Let’s elect
Dr. Grant
Asheville City School Board
Asheville City School Board
Meet
Dr. Grant
A 52-year resident of WNC, Gordon has served the Asheville City Schools as a teacher, principal, and active community member.
“I’ve been married to Susan Sherrill Grant for 43 of those years, and we love family adventures with our extended family of our two daughters, their husbands, and two grandchildren.
I have also served as an adjunct professor at UNC Chapel Hill in Education in the MAT program and as Education Director for NC Outward Bound. I currently serve on the Board of the Asheville City Schools Foundation and work with ACS students through volunteering at the In Real Life After-School Program at Asheville Middle School, the DREAM program at Asheville High, RiverLink as an environmental education advisor, and the Sierra Club as an after school and summer camp environmental education leader.”
Why
Support
Dr. Grant?
In these charged political times, Gordon believes the best thing we can do to rebuild our trust in each other is to serve our communities, doing the best we know how.
Trust
Of all the candidates and sitting members on the board, Gordon has the most direct personal experience in being a teacher and principal in serving the teachers, children, and families of this community.
Experience
Gordon doesn’t just talk about community, he builds it. He hosted ACS teachers and students at NC Outward Bound and helped them grow through outdoor experiences.
As principal at Hall Fletcher Elementary, his community had the largest number of volunteer hours of any school in the district.
At Randolph Learning Center, ACS's alternative school, he developed a community partnership to help students graduate from AB Tech.
In decades of public school work, community-first remains his conviction.
Community
“Gordon’s belief in me shaped me as an educator. He walks the Walk and expects us to do the same, in the classroom and the community.”
Sarah Cain - retired Asheville City Schools teacher, principal, & admin
“he values individual people, and he’s such a thoughtful person.
I think that’s why he’s so successful everywhere he goes.”
Marc Hunt - former Asheville City Council member
“Gordon inspired me to public service, with his commitment to community. His enthusiasm is very infectious, and it clearly infected me.”
Eric Howard - former Asheville City Schools, social worker and Central Office administrator
“I believe that a happy retirement involves service to my community, and, since education has been my life’s work, it makes sense for me to continue to serve in this field.”
Dr. Grant On The STate Of Education
A New School Year: Here We Go Again!
The 2026-2027 school year has begun. As a candidate for the Asheville City Schools Board, I watch the teachers and principals open the doors of their schools to everyone who enters — the brave inclusive promise of public education: we serve all who enter here, prepared to help everyone grow in mind, body, and spirit. Because of my 34 years in and around ACS, I resonate with what the current staff, kids, and parents feel, and, in my campaign for ACS Board, I offer this: I know how it feels to commit to the adventure of a school year, and, if elected to the Board, I will do everything I can to honor your purpose in our schools.
And, how to do that? Asheville City Schools has:
Five great elementary schools preparing students for the wonderful growth years of middle school,
A modern middle school with comprehensive arts, sports, and Career and Tech Education options, and…
One of the best comprehensive high schools in NC: Asheville High — with its contained magnet high school, SILSA — makes up one of the best in the state in all measures: high academic course offerings, a variety of sports teams and programs in art, music, and performance arts and career preparation, and a graduation rate of 93%.
A superintendent, Dr. Maggie Fehrman, who has been here for three years — the longest tenure of any superintendent in the last ten, who is leading a purposeful, four-point Strategic Plan focused on what the students, schools, and community needs to rebuild success at all levels.
And, while there is much to be proud of, there is much to work on. If elected to the Board of Education, I want to help the Superintendent and her team at ACS focus on three major areas of need that ACS has struggled with for years, as identified in the Strategic Plan.
They are:
1) Teacher Recruitment Retention and Development:
Asheville has some of the highest attrition rates in NC: we lose 25-30% of our teachers a year, and it is a continuing challenge. There are many factors affecting this, some beyond the school board’s control: a high cost of living in Asheville and an NC legislature that has consistently undervalued and underpaid our public school educators. Teacher pay is among the lowest in the nation (currently 43rd and projected to fall to 46th this year, according to the NEA).
As a principal in ACS, I have experienced success in retaining teachers and staff by paying attention to three areas of self-determination:
They need to feel competent at what they do.
They need to feel authentic in their lives.
They need to feel connected to others.
If elected, I will be an involved board member in helping ACS principals create and maintain those conditions for teachers to feel those areas.
2) The Academic Achievement Gap:
We all know it. It’s been there for years. ACS has the highest achievement gap in the state and one of the highest in the nation.
Grades 3–8 End-of-Grade (EOG) Reading and Math Exams: White students’ proficiency compared to African American students show a similar 50+ percentage-point gap.
ACT & College/Career Readiness Benchmarks (Grade 11): 76% of White graduates are classified as college-ready based on standardized testing, compared to approximately 12% of African American graduates. (From AI summaries of Carolina Public Press article and Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis)
This has been persistent in Asheville for decades, and it will not be turned around in 2-3 years. Dr. Fehrman and team’s Strategic Plan correctly focuses FIRST on Climate and Culture based on “trust-based relationships.” That has always been my area of strength as a servant leader, and I will help ACS leaders carry that mode of servant leadership out.
3) Finances
As the old saying goes: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
Education IS expensive: the 2024-2025 budget of ACS was 92 million dollars to serve about 3,700 students, and, clearly, we are not reaching all of them.
Every decision on use of funds is fraught with pain: we are talking about people’s jobs and the impact of their loss if we take away from one area of service of the schools to promote another. But I do know this: it is the role of the Board to work with the Superintendent to allocate our limited funding to jobs that have the most directly positive effect on student outcomes. Those are difficult decisions, and I am willing to be part of a Board that makes them.
So, here we go again. I’ve been in and around public education in Asheville for 34 years, and I can promise you this: I know how to build trust and community through commitment to relationships with all involved. I know how to develop classrooms and institutions built on success attributes of character, climate, and communication that prepare kids and teachers to deal with whatever life deals us. I have done that as a teacher and as a principal, and I will continue that commitment to Board work, so that, four years from now — in 2030 — the ACS community will see improvement in all these three areas and be able to say:
“Look what we have done!”
Dr. Gordon Grant
8/26/2026