Charter School Offers Classical Education in Rural North Carolina

September 9, 2023
NC Family Staff

One facet of North Carolina’s school choice movement is public charter schools. These schools are a unique option because they are public schools operated by an independent board of directors. Charters offer greater flexibility and some of the benefits of private schools, but because they are publicly funded, they don’t have the tuition costs associated with private education.

This week on Family Policy Matters, host Traci DeVette Griggs welcomes Larry Henson, the founder of Youngsville Academy. This public charter school uses methods such as Direct Instruction to give students a rich education based on the classics and offers a valuable (and affordable) educational option for families.

This episode is a part of a series highlighting the school choice movement across North Carolina. Tune in each week to learn more!

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<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/3K0nw2vq2CqnkH6dzUDQM6?si=8764bcaf58104ce9" target="_blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external">Spotify</a> • <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nc-familys-family-policy-matters/id1281072482" target="_blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external">Apple Podcasts</a> • <a href="https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-nc-familys-family-policy-m-30945720/" target="_blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external">iHeart Radio</a> • <a href="https://www.audacy.com/podcast/nc-familys-family-policy-matters-8ccbc" target="_blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external">Audacy</a> • <a href="https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/af37d15c-824e-4670-b8af-45e1a2f6b9a6/nc-family's-family-policy-matters" target="_blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external">Amazon Music</a> <hr /> <h3 style="text-align: center;">Family Policy Matters Transcript: What’s Happened In the North Carolina General Assembly So Far This Year</h3> TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS Thanks for joining us today for Family Policy Matters. We are recording this interview for both the radio show and podcast and NC Family’s weekly video updates. If you’re interested in seeing the video version of this interview, sign up as part of our email list at NCfamily.org and you will receive an email when they are online every week. Our guests today are here to give us an update on this session of the North Carolina General Assembly. John Rustin is president of NC Family and Jerry Royall is NC Family’s Counsel. Both spend a lot of time at the General Assembly keeping an eye on what’s happening and working to influence laws on behalf of the families in our state. It’s amazing that when you hear about all of these important bills in the media, they’re portrayed as radical. But as we know when we actually read the text of the bills, which of course are always available to us on the NC legislature’s website at ncleg.gov, we find they’re actually common sense and reasonable. So let’s talk about some of those bills. Well, let’s talk first about a victory. There was a pro life victory in the legislature. What happened? JOHN RUSTIN Yes, well, there was and hopefully as you’re aware, we have had a great pro life victory in North Carolina. Senate Bill 20—The Care for Women, Children, and Families Act was passed by the legislature, of course was vetoed by Governor Roy Cooper, and the legislature overrode the governor’s veto. This bill is a major pro life victory in North Carolina. It essentially reduces the gestational age for illegal abortions in North Carolina from 20 weeks to 12 weeks. Of course, at the onset of the session, we were advocating strongly for a heartbeat bill in North Carolina, which would have reduced the legal gestational age for abortion about six weeks, it was clear as this bill and discussions were going on in both the House and the Senate, that that just was unfortunately not going to happen, and so they settled on 12 weeks. But this bill contains a lot of other provisions that will protect life in North Carolina, and also that will provide resources to give women and families that are facing crisis and unplanned pregnancies every reason to choose life instead of choosing abortion. Jere, do you have any other perspective? JERE ROYALL As you said, yeah, that was a compromise. We obviously wanted, and many others wanted, conception to be the time when the unborn child is protected. But there were a lot of good provisions that were added along with the 12 week restriction. JOHN RUSTIN And Traci, this bill is is literally going to save thousands of lives every year, and is going to again, provide resources. There’s $160 million dollars appropriated in this bill for improvements and enhancements to foster care, to adoption, to maternal care and lots of other important services in North Carolina, again, to give women and families that are facing crisis and unplanned pregnancies every reason to choose life. And so we’re really excited about it. TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS Yeah, and I think it answers some of those critiques from the other side that all we care about is getting the baby born. So this is providing a lot of those services. JOHN RUSTIN Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s so critical, because there are going to be more and more women carrying a child to term and we need to provide those practical services to them and also support in lots of different ways. So yeah. TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS Well let’s talk about going forward, then, there are a lot of bills that are important to North Carolina families that are being considered, talk about what those are. JOHN RUSTIN Well, a major bill is the Parents’ Bill of Rights, which I know a lot of our viewers and listeners care about. This bill clarifies and codifies parents fundamental rights to the care, custody, and control – using kind of legal