Shining Rock Classical Academy has a history of transparency problems, but after an Aug. 19 meeting with representatives of local media, it looks like the taxpayer-funded school’s unelected board is finally going to do something about it. 

Editor’s note: This is the seventh in a series of stories on Haywood County’s public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, which has been beset by a host of academic and organizational problems since opening in 2015.

Since 2015, Haywood County’s first public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, has used more than $2.75 million in local taxpayer money to educate children to a level far below the county average, and also below the state average.

Transparency and accountability have long been concerns at Shining Rock Classical Academy — since before the troubled taxpayer-funded school even opened its doors in 2015 — and if recent events are any indication, new leadership at the school doesn’t seem interested in doing anything to change that. 

In the beginning, one doesn’t even think about the long run. When you’re fighting every day to survive, there’s no time to look over your shoulder. Slow down long enough to take in what’s in the rearview mirror, and you’re all too likely to get eaten alive by those who would love nothing better than to chew up and spit out the upstart.

It’s one of those anniversaries most would rather forget: April 20, 1999, the Columbine High School shooting. Two high school seniors murdered 12 fellow students and a teacher, and they shot and injured another 21 people before they committed suicide. They also brought bombs to the school, so the carnage could have been much worse. 

Twenty years later, the tally of school shootings and mass killings continues to mount. That shooting and its aftermath changed this country, but rather than coming together to find ways to reduce random mass shootings we’ve instead become numb, seemingly accepting the reality that they are part of life in 21st century America.

Tribal Council got off to an unusual start in April of last year when Councilmember Tommye Saunooke, of Painttown, asked Tribal Council to begin the meeting by voting on a proposal that was absent from the day’s 28-item agenda. 

“Mr. Chairman, at this time, I’d like to make a move that the only press allowed in our Cherokee chambers will be Cherokee press,” Saunooke said. 

A little more than two weeks ago I was part of a public radio panel that was discussing the “state of media in Western North Carolina.” The catalyst for the show was the Gannet corporation’s — owner of USA Today and more than 100 dailies and 1,000 weeklies — nationwide layoff of reporters and editors, including five at the Asheville Citizen-Times. We discussed the importance and relevance of local newspapers and media sites, and how our communities are adapting to the shift away from one or two dominant — and trustworthy — media sources. 

Right around this time of year, journalists from across the state gather at the North Carolina Press Association awards ceremony in Raleigh. It’s a chance for all of us “in the trenches” to catch up, compare notes, and simply take a moment to reflect on another year in the books.

In terms of journalism and media in North Carolina, very few names are as recognizable as that of Frank Stasio. Host of the WUNC (North Carolina Public Radio) weekday program “The State of Things” (based out of the American Tobacco Historic District in Durham), Stasio and his platform have become a beacon of light for politics, culture, history and societal dialogue across the Tar Heel State. 

By John Hood • Guest Columnist

I have written a syndicated column on politics and public policy for North Carolina newspapers since 1986. Have I influenced how readers think about the issues I discuss? I certainly hope so, at least to some extent.

But there are plenty of smart people, scholars of public opinion and political behavior, who question whether editorials, columns, and op-eds matter. Some argue that political attitudes are so deeply felt, so bound up with partisan affiliation and personal experience, that they rarely change in response to what people read. This is especially true, the argument goes, for the political insiders who wield a disproportionate influence on policy outcomes.