuse Charter in Smithfield, Rachis said Johnston Charter is looking toward Clayton as a possible home.

The state will begin culling applications at year’s end, tossing out applications it deems incomplete. The survivors will endure roughly a year of scrutiny and interviews. The state’s Charter Advisory Board will recommend approval of successful applications by summer of next year, allowing for roughly a year of planning before opening in 2017.

No overly large school can possibly hope to educate every child, each coming into the classroom with his or her own set of abilities and challenges, distractions and interests. Dunaway and Rachis said they wanted to offer parents a choice, first and foremost. And when it comes to the speed of change in education, they likened a large school system to an oil tanker and a charter school to a speedboat.

“Trying to turn one school around is extremely challenging; try doing that with multiple schools in the system,” Dunaway said. “Here you’re in charge of your own destiny.”

Johnston school leaders said because the proposed charter schools would not be part of the county school system, they saw no need to comment. Tracey Peedin-Jones, public information officer, did say Johnston’s traditional public schools were in good standing.

“Johnston County is an innovative school system dedicated to providing the best education for its students,” she said.

This story was originally published October 12, 2015 at 7:24 AM with the headline "County could soon have three charters."