After 'devastating' Asheville Primary closure, $200 Pre-K increase 'blindsides' parents

ASHEVILLE — A $200 increase to pre-K tuition and the loss of free meals greeted parents still reeling from the closure of Asheville Primary School, and for some middle-income families who rely on affordable pre-K, the tuition hike may spell the end of their time with Asheville City Schools.

"It's a travesty," said Erik Moellering.

With a 4-year-old son, he's been in the school system for only a few semesters and said the nearly 35% increase not only "blindsided" him but came well after open enrollment for most other preschool programs had begun, making it slim-pickings for other child care options.

An email informing parents of the increase was sent May 10 by the school system. For full-day students, the cost increased 29% from $700 a month to $900. It was a steeper climb for school-day preschoolers, who would see prices hike from $525 to $700, or 34%.

This encompasses pre-K costs at Isaac Dickson, Hall Fletcher, Lucy S. Herring and Ira B. Jones elementary schools and a preschool room operated at Asheville High School. For Asheville Primary School's preschool program, now permanently closed and its students dispersed to the other ACS preschool programs, the full day rate was $775 a month.

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Newly-appointed interim ACS Superintendent Jim Causby said the increase was needed and fair.

He told The Citizen Times that the school system had been subsidizing the pre-K program a great deal — to the tune of more than $7 million in local funds since 2016, according to former ACS spokesperson Ashley-Michelle Thublin — and the price hike was designed to offset financial issues being dealt with by ACS.

“The new cost is not out of line at all," Causby said. "There are many, many child care programs in the county that are charging that or more.”

He added that this increase will only impact private-pay families and not those eligible for no-cost enrollment, which ACS offers for families that meet an income threshold that qualifies them for state or federal aid.

New rates will go into effect Sept. 1.

But for many middle-income families, ACS child care offered one of the few more affordable options.

“For us it’s a fairly big hit. We are stuck in that middle ground," Moellering said. His son was enrolled at Asheville Primary School, and was placed in Hall Fletcher after its closure.

To be eligible for no-cost enrollment for pre-K, the maximum income must be $41,176 for a two-person household, $50,865 for a three person, and $60,554 for four.

According to ACS spokesperson Dillon Huffman, of the 114 students enrolled in ACS pre-K, 41 are tuition-paying families.

At this time, he said no families have left the pre-K program due to the increase, but enrollment numbers fluctuate on a monthly basis.

"We are in that place where we’re definitely not low enough to receive that subsidy, but we are not high enough where it’s like … no biggie. It hits," Moellering said of the hike.

Sophie Mullinax finds herself in a similar position.

Her 4-year-old daughter, Hazel, attended the Montessori program at Asheville Primary School before its closure. The Asheville City Schools Board of Education voted Dec. 13 to close the school despite impassioned objections from many APS parents.

"We are still grieving that loss," Mullinax said. She described Asheville Primary's final days as "devastating," but had hoped that Hazel could continue in the ACS preschool program in the coming school year and matriculate into kindergarten in 2023.

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Despite initial back and forth, movement on and off of waitlists, Hazel cemented a spot at Lucy S. Herring for the 2022-23 school year.

So when Mullinax got the May 10 email about the tuition hike, her reaction was "disbelief."

"That didn't sit well with us," she said. Like Moellering, her concerns were heightened by how late in the enrollment cycle it was — many programs started open enrollment in February, and by early May, it was difficult to secure spots elsewhere.

“I think that the more the district does to make these types of cuts, whether it’s closing schools or reduction of programming, the more that students and families are going to be looking elsewhere, which is just a tragedy," Mullinax said.

Both she and her husband, Jerick Wilson, are working parents and rely on child care to get by.

While not "high income," she said, they don't qualify for no-cost enrollment, and hope they can "grit their teeth" and shoulder through one more year of pre-K costs for Hazel.

Between Hazel and their 1-year-old, June, they estimate upward of $2,000 in child care costs monthly. It's more than their mortgage.

“It makes me shudder," she said. "But also, what other option do I have?”

Why the hike?

In an emailed statement from Thublin, who resigned June 10, she said, historically, ACS has had "ample funds to support a robust preschool program, including using local funds allocated to K-12 education."

"Due to a variety of factors, the ACS budget is no longer able to support spending the large amount of local funding that we have spent on our preschool program in previous years."

Therefore, the school system would raise prices, she said, and as a U.S. Department of Agriculture universal waiver that provided no-cost breakfasts and lunches ends with the school year, families who do not qualify for free or reduced meals will be charged breakfast and lunch beginning Sept. 1.

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The anticipated cost is around $75 a month. Parents will also have the option to pack their child's meals.

