With the realization that students won’t be returning to school until at least May 15, public school systems in Western North Carolina are adjusting their calendars while continuing to educate and feed their students. 

As schools shut down across the state as part of Gov. Roy Cooper’s executive order, public school systems are trying to mitigate the impact on local families. 

Haywood County Schools board members got their first look at a proposed budget for the next fiscal year last week, which contained few surprises and continued to concentrate on some much-needed capital improvement projects. 

Tribal Council approved an $89,745 donation to Jackson County Schools during its Budget Council meeting Tuesday, Feb. 4, money that will pay for desks, chairs and smart blackboards system classrooms. 

A consultant with the North Carolina Office of Charter Schools recommended that Shining Rock Classical Academy’s charter should be renewed for five years despite ongoing concerns about the school’s lack of transparency, and the state’s director of charter schools has refused to answer why. 

After 2018’s deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, county and school system officials in Jackson County put their heads together to come up with a plan to reduce the chances of such a tragedy someday happening locally. After more than a year of planning and research, the school system is now getting close to implementing the more complex of those safety measures.

Is it a Taj Mahal or a wise use of tax dollars? 

I’m talking about the proposal to spend around $13 million to build a central office for the Haywood County School System that will bring administration, food services, transportation, teacher/staff training facilities and more all under one roof.

Haywood County has taken its first formal step forward in pursuit of a proposed $13 million, 40,000-square-foot central administration facility requested by Haywood County Schools. 

With a major new administration facility proposed and a shuttered elementary school still sitting empty, Haywood County Schools finds itself at a crossroads as its schools fill up, even before a number of new apartment complexes plan to accept new tenants in the coming months.

With a new school year just begun, the 300 students who participate in Waynesville Middle School’s robust agriculture program now have an array of new woodshop equipment at their disposal. 

“In two weeks this will be like Santa’s little helper’s woodshop,” Noal Castater, agriculture teacher at WMS since 2010, said in an interview the Friday before the first day of school.