The North Carolina State Board of Education recently voted to renew the charter for Shining Rock Classical Academy for another seven years. 

Editor’s note: This is the ninth in a series of stories on Haywood County’s public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, which has been beset by a host of academic and organizational problems since opening in 2015.

Despite a long history of illegal meetings, improper closed sessions and complaints about transparency, the story of Shining Rock Classical Academy’s efforts to conceal its expenditures of taxpayer money has just entered an alarming new chapter.

Taxpayer-funded Shining Rock Classical Academy’s attempt to address its long history of public transparency law violations got off to an inauspicious start when the school failed to provide proper public notice of a Sunday afternoon meeting intended to educate its unelected board – about half of whom actually showed up – on public transparency law. 

The next few months could prove fateful for Haywood County’s only public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, as a series of reports and performance reviews come due that will determine if, and for how long, the taxpayer-funded school will be allowed to continue to operate. 

Editor’s note: This is the eighth in a series of stories on Haywood County’s public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, which has been beset by a host of academic and organizational problems since opening in 2015.

Although plans for a new facility proposed by taxpayer-funded Haywood County public charter school Shining Rock Classical Academy have been scuttled due to an unexpected decrease in revenue brought about by dramatically lower student enrollment totals for the current school year, questions about how Shining Rock’s unelected governing board got so far along in the planning process without any public mention of the project continue to linger, and the school’s not talking. 

July 2015: Shining Rock Classical Academy, a brand-new taxpayer-funded public charter school governed by an unelected public board, violates closed-session laws pertaining to property acquisition before it even opens by refusing to name the parcel in question.

Back-to-school time is here again, and at Shining Rock Classical Academy — Haywood County’s only public charter school — it looks like students this year will have lots more room to grow. 

Editor’s note: This is the seventh in a series of stories on Haywood County’s public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, which has been beset by a host of academic and organizational problems since opening in 2015.

Since 2015, Haywood County’s first public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, has used more than $2.75 million in local taxpayer money to educate children to a level far below the county average, and also below the state average.

Transparency and accountability have long been concerns at Shining Rock Classical Academy — since before the troubled taxpayer-funded school even opened its doors in 2015 — and if recent events are any indication, new leadership at the school doesn’t seem interested in doing anything to change that. 

Editor’s note: This is the sixth in a series of stories on Haywood County’s public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, which has been beset by a host of academic and organizational problems since opening in 2015.

More than seven weeks after a series of grievances were filed against Shining Rock Classical Academy’s interim head of school, board members voted to offer him the permanent position.