Summary: Buncombe County’s 2030 Strategic Plan contains impressive goals for reducing racial equity gaps in youth court referrals, kindergarten readiness, and graduation rates.

The Facts: The Buncombe County Commission will be voting on its 2030 Strategic Plan at their November 4th meeting. This plan includes the following goals:

• Youth Court Referrals: Reduce the racial disparity by 35% (aiming for parity by 2030).
• Kindergarten Readiness: 45% reduction in racial gap between Black Indigenous and other People of Color (BIPOC) and white children.
• Graduation Rates: 50% reduction in racial graduation gaps by 2030.

You can read the full 2030 Strategic Plan here.

Our Assessment: These are excellent goals, both in terms of specificity and ambition. As longtime readers may recall, we’ve been pushing Buncombe County to commit to a data-driven approach to reducing racial inequities for several years. We’d like to learn more about the plans that are in place for meeting these goals on youth court referrals, kindergarten readiness, and graduation rates, because ultimately that’s the final test. However, setting these very concrete goals is an important step in the right direction.

Things to do: Join us in reaching out to Buncombe County leaders to express appreciation for these 2030 goals.

The template below articulates this, and also raises some concern about the 2030 plan’s lack of a similar level of specificity around deeply affordable housing. You can read the report on the housing goals below.

Email Template: You can send an email to the Buncombe County Manager and County Commission by filling out the form below. Note that our template combines this issue with the one that follows. Our email tool will send an individually addressed email to the recipients, and enable us to track how many emails were sent overall in the campaign. If you prefer to write your own email, you can copy and paste (and adapt) our template text – please cc: or bcc: info@gapavl.org on your individualized email, so we can better track how many emails were sent.

To: alfred.whitesides@buncombecounty.org, amanda.edwards@buncombecounty.org, drew.ball@buncombecounty.org, jennifer.horton@buncombecounty.org, martin.moore@buncombecounty.org, parker.sloan@buncombecounty.org, terri.wells@buncombecounty.org, Avril.Pinder@buncombecounty.org

CC: or BCC: info@gapavl.org

Subject: 2030 Strategic Plan has some great goals and some that could be more concrete

Dear Buncombe County Commissioners and County Manager Pinder,

I was very pleased to read about the concrete goals you’ve set in the 2030 Strategic Plan for reducing racial inequities in youth court referrals, kindergarten readiness, and graduation rates. I appreciate the boldness of your vision.

I am concerned that your housing goals are not concrete enough when it comes to deeply affordable housing. You claim that your affordable housing initiatives will be offered at an average of less than 60% Area Median Income (AMI), but I’d like to see more specific targets for housing below 30% and between 30 and 50%, since we know that this will be crucial to remedying racial disparities in housing in our region.

Thanks for your leadership,

(Your Name)

Report Back

Total GAP Supporter Actions Taken: 10

Recipients and Responses:

Buncombe County Leadership

• County Manager Avril Pinder: No response
• County Commissioner Al Whitesides: No response
• County Commissioner Drew Ball: No response
• County Commissioner Jennifer Horton: No response
• County Commissioner Martin Moore: No response
• County Commissioner Parker Sloane: No response
• County Commissioner Terri Wells: No response