Maggie Fehrman takes office July 17 as the next superintendent of Asheville City Schools. The following conversation was held via Zoom on June 29 as she was packing for a move to Asheville three days later. Surrounded by moving boxes, she consented to an interview with Asheville Watchdog’s managing editor, Keith Campbell. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Asheville Watchdog: You grew up on a dairy farm in Pittsburgh, is that right?
Maggie Fehrman: Yeah, just north of Pittsburgh, in a little teeny town called Prospect. I’m one of seven children. My dad immigrated to Chicago in the ‘60s from Poland. My mom lived in and grew up in Chicago, and they met at Northwestern University where he was doing some teaching. [He was a chemist.] Eventually they moved to Pennsylvania and decided to buy a farm. We had dairy cows for a long time. So you get up really early in the morning, 4:30, to milk cows. It was a lot of work. I hated it as a kid. But now I look back on it, and I think it was actually really cool to learn all the things about farming and problem solving. So yeah, it was a great experience.
Watchdog: Do you have siblings in this part of the world?
Fehrman: They’re all still in Pennsylvania. I’m the only one that flew the coop.
Watchdog: And you’re married?
Fehrman: Yeah, my husband, Joel. Our 15-year anniversary is coming up in just a few days. He is a Georgia Tech graduate … a cyber liability insurance underwriter. He gets to work from home, so wherever we ended up, he was like, as long as there’s a good airport, he’s game. Asheville has always been on the top of our list as a place to land. And when the opportunity was presented, we couldn’t say no.
Watchdog: Why was Asheville at the top of your list?
Fehrman: [My] in-laws used to have a house in Cashiers, over by Highlands, past Brevard, and we would go up there during the summer. [We] just love the mountains, love the lake, and then would start venturing out toward Brevard and come into Asheville. We’re avid mountain bikers, hikers, just love being outside. We were looking for a place. When we were ready to leave Atlanta, [we were looking for someplace] that was going to be a little higher elevation, more mountains, still an urban setting, but a little smaller than Atlanta. And you can’t beat Asheville. It’s amazing.
Watchdog: I understand you have some pets.
Fehrman: Yeah, three Dobermans. We’ve rescued Dobermans for several years, and we have three at this time. Caesar was a “foster fail.” I’d had him for about two hours and I was like, this dog’s not going anywhere, he’s such a sweet, sweet dog. And then we rescued a female Doberman just about a year ago. And surprise, she was pregnant and ended up having puppies … We decided to keep one …
Watchdog: Children?
Fehrman: No, no kids.
Watchdog: Talk a little bit about your time in Decatur. I’m guessing the Decatur system is probably pretty similar in terms of challenges that you’ll find here.
Fehrman: I think so. I would say they’re not unique to either Asheville or Decatur, but the challenges in both systems are pretty similar to what districts across the nation are facing right now. I joined Decatur in 2018 after being a principal in Gwinnett County Public Schools for about four and a half years. I came in as the executive director of schools, and my job at the time was to coach and supervise all the principals in our district. I loved that job, such a great job.
And then, a couple years down the road, the pandemic hits, and school systems just kind of got turned 180 degrees. It was a really challenging time. Then, on the back end, thinking we’re recovering, the previous superintendent left under some turbulent terms. The board asked me to step in, which I did.
Some of the first issues that I had to address in Decatur, are some of the issues that I think the Asheville community wants to see [addressed]: disproportionate student outcomes. Why are students not all achieving at the same high levels? And how do we address that as a school system? And then the other one is rebuilding trust, with a turbulent exit of a previous superintendent and some concerns with transparency and decision making. It was very important for the board to see me rebuild that trust with the school system, and in particular, with our parents and families of color, especially our staff of color.
What I plan to do in Asheville is similar to what I did in Decatur: listen to people, invite people to the table, hear what they have to say. As decisions are made, be transparent in that decision-making process and make sure there’s an open line with authentic two-way communication.
Watchdog: What steps will you take to deal with those two issues, the racial achievement gap and disparities in discipline?
Fehrman: I want to start by getting in classrooms, seeing what the instruction looks like, joining the school principals and their admin teams in the classrooms, so I can see what’s actually happening.
So, helping the principals look at their classrooms, look at their assessment data, try to understand and do some root cause analysis for why … why are we not seeing the same type of academic outcomes for one group of students that we do for another?
