Private school advocates urge tax credits for parents

Statesville Christian School Headmaster Dirk Mroczek believes parents who enroll their children at private schools should receive tuition help from the state.

“If parents want to send their kids to private schools, they should get a tax voucher,” said Mroczek. “They shouldn’t have to pay for two school systems.”

There are currently more than one million children in traditional public schools in North Carolina. Another 100,000 attend private schools, 83,000 are home-schooled and 45,000 are in public charter schools. Charters are largely publicly funded and free.

The families of the roughly 15 percent of those students who don’t attend schools that receive public funding still pay public school taxes. This week is National School Choice week and more education leaders in North Carolina are starting to question the fairness of that policy.

“I think it’s important for us to look at tax credits so the working poor or low-income families can have access to private education,” said Darrell Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in N.C. “Children from very wealthy families have every option on the table. Quality education is all too often determined by where you live and your income. That should not be the case.”

During the summer, the General Assembly overwhelmingly decided to lift the cap on how many charter schools could be created in the state and also made available a $6,000 tax credit for parents of children with disabilities to send their child to whichever school they think will offer the best education.

A total of 100 charter schools exist in 47 of the state’s 100 counties. Those 100 schools have waiting lists totaling more than 30,000 students. Another 200,000 families in the state have children with disabilities.

“The citizens and the families are speaking big in that area that we need more [charter schools],” Allison, whose organization lobbied for both measures passed by the GA, said. “We’re to be cheered for that, not jeered.”

Because they are not tied to traditional public school curriculums, charter and private schools have more freedom in how they teach.

“I realized as a teacher there were a lot of limits in the traditional classroom structure that locked you in how you could reach the needs of your student population,” said Success Institute Principal Tenna Williams.

Success Institute, which was founded in 2000 by Williams, is not structured by age or grade level, but by learning abilities. The 115 students are taught by nine teachers, but are always looping between teachers so the instructors get to know every child.

 “It’s not like at the end of each school year, the student has to start with a new teacher that doesn’t know how they learn best,” said Williams.

Success Institute also runs an after-school program that 75 percent of the students attend where they work in a micro-society. Three days a week, the classrooms are transformed into a bank, warehouse and marketplace where the students learn how to write checks, start businesses and sell products. Williams said it’s preparing them for the real world.

SCS, whose mission is to lead children through academia with a Biblical worldview, is starting initiatives next year for children with disabilities if any parents of those children wish to send them to the private school.

SCS is governed by the N.C. Department of Non-Public Education, a member of the N.C. Association of Independent Schools and accredited by the Association of Christian Schools International.

The students, like the ones at Statesville Montessori School, do not take the same End-of-Grade tests as public school children, but must pass a similar test called the Terra Nova 3. The teachers, although they are not required to have degrees in the subject they teach, are held to the standards of the accreditation agency.

Jamie Stuber, a SCS high school history teacher, has her bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s in language arts. This is her first year in private schools after being in the public school system and she said the format is better at SCS.

“I’m really impressed with the amount of time I have with the students I have, and the relationships I have,” said Stuber. “I feel I can really help them. I’m not just focused on history. We’re focused on the whole person.”

Parents who send their child to SCS must confirm they are practicing Christians, though the denomination does not matter. Mroczek said the school is about character-building, but that the students are free to disagree with the mission.

“It doesn’t mean all our students are Christians,” Mroczek said. “They’re coming to faith at different times. It means parents are on the same page as the mission of the school.”

SCS also offers programs traditional public schools don’t such as what they call a Winterim, where for two weeks each winter high school students participate in internships or work environments they are interested in pursuing in the future. The school helps to find connections for its students if they cannot find one themselves.

SCS Junior Nikki Segur worked at a Pine Lake Preparatory, an Iredell County charter school, in a first grade classroom for her Winterim.

“I would like to be a teacher,” said Segur. “I wanted to see the difference between a private school and a charter school. I was able to see that I really do enjoy teaching.”