Following the damage caused by Hurricane Helene, Haywood County Schools reopened its doors to students and staff last week. 

With the North Carolina General Assembly’s preliminary $273 million relief bill in the rearview mirror, Western North Carolina Sen. Kevin Corbin (R-Macon) is looking down the road at the General Assembly’s next move — a billion-dollar relief bill coming Oct. 24. During a recent meeting with Haywood County officials, Corbin spent about an hour trying to learn what, exactly, the needs are.  

“I can promise you what you won't get,” Corbin said. “You won't get things you don't ask for.”

The Academy, an alternative service for middle grades students, will return to Haywood County Schools in the coming year as one of the school system’s budget expansion priorities. 

Haywood County Schools has increased the number of people it employs to care for and monitor students’ mental health this year, largely due to increased funding from the county commission that allowed for additional school resource officers. 

History will whisper through the mountain mists that once upon a time, Pactiv Evergreen’s paper mill in Canton stood as a symbol of industry and economic prosperity for generations. But behind its towering façade, the specter of mismanagement and malfeasance eventually led to a botched closing announcement, a health care coverage crisis and more than a thousand workers helplessly watching their good-paying jobs evaporate like morning dew in the midday summer sun.

More than three months after a rezoning request revealed plans by Haywood County Schools to consolidate several facilities on a new piece of property in Waynesville, Superintendent Trevor Putnam was given access to the funding that will make acquisition of the parcel possible. 

A relatively routine rezoning request for a parcel off Ratcliff Cove Road has inadvertently revealed multi-million dollar plans by Haywood County Schools to consolidate several of its auxiliary services in one central location — a move that could affect multiple facilities and have a ripple effect on several other ongoing county issues.

When the Haywood County School Board announced that it had chosen Trevor Putnam as the system’s new superintendent, I can’t think of a single person who follows education news in this region that was surprised. People were making that call even before Superintendent Bill Nolte announced his relatively sudden November retirement.

Just over a month after Superintendent Dr. Bill Nolte announced his impending retirement, the Haywood County School Board has chosen to forgo a search process in favor of its established succession plan and selected its new superintendent — Dr. Trevor Putnam.

It’s not something that happens all that often, but a late fourth-quarter drive by Western North Carolina’s state and local elected officials helped them find pay dirt in the end zone — in this case, raising the coronavirus-related capacity limits on outdoor high school athletic events.