Effective Monday, Feb. 21, masks will be optional in Jackson County Schools. The decision was made at an emergency board meeting Thursday night and comes on the heels of updated COVID guidance and new direction from North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. 

By Rob Schofield • Guest Columnist | It’s a bedrock principle of American law that average people can vindicate their legal and constitutional rights in courts of law and have those courts compel or prevent acts of other branches of government. 

After years of working to provide public education during a pandemic without pay raises, or a state budget, public schools in North Carolina will once again operate with a state budget in place after it was signed Nov. 18 by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. 

Performance data recently released by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction shows that just 45.4% of elementary, middle and high school students passed state exams given during the 2020-21 school year and 29.6% passed college or career readiness tests. 

A packed room of Macon County residents pleaded with county commissioners during a May 13 meeting to provide the school system with more funding for arts education. 

It’s easy to imagine the ways in which a foreign exchange student’s world is broadened by an experience studying abroad, but for many of the families that host foreign students, the world grows just as much. 

By Mary Jane Curry • Guest Columnist | This a reply to a letter by David Parker that appeared in the March 31 issue. The matters discussed are continually relevant.

From whom in our local schools did you hear about the “violations of common sense,” the assaults on national respect you mention? What courses in the state university curricula are you unhappy with? What are your sources, Mr. Parker? Have you asked to visit some university classrooms?

Last year, Macon County Schools requested a nearly $2 million budget increase to fund additional staff positions. When the pandemic shuttered school doors during budget season last year, the request was dropped. But now, over a year into the pandemic, MCS has again requested the money to fill staffing needs within its schools. 

For Lin Forney, the end of fourth grade was the end of an era. 

The year was 1963, and the world was changing. Nine years earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision struck down the “separate-but-equal” precedent that allowed racial segregation in schools, and the Civil Rights movement was spurring change — or at least talk of it — in communities across the South. Now, that change was coming home to Haywood County. The schools were desegregating. 

Professors at Western Carolina University are tired of just talking about the importance of diversity within the teaching industry and are committed to turning all the talk into meaningful movement forward.