Evergreen's History

In the spring of 1998, Maureen Motley called a meeting of educators and parents to discuss the notion of starting a charter school committed to hands-on learning, parental involvement, and community-based education. Teachers Dori Drachman, Robbie Spiegel, and Lisa Garrett stepped forward to begin that journey. The summer of 1998 was spend reviewing "best practices" and creating the charter application that is the backbone of our school. We were joined along the way by parents Bob Williams, Eleanor Ashton, Many Ann Watjen, and community member Deborah Buchanan. In February 1999, we received our final approval to open a charter school in Buncombe County.

Our school is the result of many long hours spend over the course of 18 months by these founding members. This school would not exist without the unswerving perseverance and love of these people and many others who have since joined us.

After two years of operation, ECCS adopted a school design called Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound (ELOB) because this philosophy supports our mission and provides a framework that supports our efforts to improve our program. In the spring of 2003, we located and purchased a permanent 10-acre campus in the Haw Creek Valley. That fall, Jackie Williams started as Executive Director - following the Founder and first Executive Director Maureen Motley. The school opened in its new location in 2003 with 350 students, 40 teachers, and the designation of "School of Distinction" by the state of North Carolina.

During her time at Evergreen, Jackie Williams provided leadership to strengthen the school’s educational program and bring innovative ideas to the campus, including the popular marimba program, research-supported methods for teaching literacy, differentiated instruction, wilderness expedition traditions for every grade level which culminates with an Outward Bound Trip for 8th grade and technological innovations that address a variety of educational needs.  She has helped to build a strong Outward Bound Expeditionary Learning program and strengthened relationships with organizations such as Warren Wilson College, River Link, Blue Ridge Bio-fuels and other community groups that share Evergreen’s ethic of environmental responsibility.

Beginning July 2007, Evergreen Community Charter School moved into a new era of leadership. Jackie Williams announced her retirement in September 2006, at which time the school’s Board of Directors appointed a search committee to do an intensive country-wide search for a new director.  The search committee was representative of all Evergreen’s stakeholders - Board members, staff, parents and students. After receiving applications from over 60 candidates across the United States and interviewing 10 top candidates, Susan Gottfried was selected.

Gottfried received a bachelor’s degree in Special Education from Trenton State College.  She attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she received a M.Ed. in Special Education and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction.

Gottfried’s professional experience includes elementary through high school classroom teaching; independent school administration at The Piedmont School in High Point, North Carolina; facilitation of distance-learning courses at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and school consultation.  For the past five years Gottfried was a school improvement consultant for the Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta, Georgia, where she provided consultation, coaching and professional development to schools implementing the school reform models, High Schools That Work and Making Middle Schools Work.

In May 2007, as Susan Gottfried prepared to transition into the executive leadership role at Evergreen, the school's library was named “The Jackie Williams Library” in honor of Williams’ many accomplishments during her tenure at the school. In October of 2007, the community learned that it had again been named a North Carolina School of Distinction based on its students' performance on the state's assessments.

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