Watchdog: And what about the school discipline issue? And the disparity there?
Fehrman: I’ll tell you, I think Asheville is already making really good strides. I actually just reviewed their code of student success. And they’ve put some really good parameters in place, extending those clear expectations but in a positive way, and helping the teachers understand that when you build a welcoming school classroom environment, it’s got to be welcoming for every student. It can’t be that some students feel welcomed and included and reflected in the learning environment and others don’t. How are we really implementing culturally responsive pedagogy and positive classroom environments with fidelity across the district?
Watchdog: You talked about restoring trust in Decatur. How will you do that in Asheville?
Fehrman: One of the very first pieces is to work together with the school board, making sure that the superintendent and the school board have a clear understanding of what the challenges are, and [identifying] the key stakeholders that need to be involved in the conversations, so that you understand why the trust was damaged. And then, when there’s that clear understanding of why this trust has been eroded, then you can start moving toward repairing that trust.
I believe strongly in what we call restorative practices, like admitting when mistakes have been made. I think one of the easiest ways to begin repairing trust is saying, Look, we know we did this wrong in the past, we’re going to correct it, we’re going to fix it going forward. Then you’ve got to do what you said you were going to do, and continue to be transparent and engaging with those stakeholders in a regular way.
Watchdog: Talk a little bit about All In Decatur, your five-year strategic plan.
Fehrman: Yeah, that was, I think, the thing I’m most proud of in my superintendency, developing a really good framework for our strategic plan to guide Decatur schools in the next five years.
What I loved about working on that plan is how involved the community was, and how engaged they were every step of the way. It was me more facilitating the work instead of doing the work. That’s kind of my leadership style. I can’t sit in an office and just lead a district. You have to be out there talking with the community, with the stakeholders, with the teachers, and get them all involved in the process. They’re going to do the work, so they need to be involved in what it’s going to look like.
So the plan really was the culmination of all the trust-building, and the work being done to prioritize our students. How are we going to refocus on the students in our system, take them back to the center of everything we do? So starting with that, then what do we want to accomplish? And then, how are we going to get it done?
Watchdog: What was the process in terms of getting public input and other stakeholder input?
Fehrman: We did several things. We did some open town halls, open to the community, everyone was invited. And in those several meetings, we talked about your typical SWOT analysis [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, a strategic planning technique]. We were overwhelmed with the responses. When we took the data out of what we collected, and started combing through it, it took us days to just go through that data to come up with some themes.
We then had over 800 responses on a public survey. Decatur parents are very engaged, and we were just overwhelmed with the input they provided. Pages and pages. They gave all their thoughts, which was great because it gave us insight into what our community was looking for.
Then we invited a group of about 50 stakeholders to an all-day meeting to review this data from the SWOT analysis, to review achievement data, to review all of it. We gave each of them a binder about three inches thick of different data to look at. And from that data, they identified [four] areas of focus, to kind of categorize our work.
Then I held several town halls, to share where we were in the process, to communicate back to the community: Here’s what we’re hearing. Did we get this right? When we say here’s four areas of focus, do these align with what you as a community want to see? And that really helped us make sure the plan was in line the whole way through the development process, so that we didn’t get to the end and then to hear people go, Well, you’ve missed this. That’s not what we want.
So it really was basically a really long conversation.
Watchdog: Are you thinking of employing the same sort of process in Asheville?
Fehrman: I’ll tell you, I see a very engaged community in Asheville as well. And I can tell that they are not going to want a superintendent and their team to close the door, develop a plan, and announce the plan. So I see engaging the community, really actively plugging in with stakeholders to get their input. Where do they want to see Asheville city schools in five years? What are the priorities they want to focus on?
That’s kind of my servant-leadership style as well. I’m there to do the job that the community and the board wants me to do. I’m not there to create an Asheville City School system that’s just for me. It’s got to serve the community, the parents, the board. I think that’s one of my strengths as a leader, to find how to achieve what the community wants, and to help students be successful.
Watchdog: The plan stated that it weaves equity into the fabric of everything we do. What does that look like?
Fehrman: Decatur started their equity work about six, seven years ago, but it had been a standalone initiative. They talked about all the things they were doing, and then, “Oh yeah, we tagged equity onto the end of it.” And what we realized is equity wasn’t seen as everyone’s job. They were like, “Equity was the equity department’s job.” And we realized that until everyone sees how they are affecting equitable outcomes for students, we’re never going to achieve what we want, and we’ll have those disproportionate outcomes. So it was clear from the onset that we needed equity to be part of everything.
