NC Coalition for Charter Schools Archives - North Carolina Coalition for Charter Schools

The founder and chief administrator of Gray Stone Day School in Misenheimer, North Carolina, Helen Nance has been a leader in the state’s charter movement for over two decades. She is also a veteran of charter oversight, chairing North Carolina’s Charter Schools Advisory Board, the forerunner of the Charter Schools Review Board, from 2013 to 2015. A founding and current member of the Coalition Board of Directors, Nance also serves as secretary on the board’s executive committee.

 On June 30, Nance retired from her administrative role at Gray Stone Day. Kristen Blair, the Coalition’s communications director, connected with her shortly after that to hear her long-range perspective on changes in the charter movement, factors fueling school success, opportunities for school collaboration, and more. We share the full interview below.

Coalition: You launched Gray Stone Day School, a regional public charter school, over 20 years ago. What was that experience like?

Helen Nance: I founded Gray Stone Day School in 2002, 24 years ago. I initially wrote the charter in 2000, and it did not get approved. I went home thinking, “Well, that didn’t work!”

My application was denied right when the state had reached the 100-charter school cap imposed by the legislature. But, the next year, three schools didn’t open, bringing the number down to 97. So, the application opened back up, and I had three-and-a-half weeks to rewrite the charter and incorporate feedback I had received!

I founded Gray Stone Day with one mission: to prepare our rural students to be competitive with urban students when they attended rigorous colleges and universities, such as Duke, UNC, and NC State. My children had already finished high school, but my oldest daughter wasn’t ready when she went to Wake Forest. As a mother, I was mad about that! I funneled that frustration into the mission of the school.

In addition, authorizers at that time were hoping charter schools would partner with colleges and universities. So, we partnered with Pfeiffer University for their facilities.

We launched Gray Stone Day with 88 students in ninth and tenth grades. At the time, the enrollment minimum was 65 students. Because we were new and didn’t look like the other schools, we got down to 66 students. We made it through the first year. If I had not partnered with Pfeiffer, I would have had difficulty making the funding. But I finished that first year without any debt.

Eventually, we built our own facility, and in 2017, we added grades 6-8. We realized our high school students were coming from 10 different school systems as well as home school and private school backgrounds—and they just weren’t ready. We had high expectations, and they were struggling to catch up academically. So, we started in middle school to get them ready.

In your view, how has the charter movement changed in the years since Gray Stone Day’s inception?

Nance: When I founded Gray Stone Day, the charter movement was so new. Charter schools weren’t held in very high regard. They hadn’t proven they could be successful yet. Many people didn’t even know what a charter school was.

The K-12 landscape has changed dramatically since that time. Back in 2002, almost everybody enrolled in the traditional public school. Then lots of options started springing up with charter schools. Opportunity Scholarships also came along, so more students had the chance to go to private schools. During the pandemic, people realized they could do online learning. The high school landscape has shifted as well, as students take college classes through community college partnerships.

The real trick as a parent is trying to navigate that landscape with what best fits your child and your family.

Gray Stone Day has earned independent recognition as one of the state’s top high schools. What are some of the key factors fueling the school’s success?

Nance: The reason we do well is that we have very high expectations for what children need to do to be successful. Right when our sixth graders start, we share what our goals will be for them as seniors. Beginning in sixth grade, students do classroom presentations that ultimately lead toward a service project in their senior year.

In addition to our rigor in the classroom, we also help students prepare for what’s next. For instance, we share guidelines with students about what to wear when they present, and they learn it in the sixth grade. By the time students leave Gray Stone Day, they know what they need to do when they go for a job interview or a scholarship interview.

The whole school—teachers, staff, administrators—buys into the same mission.

In addition to running a charter school, you’ve played an instrumental role in state-level charter leadership. What have you learned, and what still needs to change in charter oversight? 

Nance: During my time on the Advisory Board, I had the opportunity to meet school leaders who served students from all kinds of backgrounds—urban, rural, or at-risk. It reinforced for me how different they all were. This runs counter to what you hear so often in education, as we try to make one size fit all. It does not!

The rural child doesn’t have the same experience as the urban child. The reverse is also true. So, when leaders say, “We need to do this for all high school students in North Carolina,” I know instinctively that doesn’t work. The best way to do something about it is to bring different people from different places together in the same room—and then talk about it and see what works for each place.

As you think about the Coalition’s role in the state’s charter movement, what difference does it make to have an organization that exists solely to protect and promote public charter schools?

