From Staff Reports

A top Asheville City Schools official said she questions the accurary of a recent state draft report that showed Asheville has the highest rate of teacher attrition in North Carolina.

Kimberly J. Dechant, chief of staff for Asheville City Schools, wrote in an April 19 statement — in response to questions regarding the school system’s response to the report — that “the data (used) is inaccurate....”

The Daily Planet’s three questions to the school officials included the following

• Do they agree with the report’s accuracy?  

• What is the main reason for teacher attrition in the Asheville school system?

• Is Asheville’s teacher attrition problem fixable? If so, what is the plan? 

In response, the following is Dechant’s complete statement to the Daily Planet:

“The data is inaccurate — we have 362 teachers. Dr. Dickerson, the Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources, has reached out to Dr. Tom Toberlin, at NCDPI about the inaccuracies in the report. Since the number of teachers reflected in the draft report are inaccurate this brings into question the validity of the overall report.

“Dr. Fehrman said, ‘The volume of teacher turnover was one of the reasons that the Asheville City Schools Board prioritized requesting additional funding from the County Commissioners last spring. One of their primary goals was to increase the monthly supplement by 2% across the board because they recognized the high cost of living in the city of Asheville and Buncombe County.’

“The draft 2022-2023 State of the Teaching Profession in North Carolina covers the timeframe of March 2022-March 2023.  It is important to note that this report covers a timeframe, where we had two different leaders. Again, the Board showed its commitment to prioritizing a superintendent search to find a candidate who was going to be invested in our community and make a commitment to stay and rebuild our district with a focus on belonging and trust.

“Through Dr. Fehrman’s leadership and commitment to the three promises of creating a sense of belonging, challenging and relevant learning for all students, and making every second count, we are confident that you will see a decrease in this attrition number under a full cycle of her leadership.   

“‘When you feel like you belong, and you’re part of something, you really want to be invested. And that’s what we want to create here in our school system,’ said Dr. Fehrman. ‘We want our staff to feel supported and a true sense of belonging in every school and every department.’”