Haywood provides update on innovative middle school
Haywood County Schools is looking for the new innovative middle school to attract new students and provide new opportunities for existing ones.
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It’s been two months since Haywood County Schools announced their “innovative middle school,” and while there aren’t concrete updates, leaders continue to express a sincere commitment to turn their vision into a reality by the 2026-2027 school year.
Haywood County Schools Superintendent Trevor Putnam outlined two key motivations. Some students desire acceleration-based academic courses not currently available. The other reason is strictly practical: a new middle school might increase countywide enrollment, thus bolstering the school system’s lean budget.
Appealing to student interest
Though Putnam said he’d have more to say in December or January, while Early College Principal Lori Fox mused that updates would be ready by mid-September, the innovative middle school has seen movement since its initial June proposal. It will be housed in the Haywood Community College’s Dogwood Building, currently Haywood Early College. During that time, said HCC President Shelley White, staff has been working with an architect on renovations to the Poplar Building, Haywood Early College’s designated campus post-relocation.
With a total of 180 students, “we’re at capacity in the early college [Dogwood] building” Fox said. But because the Poplar Building is larger, “this is kind of a two part-plan. Expand the early college and add the middle school.”
The middle school will enroll significantly fewer students. According to Putnam, “complete enrollment [would be] somewhere between 50 and 100,” which could put a strain on county resources. But “what I’m thinking is this middle school will attract students that are not currently enrolled in Haywood County Schools,” Putnam said, adding that Fox had spoken of students at the early college with siblings in private or charter schools.
“So maybe, if we give them a middle school option, their younger siblings will choose the middle school,” Putnam said.
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In fact, according to Fox, early college philosophies will significantly influence life and learning at the middle school. The early college is an Apple Distinguished School, Fox said.
“This middle school will also use Apple technology,” she said. “So a lot of vertical alignment as far as technology… how we teach and learn, as well as culture.”
Putnam said the goal is also to get middle schoolers on college campuses “so that they can see what we’re trying to prepare them for,” though any higher education focus will be more general than the advising they’ll receive in high school.
The superintendent added that the “innovative middle school” will not have athletics or clubs, targeting students who “just want to get in there and be focused on their academics.” He spoke of the seven years he’d spent at Waynesville Middle School, where he’d encountered many students like this, kids who were “very academically-minded and college or career-driven.”
Putnam recalled that the “innovative middle school” even came up during one meeting with a student on Fox’s advisory council. “I leaned over to him, and I said, ‘would you have been interested in this?’...His face lit up: ‘Oh, yeah, I would’ve totally loved this.’”
The Cost of Enrollment
A March 2025 Smoky Mountain News article reported that Haywood County Schools lost 117 students in the past year due to a mix of factors, including increased virtual and brick-and-mortar charter school enrollment, flood-driven displacement and the closure of the Canton paper mill. And student departure is affecting how much county schools can spend; in March, Putnam said the budget is as slim as it’ll get. In the SMN story, Financial Officer Leanna Moody cited a “net loss of $259,000 to the school system” with “just the loss of those students.”
Speaking with SMN for this issue, Putnam stressed his desire to retain high-level courses despite funding limitations.
“One of the things I refuse to cut… I have seven additional teaching positions at Pisgah and seven at Tuscola that we do not receive money from the state for,” he said, explaining that these courses allow students to achieve the AP Capstone Diploma. In total, the superintendent estimated the two schools’ scholarship money amounts to around $5.5 million “because I spent the money on those seven AP classes at each of the traditional high schools….It’s an upfront investment.”
The innovative middle school appears to be an upfront investment in its own right; Putnam said the board approved a maximum of $900,000 in funding to renovate the Poplar Building for the early college so that the new school can move into the Dogwood Building. If any student currently in a private or charter school — including any younger siblings of those attending the Early College — switches to the new middle school, HCS could begin rebounding from the 117-student loss it experienced. And new enrollment numbers “will be additional funding, which will provide for more teaching, more teachers,” Putnam noted. He said he also expects more grants to become available in the future from non-state entities.
“We are in a competitive market,” he said. “And we’re just trying to provide other options within the public school system.”
