French Broad River Academy gets girls outdoors

MAGGIE VALLEY - Morgan Foxworth’s long ponytail is encased in ice. The temperature is below freezing, the ski area snowblowers are pelting her face with a blinding snow. She’s wet and she’s cold.

But the conditions are making her tougher, stronger and more confident.

“Yes, they’re blowing snow, but it feels like you’re in Colorado. It’s worth it,” said a bright pink-cheeked and smiling Foxworth, 13, a seventh-grader at the new French Broad River Academy Girls School based in Asheville’s River Arts District.

As Foxworth and her classmates wait in line for the ski lift at Cataloochee, she’s happy to be outside -- “getting her crazies out” -- instead of in a classroom.

She hops on the chairlift for the Easy Way slope, curving side to side down the mountain through blizzard like blasts of snow with her classmates and teacher, working newfound skills such as slowing and stopping, learning to think on her feet, looking out for her friends, and, with each ski slide, building strength and self-confidence.

That’s a tough girl, and that’s outdoors learning at work.

“It was a challenge to ski for even our more experienced skiers, yet there was not a complaining, whiny atmosphere at all. We talk about ‘you can do hard things’ and come out of those hard moments with a very confident feeling,” said Jen Horschman, FBRA Girls School director.

The school now has a sixth and seventh grade and will have a full sixth- to eighth-grade middle school next year. It is an expansion of the French Broad River Academy Boys School, which opened in 2009. The mission of both is to “build character and integrity in young men and women for a lifetime of learning and service,” said school co-founder and executive director Will Yeiser.

The schools’ rigorous academic curriculum and life-skills learning are enhanced by a healthy dose of outdoors and high adventure.

Last week, the girls were on one of the mandatory weekly outdoor adventures. Many had never skied before starting the five-week lessons. Some had been skiing since age 2 and race on ski teams. All could call themselves skiers at the end of the day.

“I have ADHD. When I’m outside I can focus a lot more and it gives me ambition to get my homework done and to be unstressed,” Foxworth said. “It makes school days a lot more bearable.”

Other weekly outdoors activities include hiking, canoeing, caving and community service, such as helping local nonprofits to clean up litter and pull trash out of the river.

They must also go on a three-day overnight – the girls are getting ready to spend a night in a cave – and a trip to Costa Rica where they can put their Spanish lessons to real-world use.

Yeiser co-founded the school with David Byers, whom he befriended at Camp Mondamin where both were whitewater paddling instructors. Yeiser is a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Byers has a master’s degree of Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, and both worked for Teach for America as schoolteachers in underserved communities.

They wanted to share their love of teaching and the outdoors with Asheville kids.

The French Broad River Academy uses the challenges of the outdoors such as wild weather, moving water, steep forested terrain and slick ski slopes, to embrace those obstacles and overcome fear. The idea is to translate those experiences into overcoming other life challenges with cooperation and confidence.

“We want them to succeed academically but the bigger view is the notion of contributing to the betterment of society, which includes the environment,” Yeiser said. “What are you going to do with your skill set? How are you going to make a contribution to society?”

The outdoor program allows for personal accountability by having to pack, dress for the elements, organize and plan. These are skills that transfer into the classroom by being accountable for working in core subjects, Horschman said.

“There is so much evidence that girls can have all the competence and skills, yet if they do not have the confidence they are not in the conversation or included in key decisions or innovative change,” she said.

“We talk a lot about the gift of failure and that not being perfect does not mean you are not smart. The abilities in the outdoor adventure activities we do like skiing and whitewater paddling surface emotions and situations to work on the girls' social/emotional development.”

Research studies show that 8- to 18-year-olds spend an average of seven hours a day interacting with media and technology and an average of 30 minutes a week outdoors. Integrating experiential outdoor education into K-12 curricula results in better standardized test performance, higher order cognitive skills, reduced discipline and classroom management problems and increased engagement in and motivation for learning.

“When they become doctors or teachers or business people, they’ll be able to advocate for their passion,” Yeiser said.

The private school is not inexpensive – a year’s tuition is $15,500. It includes all outings, equipment, books and the Central American trip, Yeiser said.

All the teachers in the boys and girls schools are also the outdoors instructors, bringing their learned trust and comfort level with the girls on each trip. They are all multi-talented and widely educated.

Class sizes have a 12-to-1 teacher to student ratio. Outings are 6-to-1. The girls school’s all-female staff is each qualified to teach skiing, paddling and other activities and are certified in wilderness first aid.

Gillian Scruggs, who teaches social studies and Spanish, is a UNC Asheville grad who was searching for a teaching job involving whitewater adventure, Spanish and a strong academic program.

She sees the single-gender schools as being a positive during the middle grades, when there are “so many psychological changes in the brain, and at a time when girls and boys learn differently and are encouraged differently.

“I am hoping that the girls will come away with a greater sense of what they are capable of, a greater sense of self, sense of community and leadership in the community,” Scruggs said.

“I want them to feel like they’re strong and they have a strong voice and they are capable of using that voice.”

EJ Shin, 11, learned to ski for the first time with the academy in January. She’s now off the bunny slope and skiing down Easy Way.

“At first you feel anxious, but when you’re on the slope, all your problems disappear and you have a lot of fun,” Shin said.

Sixth-grader Vivi Diaz, 11, said she told her parents she wanted to come to the FBR Academy.

“We’re not just sitting in a classroom all day. We get to go outside and learn everything we need to know,” she said.

Snow-encrusted after a day on the slopes, advanced skier Caroline Warren, 11, said she still learns something new each time she skis during school, like tricks and jumps. She said her favorite subject in school is life skills.

“We learned how to do the ‘Kindness Project.’ We come up with something kind for our peers, friends, family, strangers,” Warren said. “I also like ‘Everyday Leader.’ We wrote a letter to someone who had an impact in our life. I wrote to Barack Obama. He taught us that no matter what size, shape or race you are you can do anything you want it if you put your mind to it.”

Learn more

For more information on the French Broad River Academy Boys and Girls schools, outdoor adventures and admission, vIsit www.fbra-avl.org.