This year, the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation that allows charter schools to request capital funding from their local board of commissioners.

With accountability data released from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, all charter schools in the Smoky Mountain News’ four-county coverage area showed an increase in the percentage of students passing state exams during the 2022-23 school year compared to 2021-22 school year. 

Sometimes, it feels like we’re just nowhere in this life. It was like that for me in the early 1980s.

Last week, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction released performance and growth data for the 2022-23 school year, and none of the four school districts in the Smoky Mountain News coverage area received a low-performing state designation. 

For the third year running, freshman enrollment has increased at Western Carolina University, a metric that university leaders hope will signal an end to multiple years of falling enrollment in the wake of the Coronavirus Pandemic. 

After graduating its first senior class in the spring of 2022, Summit Charter School has broken ground on phase II of a high school expansion that will include a new building. 

After months of back and forth, the Macon County School Board has approved a lease agreement for the Higdon property, purchased by the county earlier this year for use by the school system. 

The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded Sara Snyder Hopkins, assistant professor and director of the Cherokee Language Program at Western Carolina University, a grant of $64,905 for her ongoing translation project, Eastern Cherokee Histories in Translation. 

Union Academy, an alternative high school in Macon County, will henceforth be known as Bartram Academy, home of the Explorers.

A lot has changed through the decades, but the excitement surrounding a back-to-school season remains.