terms – of their children, particularly in the arenas of education and health care. So this bill, Senate Bill 49, passed the Senate in early February and is awaiting action in the House. And we’re very, very hopeful that the house is going to take this bill up and pass it because parents do have a fundamental right to the care and upbringing of their children. But because that’s being challenged in lots of areas, especially in education and in health care, this bill does need to pass. TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS Okay, how about Opportunity Scholarships? JERE ROYALL Well, this is an area where more and more people are realizing we need to offer choices in education, and there’s great support across the state for this. So both chambers, the House and the Senate have bills proposing that. The House actually passed their version, the Senate version was not voted on, would expand things even more. Their’s actually would include all income levels. Now it would be on a sliding scale, the amount of these grants, but because the bill has not been taken up, many people are talking about the fact that it will be put in the state budget, which is what has happened in recent years. But either way, there is going to be a significant expansion of the scholarship grants, not an unlimited amount, but they are going to continue to increase the availability of these scholarships. JOHN RUSTIN Yeah, so expanding eligibility, so more children, more families will be able to choose the educational environment that’s best for their children, and also forward funding as the legislature is done so that there are appropriations set aside for Opportunity Scholarships for years in advance. So we’re really excited about this initiative, and the legislature is really continuing making North Carolina one of the leading states in the nation in school choice. TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS So this is what critics have hammered on is the all income levels, that you’re going to be providing these scholarships, which have in the past may have been for people who are low income or who’ve had special needs children. So now we’re giving scholarships and taking these rich kids and paying for them to go to private schools. What’s the truth in that? JERE ROYALL Well, I mean it is but it’s on a sliding scale. But the reality is people are saying taxpayers are putting money into the state fund, and so it only makes sense that if people are choosing for their children to take another path that some of those resources should follow the child. I understand your point people are making but the reality is doesn’t it make sense to let resources but not as much of the state resources follow the child as they go to various schools? TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS Okay. The next one, I think is Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. JOHN RUSTIN Yes, and this bill is really designed to protect the health and safety of female athletes in middle school, high school, and college by designating sports teams as either male, female or CO Ed based on biological sex. And so there were similar bills introduced in both the State Senate and the State House, those bills passed their chamber of origin. So the Senate bill passed the Senate, the House bill passed the House, but neither chamber has taken up the other chambers bill yet. So since there is clearly support in both chambers for this legislation, we fully anticipate that this bill will be taken up in either the House or the Senate, and that bill will be passed. JERE ROYALL Quick note on that, John, that doesn’t normally happen. Usually, one chamber passes a bill sends it over to the other. In this case, as you say they did pass their own version. The main difference is the House version includes college sports, so it remains to be seen how they’re going to work out that difference. TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS Okay, so this is primarily about transgender individuals trying to play on a sport that doesn’t match their birth gender. So we’ve got another bill that’s similar prohibiting gender surgeries on minors. What’s happening with that? JOHN RUSTIN Right, well, this is House Bill 808, which passed the House in early May, has not been considered by the Senate yet. The original version of this bill, and there’s a companion Senate bill, would prohibit the administration of puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and the performance of gender reassignment surgeries on minors in North Carolina. So the House took up their bill, they took out the puberty blockers or the chemical portions and kept it as just prohibiting cross sex surgeries on minors and sent that bill over to the Senate. We’re hopeful that the Senate will take up their version of the bill or reinstate the chemical treatment prohibition as part of this bill. Because these drugs, these chemicals, and these surgical procedures are irreversible and sterilize the individuals who receive these services. And it’s just not a good thing for especially our youth to be subjected to. And so individuals who are dealing with gender dysphoria certainly need support, they need compassion, they need care, but they don’t need irreversible surgeries and chemicals in their bodies. TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS Okay, so these two bills are not proof that Republicans hate transgender individuals, is that what you’re saying? JOHN RUSTIN Yes, that is correct. JERE ROYALL It is, it’s showing true care for people. As John said, they’re permanent changes. There’s no proof. I mean, more and more. We’ve seen it over in Europe, other parts of the world that they’ve been on this path and have seen, they’re coming with negative outcomes. This is bringing harm to people’s lives. So it is, it’s really showing compassion. One other quick note too, John, it remains to be seen how their work out the difference, the House version did still have a provision in there, even though it didn’t keep the chemical part, where no state funding would go towards