Causby said the increase in tuition rates was designed to offset ACS subsidies to the pre-K program, and the "jump" in charges is partly because there should have been increases all along.

"The school system has spent a lot of money to subsidize private pay families," he said. "They’ve gotten a real deal for quite a while. And we wish we could continue that, but the finances don’t allow it.”

Former Superintendent Gene Freeman, who was earning $150,000 a year, broke his four-year contract with the school system two years in by retiring June 15. The financial terms of Freeman’s separation agreement resulted in a buyout of  $94,000 from “an undesignated local fund balance,” according to an ACS statement.

In a May news release from James Carter, chair of the Asheville City Board of Education, he said the district's general fund has been "steadily dwindling for years," and anticipates being left with only $2.1 million for carryover and would not be able to cover the same continuing expenses for the next school year.

The ACS budget request to Buncombe County Board of Commissioners included an ask of $600,000 earmarked for pre-K and a 2-cent increase of the special district property tax rate, neither of which was granted in the budget adopted by commissioners June 21.

County spokesperson Lillian Govus noted that the approved budget does include $15.2 million for Asheville City Schools, which represents an 8% increase from the previous year.

Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, who chairs the board’s Early Childhood and Development Committee, said the county could not approve the requests without a clear, multi-year plan from the district outlining its intent to rescue, recover and stabilize its finances, including the preschool program.

This is an ask the county has made of the school system for several years.

“One of the strongest and most distinguishing factors of the ACS system is the preschool, pre-K program. It is something that has made this district a leader in the state, it’s something that distinguishes ACS, and it is painful to see it on the chopping block as budget cuts are being made," Beach-Ferrara said.

"At the same time from the county perspective, we have a countywide responsibility to invest tax dollars in efforts to create new classrooms and expand access. If we deploy that funding to backfill budget cuts from providers, it will be depleted before we know it.”

How does ACS compare?

In the original May 10 email to parents, Susanna Smith, preschool program director, said the new tuition rates were developed by evaluating the rates of five 5-star private child care centers within the city, resulting in an average tuition rate of $977 a month.

Several parents balked at this comparison, including Moellering, who said he was told by Smith the five centers chosen were the YWCA, Irene Wortham Center, Asheville Regent Park Early Childhood Development Center, Verner Center for Early Learning and the Jewish Community Center's Shalom Children's Center — several of which have a reputation for having high tuitions, he said, making a simple average misleading.

Huffman confirmed these are the five centers evaluated.

Moellering said that not only do all the other programs provide more hours of actual daycare than ACS pre-K, four of the five centers include two meals and one snack per day in the tuition cost.

Many have additional benefits, like the YWCA. Mullinax has sent her children there before and said the program included free swim lessons year-round.

"There are key differences, I think, between these programs," she said. "Simply saying, 'we are still below market rate,' doesn't quite hit the mark for me."

Not to mention, a 29% increase in a single year is "untenable" for most families, she said.

Moellering said his son still is in ACS because there was not enough lead time to get into another program, though he is on a couple of waiting lists.

Mullinax also said she was undecided about whether Hazel would remain in the school district. Even if she does not go to ACS pre-K, she hopes Hazel can continue her education in a public school system.

“I’m a firm believer in public education, as much as we can," she said. "So we didn’t want to necessarily homeschool, even though that cost is pretty on-par with this pre-K program now.”

She has been exploring a possible opportunity to join a homeschooling collective with other former Asheville Primary School families, which would allow Hazel to continue in a Montessori-style program.

Shifra Ahlers is also considering sending her children to the homeschool collective. She is a former ACS parent with a rising first-grader who has spent the last three years at Asheville Primary.

Following the primary school's closure, she pulled all of her children out of the district.

If her child was still in the pre-K program, she said even though they could likely absorb the cost of the tuition hike, they would not have chosen to.

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“I think this is how Asheville City Schools engages in defrauding the public, because they assured us that the closure of Asheville Primary Schools was in the name of equity," she said. "And there is no equity in a 35% rate hike.”

This was echoed by Pepi Acebo, a candidate for ACS Board of Education, which will be elected for the first time in November.

He noted how difficult it is to find affordable child care on Asheville wages, and felt the decision to hike costs was retaliation against parents who advocated to keep the primary school open.

"Asheville City Schools success in early childhood education is due to its high quality staff and its diverse mix of subsidized and self-pay students," he said in an email to the Citizen Times.

"Concentrating poverty and closing year-round, full-day preschool classrooms that working families need while hiking costs to working families by nearly 30% undercuts our goals of having every child start kindergarten ready to learn."

Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email shonosky@citizentimes.com or message on Twitter at @slhonosky. 

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville parents push back after ACS announces $200 Pre-K tuition hike