Sharing stories, finding solutions

Warren County, N.C., embraces study circles

by Julie Fanselow

May 10, 2007 | | Warren County, North Carolina

The South has a great storytelling tradition, with folks who love to talk about their lives and those of their families. We can learn a lot from one another’s stories, both about our past and our hopes for a better future, but it’s often hard to come together across racial, class, generational, and gender lines.

Study circles help make that happen – then help people build on their shared understanding to find solutions to community problems.

Study circles have a strong and growing tradition in the South. Over the past decade, they’ve been used to help bring better fire protection to areas of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and new firefighting career opportunities to people of color. They’ve helped neighbors in Fort Myers, Florida, attract a new shopping center to an underserved, predominately African-American part of town. They’ve helped boost teacher salaries and early education programs across Arkansas. And this spring, circles have started creating stronger school-community connections in Warrenton, North Carolina, and several neighboring communities in northeastern North Carolina.

Warren County has a proud educational history, including the presence of Warren County Training School (later known as North Warren High School), one of nearly 5,000 “Rosenwald Schools” built throughout the South between 1913 and 1932 to improve education for African Americans.

Today, Warren County’s population is about 55 percent black and 40 percent white, but the school district’s enrollment is 71 percent African American, 18 percent white, 5 percent Native American, 3 percent Hispanic, and 2 percent multiracial. Too often, says Jereann King Johnson of the Rural School and Community Trust, it’s common for the area’s white residents to hear the word “education,” perceive it as a “black issue,” and decline to be involved.

Working with the local Community Development Corporation via a grant from the Kellogg Foundation, and with allies from the Warren County Training School/North Warren High

School Alumni Association, the RSCT set out to hold study circles around the idea that student achievement and success benefit the entire community. “We wanted to ask: What happens when the entire community is focused on the success of the children?”  Johnson says.

To emphasize that focus, study circle planners tweaked the language in the study guide (Helping Every Student Succeed, published by the Study Circles Resource Center), changing a question that asked, “What do you think are the biggest problems facing the schools in our community?” to “What do you think are the biggest barriers impacting the success of our young people?” Issues explored included juvenile justice services, family support, and recreation. “We made it clear this was not a ‘fix the schools situation,’ but rather: What can community people do to fill the gaps?” Johnson says.

It was a challenge to find people from diverse backgrounds to take part, as organizers had to counter reluctance to be involved as well as the South’s long-standing but often-unspoken racial dynamics. But about 20 percent of the participants were European Americans, and Johnson calls it a good response.

About 22 people took part in pilot circles in late 2006, and 65 more met in the community’s first full round of circles this spring. Together, they used personal stories and hard data to examine issues and explore community-based solutions.

For example, Warren County – like many small rural districts - has a hard time recruiting and holding on to well-qualified teachers. So circle participants brainstormed ideas on how to attract and keep better teachers. Community members talked about plans to attend teacher recruitment fairs, help new teachers find housing and social groups, and hold a community tour to help teachers get oriented and feel at home before school starts. “Long term, we think that will have a significant impact on student achievement, when teachers feel welcome,” Johnson notes.

The low graduation rate (about 65 percent) is affecting everyone in town, too. Dialogue participants hope to challenge young students – perhaps as early as fifth grade – to look at their graduation odds and work to beat them.  Johnson says, “We want them to ask ‘What if we want to have 95 percent of us graduate? What will that take?’” She also envisions such community support as a thermometer-style sign – similar to ones used to monitor fundraising campaigns – in a public place to track the local high school graduation rate and motivate students and the whole community toward greater success.

For study circles to succeed, organizers must find diverse participants across racial lines as well as age groups and economic classes. Johnson says that although a flier and newspaper articles helped spread word of the study circles, one-to-one personal invitations proved the best recruiting tool. As a 30-year resident of the community, she knows most of its residents and was able to make personal appeals for involvement.

The story is the same for Angie Wills of the River City Community Development Corporation in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, where study circles are being held to boost school-community ties in the Pasquotank and Perquimans county school districts. Wills, who is African American, has been networking with allies at such institutions as Albemarle Hospital and Elizabeth City State University to draw a diverse range of participants. About 60 people have taken part in the Elizabeth City-area circles, including one Spanish-language circle for the growing number of Latino residents, and three more are planned.

Positive community change is never easy, “especially in a community where you don’t have a history of talking across racial lines,” says Johnson. But the study circles structure – with its study guides and emphasis on facilitated, open dialogue – made the change process easier to begin.

For more information on starting or sustaining a study circles program in your community, see Developing a Study Circle Program.

Learn more: Education