And as we’ve been working toward that, over the past several years, we knew this strategic plan was going to be that opportunity to take equity and put it intentionally into all four of the areas that we’re focusing on, to make sure the language everywhere reflects our core values on equity. We assigned an equity champion to each of the focus areas. And as they built their parts of the plan, and their goals and their steps, they were there being that person to say, “Okay, we didn’t think of it through this lens, how are we going to add that piece here?” So it did become part of every single area in the plan.
Watchdog: What’s your entry plan? I’m assuming you have like a 100-day plan or a three-month plan. What does that look like?
Fehrman: Yes, it’s kind of a four-stage plan. The first stage is really listening and learning. I’ve already started scheduling one-on-one meetings with principals, then also starting to meet with the upper level executives at Central Office and then their departments.
And then, once I get on board after the 17th, we’ll start setting up some town hall meetings, kind of a listening and learning tour. I’ll be visiting each school on a regular basis. I want to get into the classrooms. I want to meet the bus drivers. I want to meet the custodians. I want to hear from all the different stakeholder groups on what they’re feeling is successful in their area and their department, and what they need from me as the superintendent to make sure they’re what they need.
And then student focus groups. I had a student advisory team in Decatur, and I plan to start one in Asheville as well. The students serve on the committee for at least two years. I hear from the students too many times that they think we lead from the idea that “the adult knows best.” And we don’t take enough time to really talk to students and hear their perspective on solutions. Because they may have ideas that would really work well, that we haven’t considered because we’re not sitting in their chair.
I’ll probably hold some, like, coffee chats in the morning. I always joke with people I’ll do “Margaritas with Maggie” to entice people to come meet with me.
Part of that listening is the responsibility of then sharing what I’m hearing. So at every monthly board meeting, I’ll be giving an update on what I’ve done, where I am in the stages, what I’ve learned so far, what trends are coming up, and then asking people, “Who else do I need to talk to? Who didn’t I get to yet, so that I have a well-informed and multiple perspectives from every stakeholder in the district?”
And then after I’ve listened and learned and gathered a lot of data, then I’ll start engaging with the stakeholders to say, all right, what are we going to do? What’s our why? How are we going to identify what we want to do as a school system, want to do more than anything else? How are we going to get there?
And then even jumping a little bit into strategic planning. What do our plans look like? What are the resources we need? What’s the budget that’s going to help us get there? So we can align everything to that one area, that one focus.
When you really identify the why — why you do the work that you do — everything else becomes easier, because you’re constantly motivating yourself, because you have a deep connection and passion for that centerpiece of why you do the work. It helps align everything that you do. It aligns the budget priorities, aligns the goals that the teachers are working on in their classrooms. It brings everything together, and we’re all rowing in the same direction. And when all the oars are pulling in the same direction, things turn around, I think, very quickly.
Watchdog: Do you have some notion now what that focus might be?
Fehrman: I mean, based on what I hear with the priorities, that’s already there: ending disproportionate outcomes. Making sure every student in the school system is able to achieve high success, to make sure that we don’t have disproportionate discipline outcomes. From what I’m hearing, from what I’ve gleaned, there’s this deep desire to focus on making sure each and every student has the same opportunity, the same support, and the same chance of success.
Watchdog: Is it fair to say that over this 10-year period of high turnover in school leadership in Asheville, there hasn’t been the opportunity to focus on one particular topic that we really need to address?
Fehrman: What I’ll say is, I think anytime there’s transitional leadership, and it keeps turning over, and over and over, every leader has this tendency to come in and want to do things their way, to get things organized the way they think it’s going to work. And then they’re out the door, someone else comes in, and it’s changed again. And when that happens continuously, over time, the whole structure starts to erode.
Just getting everything shored up and establishing normal operating procedures may take some time. So it’s, it’s gonna be really interesting to get in and start identifying what needs to be worked on, what doesn’t need to be worked on, what can we celebrate, so that we’re ready to take it and move toward that one thing.
Watchdog: Did the turnover in leadership here give you any trepidation?
