Peak Academy is a four-year-old charter school that began with 87 students and has grown to last years’ enrollment of 176—double the original number and then some.
This rapid expansion of students could not be accommodated by the school’s original site at 83 Balm Grove Avenue in West Asheville, so beginning this academic school year (2024-25), the school is being housed at the Arthur R. Edington Education and Career Center, at 133 Livingston Street.
This is also the site of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction authorized school that focuses on character development as it works to close the academic achievement gap for grades K-6 students. But old-timers remember the Edington Center (a.k.a. Reid Center), as the Livingston Street Elementary School, which successfully educated African American children during the Jim Crow Era of racial segregation. The neighborhood school was closed and converted into a recreation center by the city in compliance with federal orders to desegregate the system in the early 1970s.
The 206-student capacity for the 2024-25 school year was made possible by the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville, which is the governing body of the Edington Center.
The Asheville PEAK Academy has brought a new purpose to an historic location.
P – Prepare
E – Empower
A – Achieve
K – Knowledge
These are the stated goals that the most diverse and qualified faculty and staff in the region strive to realize.
The measure of success is evidenced by the use of benchmark exams given to the students at the beginning, middle, and end of the year. Last year 100% of the students made progress in reading and math over the course of the academic calendar. The state-administered results of End-of-Grade exams for the Third, Fourth and Fifth grades celebrated their individual successes at the end of the year…
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