any kinds of treatments. TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS Yeah, it is interesting that the United States is doing much more radical things with individuals who believe themselves to be transgender than even European countries. Some of these countries we expect to be far out there. JOHN RUSTIN And Traci, in a related bill, there’s also legislation that would protect the rights of conscience of healthcare providers in North Carolina. It’s a very broad bill, but part of the intention of the bill is to address and protect physicians and others in the healthcare industry from being forced to engage and participate in these kinds of administration of drugs and surgeries on minors. So that is House Bill 819, the Medical Ethics Defense Act. We do have conscience protections in North Carolina protecting doctors, physicians, health care providers from participating in abortions. And this would extend that in a much broader sense. So we are hopeful that this bill will be taken up because that’s really important not only to prohibit minors from participating, but if adults are seeking these kinds of treatments that, if a healthcare provider objects to it on religious, ethical or moral grounds, they should not be forced to participate in it. So another important bill. TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS Okay. So the final one that our organization is watching is called The REACH Act, and as someone who loves history and thinks that we all need to learn more about our Founding Fathers and some of the founding documents, I love this one. But explain what that is. JOHN RUSTIN Well, The REACH Act would require three credit hours of instruction on American government and our founding documents as a prerequisite for graduation from North Carolina universities and community colleges. So the title of the bill is Reclaiming College Education on America’s Constitutional Heritage, the acronym for that is REACH, so that’s where The REACH Act comes from. And there were bills introduced in both chambers to do this. There have been discussions, but no final action taken yet on this legislation by the General Assembly. TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS Right, and why is this important? JERE ROYALL Well, as we’re seeing now, they’ve done surveys and asked people basic questions about government. And sadly, the responses are almost shocking. And this is where people are going, “Okay, we see this is a problem.” As citizens of this country, we need to understand our system of government, we all need to participate. And that’s what course we’re about. And we appreciate the fact that so many of you work together with us within our government. But if people don’t understand how the government system works, they’re not as likely to be involved and interested. And so this is an important part of helping people see what does it mean to be a citizen of this country, of this state? TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS Right. And I think this is why it’s important for all of us to be an educated electorate. This is why getting involved with NC Family, signing up for those emails and actually reading them when they go into your email box is important because you’re continuing to educate yourself and how you can be active. JOHN RUSTIN We’ve got a couple more issues to talk about. I know we’re running short on time. Of course, gambling has been a huge focus of the legislature. Unfortunately in recent weeks, as we are having our discussion today, the sports gambling and horse racing bill has passed the General Assembly and has been sent to the governor. He is expected to sign the bill in the coming days. And it’s just very unfortunate because we know the tremendously negative impact that the legalization of sports gambling in North Carolina is going to have, especially on our young adults and youth. The legislature is also considering bills and discussing bills that would place casinos in North Carolina and also legalize Video Lottery terminals or basically video poker machines under the auspices of the state lottery, we are fighting these bills like the dickens and I’m just heartbroken to see the sports gambling bill and the horse racing bill pass the legislature. If this is an issue that is of concern to you, please keep your eyes and ears open for alerts from the Family Policy Council as we move further into the session, because these bills are likely to come up quite quickly. TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS And then the last one is medical marijuana, which I think is just ridiculous that we’re actually still talking about this. We know all the evidence that shows that it’s not healthy to have this legalized marijuana. Talk about what’s happening in North Carolina. JERE ROYALL Well, it passed earlier this year in the Senate as the House has not brought it up yet. We and you and many others continue to inform our members of the legislature of the house, just as you’re saying Traci, about the realities. All major medical groups are saying, “No, let us be the ones who approve medications. This we’re finding harm, not help.” And again, thank you for your involvement, because the more they’re hearing, the more they’re being encouraged with the facts and the truth. We’re understanding that opposition is continuing to grow. So this coming week, we’ve heard they may be voting in the House within the caucus of Republicans where if it’s defeated there, then that will be the end of the bill, which is what needs to happen. So we all are going to keep working together to inform, encourage them which goes back to your whole point about being involved with government, looking out for our neighbor, caring for one another. This is one more way we can do that. TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS And y’all it’s so valuable that we have these people up there, you know, advocating on our behalf. So thank you very much for all the good work that you guys do. JOHN RUSTIN Thank you, Traci. I appreciate that. <h3 style="text-align: center;">– END –</h3>

