Shaunda Sandford
Shaunda Sandford

The Housing Authority, CHOSEN, Asheville City Schools, Asheville Parks and Recreations, MDTMT, WCRM, Delta House, and numerous community organizations have partnered to support students in their communities with Learning P.O.D.S. at several locations in the Asheville Community.

In March 2020, when schools began to close, Asheville City School Board member Shaunda Sandford thought, “What’s going to happen with my kids in our developments?”

Sandford is an employee of the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville, so she was very aware of the limited resources of families with children living in city-subsidized public housing. Those needs include affordable online access as well as the computer equipment necessary for doing schoolwork: laptops or tablets or even phones that each child can use.

Sandford says that her concern, shared by others at HACA, “wasn’t all about the academics, because it was the schools’ responsibility to provide the remote instruction to their prospective students regardless of their location. Our goal was to make sure the kids had access to the internet, ensure they had culturally responsive spaces in their communities with people they felt emotionally safe with, and provide resources to families as needed.”

So she began thinking about the possibility, and value, of opening a space in the community building at each HACA property for as many children as space and the CDC guidelines would allow. But before she could reach out to anyone, the state’s Stay At Home order went into effect, and it wasn’t fully lifted until the end of the 2019-2020 school year.

Creating the P.O.D.S.

The School Board soon realized they would most likely be unable to reopen campuses in August, so in late June Sandford reached out to Asheville City Manager Debra Campbell about utilizing spaces at the community centers. The Arthur R. Edington Center on Livingston Street—itself a former city school building—was the only Housing Authority facility able to accommodate large numbers of students.

In an email to The Urban News, Sandford wrote, “Because ACS serves students in every one of our housing communities except Deaverview, I felt it would be best to start there by getting feedback from Kidada Wynn, ACS Director of Student Services. After meeting with other community partners that served mostly children of color, we agreed to work together for our kids—and that was the beginning of P.O.D.S.”

According to Sandford, most Housing Authority residents are not aware that she is also an ACS board member. But at HACA, she serves all students and families regardless of their school district—including those at Deaverview in Buncombe County schools. And while Dr. Gene Freeman, City Schools Superintendent, willingly partnered with HACA in supporting P.O.D.S, staff and other board members were far less supportive—even about feeding the children.

Low-income children normally receive free (or heavily subsidized) breakfast and lunch at their schools; during the Covid-19 pandemic, those meals were made available at no cost to all students, regardless of family income. But faced with ACS board pushback, HACA collaborated with CHOSEN to provide our students with breakfast and lunch daily.

As for Buncombe County Schools, that board did not support having their students attend in-person P.O.D.S. Dr. Freeman, however, made it clear that he would support any child regardless of whether they were enrolled in city or county schools.

And this year, as schools began to reopen, many families in public housing wanted their children to remain in the learning pods, especially with less than eight weeks left in the school year and the virus continuing to be a threat. In fact, Sandford told The Urban News, several families “have also asked if we could continue the learning PODS next school year instead of their children returning to school.”

She continued, “I wish that were possible, but for now we’ll [just] be providing summer camp starting July 14, and from there their afterschool programming.”