Jackson County Public Schools announced that current assistant principal Joey Robinson has been named the new principal at Smoky Mountain High School. Robinson will step into his new role on July 1. 

The Catamount School, a laboratory school operating on the campus of Smoky Mountain High School, will relocate to the campus of Western Carolina University next school year after Jackson County Public Schools approved a relocation plan due to the need for more space at Smoky Mountain High School. 

The memorandum of understanding between Jackson County Public Schools and the Catamount School is up for annual review, and this year, JCPS is reconsidering the agreement that permits the Catamount School to operate on the campus of Smoky Mountain High School, where it occupies valuable classroom space in a system that needs all the room it can get. 

A facilities study for Jackson County Schools that will help inform capital improvements for years to come found several schools in the county are overcrowded, something administration and school board members hope a traditional middle school will help alleviate.  

A group of Smoky Mountain High School seniors could be facing criminal charges for what administrators see as taking a senior prank a step too far.

The arrival of COVID-19 in the United States caused a storm of cancelations, closures, warnings and fears, but there’s one in particular that hit home for Smoky Mountain High School senior Ryan Holler. 

It will cost nearly half a million dollars to upgrade facilities at the Smoky Mountain High School baseball fields to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

A plan to replace the football field at Smoky Mountain High School with artificial turf is likely to move ahead following an engineer’s finding that the work could be done well within Jackson County Public School’s $715,000 cap for the project.

It doesn’t get much fresher than this.

Horticulture students at Smoky Mountain High School in Sylva are helping to feed their peers by supplying the school cafeteria with lettuce.

Students are growing lettuce hydroponically in a greenhouse, where plant roots grow in a nutrient-rich water rather than soil.

“Our students are really benefitting from this program,” said Jeremy Jones, the horticulture teacher. “Not only are they learning about an important agricultural process, they’re also getting to see the results of their work as the lettuce ends up in salads in the cafeteria where they eat.”

The idea was initiated by Jackson County Schools Nutrition Director Jim Hill, who brought the idea with him from Haywood Community College. Horticulture students there do the same thing.

It took a while to perfect the growing system and experiment with varieties of leaf lettuce that would produce the most yield.

Students in the horticulture class learned how to harvest the leaves for the first time recently. By taking the outside leaves and leaving the new growth in the center, the plant will continue to produce a harvest for quite some time. Students have also had the benefit of a visit from Jackson County Farmer William Shelton, owner of Shelton Family Farms, who has been growing hydroponic bibb lettuce for commercial sale for 24 years. His firsthand experience has encouraged several students to consider this as a successful alternative to conventional farming.