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Family Policy Matters
Transcript: Charter School Offers Classical Education in Rural North Carolina

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. We’re continuing our Back to School series of interviews looking at the many faces of education here in North Carolina, which is considered a school choice leader in the nation. Today we’re joined by Larry Henson, Executive Director of Youngsville Academy, a classical college preparatory Public Charter School in Franklin County, currently serving over 500 students in grades kindergarten through 10th grade, we’re grateful to have him share his experience and insights gained from many years working in both public and private schools here in North Carolina, before founding Youngsville Academy in 2015. Larry Henson, welcome to Family Policy Matters.

LARRY HENSON: Thank you, Traci.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: All right. So just to start off as a father whose children attended school in several different states, including North Carolina, and as a school administrator for many years, what kind of trends have you seen in education and school choice, especially here in North Carolina?

LARRY HENSON: My sons were both born at Wake Med in the 80s, and we left when they were one and three years old, but when they were born, I remember all of our neighbors asking, “What are you going to do for school?” And my wife and I looked at each other and we didn’t understand the question, because she came from Florida, and I had most recently come from Arkansas, and that wasn’t a question that people asked. And so we moved, and we went to Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, Illinois, California, and then returned to North Carolina. And what is the first question I get asked, “What are you going to do for school?’

And so that’s an interesting thing, that the education in North Carolina has been a big question mark for years when it comes to parents trying to figure out what to do for their children. And I think that North Carolina has done a lot of things to improve the equation or to find better options for kids and for families to be able to get an education for their children.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: What was the nature of that question?

LARRY HENSON: The nature was, starting out that, well, you’re living in Wake County at the time. And when you live in a neighborhood, that doesn’t mean you know the schools your children are going to go to, and you don’t know if that might not change next year or the year after. And so if you want some consistency in their education, maybe you need to look at some other option, at that time, private schools.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: All right. So where do charter schools like Youngsville Academy fit in to the educational landscape in North Carolina? We know that you’re a public charter school, which I don’t think everybody understands what that is. But how does that affect your regulations, accountability funding, and all of that?

LARRY HENSON: Public charter school means, indeed, that we’re publicly funded. And it means that families who choose to go to our charter school receive that education tuition free, so to them, it is free. And we treat our school as though it’s a private school in terms of how we address our students and our families that come there. But we take advantage of the state having set in place the policies that allow for the funds that would go to a county to run their schools to follow the child into the charter school for us to be able to provide that education.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Okay, so why are charter schools an important piece of the educational puzzle in North Carolina, do you think?

LARRY HENSON: It starts with, it’s a free option for families. And what it does is it allows a family to look at their child, look at the schools that can serve their child and find the school that they think will take care of what their goals are for their child.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: A lot of people seem to think that they are robbing good students from the traditional public schools. Do you agree with that?

LARRY HENSON: A lot of that is driven by the public schools and the misconception, to some degree, of what charter schools are because I know that when I run into public school teachers and administrators, even here in the county, they look at me as someone who is stealing their funds, because they don’t understand that the funds are attached to a child. And so we all get the same funds, depending upon the number of students we have.

And so they see it as a competition and they don’t look at it, I came out of the corporate world and competition in the corporate world is a good thing. It forces you to be better and so in education, we should look at it the same way. And I will say that truly the private schools, the public schools, and the charter schools all have to step up, because to some degree, they’re in competition with each other. Who’s the benefactor? That’s the student. That’s the family. That’s education.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Okay, good point. Well, one of the unique things about Youngsville Academy is how you are governed. Tell us why that is unique. And why that is significant.

LARRY HENSON: As a charter school, we have our own board of directors. So to the state, we actually look like a school district. So we manage ourselves, but we do it under the umbrella of the Department of Public Instruction, as led by the rules and regulations that are fed to them from the state legislature. And so it is our local governance that looks at our students, our education goals, our mission and vision and manages the school to see that we are indeed delivering on that mission and vision and educating the students the way that we have set out to do.

One of the things we do that’s unique as a school is we actually review with the board the performance of every single child. And we allow the board to ask for what is the program that you’re working with this given child right now to make sure they get the education that they need. So we do data reviews, once every three weeks on our K-5 students, twice a quarter on the junior high and high school students, and we assess where they are in their program and where they need some tutoring, where they need extra help, where we need engagement with parents, and we literally are trying to program the success of each child.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: So is this why you were motivated to establish Youngsville Academy? Is there a nugget in here that we should see as to why you started this school and why you’re doing it the way that you are?