Nance: I was a founding member of the Coalition Board. I was also the first school member to send money in! But everyone needs to understand how important the Coalition is.

Whether we like it or not, education is very political. How education is funded is political; so is the way schools are allowed to function. All of it comes from the legislature.

When charter schools try to do something different, and various governmental bodies tell leaders what they must do, we call that regulatory creep. It prevents charter schools from being creative. Really, it hinders everybody.

As a lobbying group, the Coalition helps legislators understand what works best for charter schools. That’s the sole mission—to lobby and represent charter schools in the legislature. Lawmakers need to understand charter schools and how various policies impact charter operations, so all of this can be reflected in legislation. Other institutions have their own lobbyists at the legislature, too.

If the Coalition didn’t exist, charter schools would not have a powerful voice in Raleigh.

What are some of the biggest misconceptions around charter schools that you’ve encountered, both as a school operator and as a state charter leader?

Nance: There’s still a big misconception around how funding works—this idea that charter schools take money from the local system. Local dollars flow through the district to charter schools, but those dollars support the students the charter school is educating. The district isn’t educating those students!

Another misconception is that charters don’t have sufficient oversight. Obviously, that isn’t true. Charter schools have much more oversight than the local system. If charters don’t perform, they can be closed.

Then there is the misconception about competition for students—this idea that charter schools are taking students from district schools. We aren’t taking them. We’re meeting a need for them. In my rural community, a lot of people were frustrated with me because they said I was taking all the smartest and brightest students from our local school system. I was not. Anybody could come. You just had to be willing to work.

What do parents and the public still need to know about charter schools?

Nance: Parents need to find the best fit for their child and visit the schools they’re interested in, whether they’re traditional or charter. They also need to ask questions.

Many parents still think charter schools charge tuition. We have to help them understand that charter schools are free. At Gray Stone Day, we always use the terminology, “free, public charter school,” and we have from the very beginning. Still, we’ve had a difficult time getting this concept across to parents. I don’t know why—perhaps it’s because we are next to Pfeiffer’s campus or our name sounds like a private school. The school is actually named for the local area, which includes establishments constructed from gray stone.

Fortunately, public awareness about charter schools has increased significantly from when I started almost 25 years ago. That level of awareness can vary, however, based on where people live, how many charter schools are in that region, and how successful the charters are. If people live in an area where charter schools are not performing well, that could prompt questions or skepticism about the movement as a whole.

What are some of the key challenges and opportunities ahead for the state’s charter schools?  

Nance: Saturation is a key challenge. We’ve done pretty well at Gray Stone Day, but we’re down more than 100 students. Our enrollment downturn is due to the pandemic and the opening of another local charter school. Some of the students we lost are coming back to us.

Another challenge is helping parents understand the considerable differences among individual charter schools. Not all charter schools are the same. They’re quite different, with distinct, unique missions. That’s the one I struggle with. I can’t seem to get that message across here.

There is a real opportunity for schools to collaborate around funding best practices—to share how to be more efficient with money. Because of the autonomy charter schools have, they can be more efficient with the funding they receive from state and local government. There is a lot of wasted money. At Gray Stone Day, I have no debt at all and a pretty good fund balance.

More broadly, if you could get area education leaders together in the same room—from charter schools, traditional public schools, local colleges—you could really do some strategic thinking. It takes somebody who wants to see it happen to step up, call on people, and ask them to come to lunch. Really, that’s how it starts. Sometimes we make things so difficult. You just need to put people in a room and let them eat lunch and talk. It’s old school, but it works!

What is your favorite charter school moment?

Nance: Founding and leading Gray Stone Day has been so much fun! I’ve enjoyed working with so many different people with varied backgrounds and goals. That’s the part I’ll miss. But I’ll stay involved through the board.

In addition, I have three grandchildren who are students at Gray Stone Day. My children didn’t get to come here, but one of my daughters moved to the area so her children could attend. This fall, my grandchildren will be in sixth, tenth, and eleventh grades.

The oldest one, Helen, will run up and hug me every time she sees me. The middle one, Millie, runs the other way! Sam, the youngest, will start attending Gray Stone Day this year in sixth grade. I told him what his sisters did, and he said, “I’ll come up and give you a big hug.”

Having my grandchildren here is really my most favorite fun! Fortunately, we let board members award diplomas to their children or grandchildren, so I’ll be able to give Helen her diploma when she graduates.