Fehrman: No, actually, not at all, it didn’t. I did see that there was turnover. But I’ll be honest, superintendency nationwide has crazy turnover. Boards get elected. Once the majority feels like they don’t like the superintendent or what’s happening, they’ll just let the superintendent go. I mean, it’s a crazy job to have when you’ve got, you know, five to seven to nine bosses that are elected publicly. But what I’ll say is, that didn’t really concern me. I know it’s challenging to come in when there’s turnover, and I always love a challenge.
And I’ll tell you this: Asheville is where I want to stay. When I said we’re moving to Asheville, this is where my husband and I want to be until we retire. We’re planning to stay here for a long time.
Watchdog: Getting back to Decatur, you were interim superintendent for a couple of years. You applied for the permanent position, but then didn’t get the chance to implement the plan you worked so hard to develop. What should we know about that time period with you?
Fehrman: A really good leader once told me, “Great leaders know when to get the job done, but they also know when to step out of the way.” And this was time to step out of the way … for me to just take my skills and find a new opportunity. So I actually pulled my name out [of contention]. Looking across the nation at lots of other superintendencies that were opening, my husband and I were just ready to take a chance and start a new chapter.
Watchdog: What led you to say, hey, at this juncture, it’s time to say this Decatur role isn’t for me?
Fehrman: I think it was mostly about seeing the success of the strategic plan come to fruition, and just knowing that I had set the district up for success. At this point, you pass the torch to a really amazing woman that I’ve known for a while. She’s going to do great things for Decatur.
Watchdog: And then this sudden change in Asheville’s decision, less than two days after Cruz said he couldn’t come, you got the call. [Asheville City Schools initially offered the superintendent job to Rick Cruz, deputy superintendent of the Houston Independent School District. Three weeks later it announced he would not serve due to a family medical emergency.]
Fehrman: What’s the right word? Excitement doesn’t capture it. It was just shocking, to be quite honest. I had not expected it. It was just kind of out of the blue. I got a call from the guy that had been running the search, and I thought he was calling me about another opportunity because I’d said, “Hey, do you have anything else? Let me know.” And then he said, “Well, it’s Asheville. Are you interested? And are you available?”
It was a definite yes. Because, like I said, it’s a dream place to be and I can’t pass something like that up.
Watchdog: The fact that you weren’t first choice, does that add any pressure for you?
Fehrman: I don’t really feel any way about it. To me, it’s the way it ended up. There was a situation where someone couldn’t be there, and then the board obviously decided that there was another candidate that was a great fit.
I think everything happens for a reason. And I think it’s just as it was meant to be.
Watchdog: The North Carolina General Assembly refuses to fund public schools as mandated by the courts, hasn’t yet crafted a budget that lets Asheville know how much it can budget for the coming school year, and generally is hostile to Asheville as a liberal enclave. Have you had to deal with similar pressures in Georgia?
Fehrman: Yeah, Decatur is also a very liberal school district. Yeah, very, very liberal, very focused on equity. And then there are some stronger conservative people in office, and sometimes they want to focus on the equity work, like it’s something bad.
But for me, it’s about educating people. It’s not about making people feel guilty. It’s not about prioritizing one group over another. It’s about a high tide lifting all ships. And if we want to see that happen, we’ve got to find a way to bring everyone together.
As a superintendent, you can’t be political, but you have to be able to navigate the political landscape, knowing how to do that in such a turbulent time. It’s hard.
But I think it’s about finding common ground. We all want the best schools for all kids. So it’s, how do we find that common understanding, no matter who you are, or what political party you affiliate with?
Watchdog: Is it part of the superintendent’s job to push back against political interference?
Fehrman: I would say, more navigating. I’m not a politician, and the superintendent is not a politician. But you’ve got to deal with politicians, so you’ve got to be ready to navigate that. And you know, I’ve always found that working people from both parties, inviting them in on the front end, is a good way to help everyone see the successful things that are happening, so they understand the why — why we’re doing the work.
Watchdog: In your conversations with people in Asheville so far, listening to people, what has stood out to you?
Fehrman: I’ve talked to board members, I’ve talked to teachers, community members … everyone is deeply invested in Asheville being successful. They want to see Asheville City Schools be the most amazing school district not just in North Carolina, but in the United States. And everyone wants to have a part in doing that and helping that success be achieved.
I think that’s really the one thing that has been resonating with me, how engaged and supportive people are. And that’s just really exciting.
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Peter Lewis is executive editor and a reporter for The Watchdog. Email plewis@avlwatchdog.org