LARRY HENSON: Yeah, it really goes back to, so my education, I was educated in 10 different schools, eight different states by the time I graduated from high school. And most of that was in rural America. So Youngsville Academy is in a rural area. And what I started seeing was that education has been deteriorating in rural America. And a lot of the reason for that is we created a US Department of Education. And the control went from the community who was proud of their schools to a federal government saying this is what you need to do. And so subsidiarity was turned on its head and the needs were being projected by the sea instead of by the locality. And so seeing that the charter schools were developing in a lot of more urban areas, we said, hey, let’s locate in a rural area that has families who need an option that isn’t available to them right now.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: What about your curriculum, talk about that. Is it as unique as the other parts of your school?

LARRY HENSON: The curriculum is more of a classical type curriculum. And so we have the grammar stage in kindergarten through fifth grade, where we use direct instruction. Direct instruction is sort of a repeat after me kind of thing, and you make sure that the students build the foundation that can be leveraged later in the logic stage, which is Junior High, and then moving on into the rhetoric stage. And then, because it’s classical in structure, there’s a lot of linkage between the classes. So your literature and history sort of align, the writing assignments you have will contribute to what you’re doing in those classes. And then we’ll just maybe even look at literature on its own. Our sixth seventh grade students study Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, the influence of the Bible, the Iliad, Antigone, King Arthur, Henry the Fifth, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and these are books that when we have people interviewing with us, they’re like, how do you get your students to read these? And it’s like, oh my gosh, once they get into them, they just want more, because there’s something there. I mean, they can see that they’re developing and working. These are classic books from all time and they’ve existed for a reason. And they really help that mind assemble language and assemble logic and to approach things in a way that educators of history have used to approach them.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: You guys have had some good response and good growth. Talk a little bit about that.

LARRY HENSON: When we started the school, we were given four and a half months to open our doors. We were granted a charter. And then they said, okay, and you have to open in four and a half months, we said, what about 16 and a half months, and they said, No, your charter is for the coming year. And so we were able to lease space at Faith Baptist Church that had classroom space. And fortunately, they were agreeable to work with us. And we used that space for the first four years of our school. And every year, we’ve actually had a waiting list. And we’ve never spent more than $1,000 in a year advertising. So really, it’s word of mouth and people coming to discover who we are. At first people came because we were just generically a charter school. And then as the years have gone on, now they’re seeking out the academic program that they see, and saying well you’re actually serious about education, and we want our children to have access to a quality education. And so it’s nice, because as the state has added more charter schools, there are some now that are really looking for enrollment. You’ll see billboards as you go down the road, and we haven’t had to go that route. And we don’t really see it happening because now our students are proving who they are and what they can do. We get lots of positive comments from people in the community when they engage our students.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: As a charter school insider, now, what do you see that you would like to possibly see improved from a policy perspective regarding charter schools? Are there some things?

LARRY HENSON: One thing I’ve seen, there’s been this move towards these national charter schools, who come in, and they’ve got charter schools in many states, and they typically dive in and apply the state standard curriculum. And I just sort of believe charter schools should provide unique options. Now, they have other things that they offer, but they really are marketing machines, it’s hard for people to figure out exactly what they have to offer, because the marketing is actually pretty good typically.

And I would like to see more locals like us, it would be very difficult for a group like us who are from the community to start a charter school right now, we’ve been told several times that you’d have trouble getting a charter again, even though we’re doing very successful. It has nothing to do with that it has to do with these national organizations have a lot of machinery and a lot of relationships and a lot of things that they bring into the process to get their charters and small groups of independent parties just don’t have the same leverage.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Talk about advice for parents, what would you say to them as they’re trying to navigate all these choices and decide what’s best for their individual children?

LARRY HENSON: I don’t envy parents having to make these choices. I do encourage them to talk to neighbors, maybe to get with local community groups, with churches, and to talk to people who have their children in different schools. Try to learn a little bit about those schools. I think I’ve encouraged them to recognize that education, school really is primarily to provide the academic foundation that their children need for later in life. So to look for a program that is strong in its academics, and really networking and trying to find out what’s working for others is probably the most important thing that they can do.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Well, we’re just about out of time. Before we go, Larry Henson, where can our listeners go to learn more about Youngsville Academy?

LARRY HENSON: So it’d be www.youngsvilleacademy.org.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Larry Henson, Executive Director of Youngsville Academy, thank you so much for being with us today on Family Policy matters.

LARRY HENSON: Thank you, Traci.

– END –

Charter School Offers Classical Education in Rural North Carolina

Charter School Offers Classical Education in Rural North Carolina

Family Policy Matters
Transcript: Charter School Offers Classical Education in Rural North Carolina

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Transcript: Charter School Offers Classical Education in Rural North Carolina