CONCORD ó Joan Moritz positioned her chair on the edge of the asphalt and immediately set the physical boundaries for her students’ recess.
Stay between the Fireball and the fried dough concession stand, she told them.
That’s not something you hear a teacher yell every day, but the students of Powers Academy, the school set up for the children of the Powers Great American Midways, understood immediately.
They spent their lunch recess bicycling, roller-blading and skateboarding while all around them rides were being assembled and food and game trailers were being pulled into place.
At one point, Michael Tuttle pulled up in a golf cart to spend a few minutes playing catch with his 10-year-old son, Colby.
You don’t usually see that on a school playground, either.
The next night, the students’ playground was a curve in the midway at the Cabarrus County Fair.
Cousins Karen Tuttle and Tracy Thomas established Powers Academy six years ago as a way to keep their young families together during the grueling carnival season.
Growing up in the business, Thomas said, the cousins noticed when children stayed home and seldom saw one or both of their parents for long periods of time, it fractured the families.
“We just wanted to see if this would work, and it did,” she said.
The traveling academy relies on one teacher, Moritz, and seven students in kindergarten through the sixth grade.
The school holds classes from April to November as Powers Great American Midways provides the carnival attractions for 20 fairs along the East Coast, from New York to North Carolina.
Classes are held from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, because Sundays and Mondays are usually the days when rides are torn down, packed up and moved to the next location.
This past week, for example, the huge Powers operation took down equipment in Allentown, Pa., Monday night and traveled some 550 miles to Concord over the next day.
After the Cabarrus fair, Powers will be providing 30 rides and attractions at the Rowan County Fair Sept. 21-26, and it has been the carnival contractor for the N.C. State Fair the past four years.
The Powers Academy school trailer widens with expandable sides into a roomy classroom, In Concord, it has been wedged in behind the Haunted House.
Moritz relies on a home-school curriculum, and the parents are responsible for the paperwork, making sure their students are meeting grade-level criteria spelled out by their home states.
On the walls of the 53-foot-long school trailer, you find things common to most classrooms: a clock, thermometer, a science illustration of the water cycle, a dry-erase board, the alphabet, numbers and U.S. and world maps.
Shelves down the spine of the classroom hold all the school supplies.
Moritz has positioned her desk in the front-center. The students’ desks form a U-shape around her.
With such a wide range of grades among her seven students, Moritz can’t deliver lessons that apply to everyone. So there’s a lot of individual attention and much hovering around her desk.
The students constantly bring their worksheets to her for checking, clarification and direction before they walk back and continue their assignments.
Moritz, who has a master’s degree in elementary science education, administers tests and quizzes, gives grades and issues report cards on a regular basis. A typical morning starts with the Pledge of Allegiance, math, English, writing and language.
An hour recess at noon includes lunch provided by the parents.
The afternoon covers history and science. “It’s a normal school, just a unique location,” Moritz said.
Powers Academy takes advantage of an element most educators would find challenging ó the constant travel.
“We take a lot of field trips,” Moritz said.
The students have not only been to Niagara Falls, they’ve ridden under the falls in a boat.
They’ve made field trips to places such as Luray Caverns, Pennsylvania Amish country, the Gettysburg Civil War battlefields and Washington, D.C.
Three years ago, they took a tour of the White House.
Two weeks ago, they visited the Statue of Liberty.
Moritz has a special driver’s license that allows her to chauffeur up to 15 passengers, and the field trips rely on a show van for transportation.
The beauty of their field trips is not having to deal with time constraints. No one has to be back at school to catch a bus home. And there’s no rule against stopping at McDonald’s for ice cream and some fun on the playground.
State and county fairs can provide other perks for Powers Academy students. This week, for example, the students were invited to enter their craft projects in the Cabarrus County Fair for judging.
They also can milk cows for $1, thanks to the local 4-H exhibit.
The noisy carnival background seldom fazes the children, who have grown up sleeping to the roar of generators and the hum of the road.
“We get right back in the groove,” Moritz said of any disruption in her classroom.
Moritz said she “accidentally” had her first job in a carnival at age 19 and worked several years in the business before deciding to go after teaching degrees. Always in the back of her mind was the idea of combining her two loves ó teaching and carnivals.
“I would not be in a regular school,” said Moritz, who became the academy’s second teacher four years ago. “This is great.”
Tuttle and Thomas, daughter of the carnival operation’s president, Corky Powers, said their academy is one of two carnival schools in the country. They describe it as a modern-day, one-room schoolhouse that is expensive for the parents ó but worth the cost.
Parents try to make things as normal as possible. After school, it’s usually a routine of dinner, homework, play and bed.
“They don’t get out of school and ride the rides for six hours,” Thomas said.
The families live in comfortable motor homes during the season. They travel with swing sets and above-ground pools, though the parents have learned where good community swimming pools are located at New York and Pennsylvania stops during the summer.
Tuttle and Thomas said their families represent a fifth generation in the carnival business. The Tuttles run the Italian sausage food stand. Tracy Thomas operates the popcorn and cotton candy concession and her husband, R.D., is an important cog in the office.
The kids of Powers Academy become close friends and playmates. Several of them are related.
As they get older, the parents think more about when, if ever, the students should be pulled out of the academy in favor of a more traditional middle school or high school.
Morgan Thomas, 11, is the carnival academy’s first middle-schooler this year.
“So far, it’s working, so I will keep it going,” Tracy Thomas said.
Moritz said she’s confident she could see the students through high school.
Meanwhile, her classroom off the midways is different, for sure. The same could be said for their makeshift playgrounds between rides like the Vortex and Vertigo. But kids have a way of adapting, especially these kids.
“The trucks know to watch for them, and they know to watch for the trucks,” Tuttle said.