Officer Michael Harrison has confiscated everything from buck knives and Airsoft pistols from students at Swain High — but never a real gun. Until last week.

Harrison and the principal discovered a .22 Remington rifle and assorted ammunition in the tool-box of student’s pick-up truck left behind in the school parking lot after the 17-year-old was arrested for unrelated charges.

Some schools are thinking twice about the long standing practice of passing out fast-food coupons to children as rewards.

Haywood County Schools will lose about $30,000 in yearly revenue now that the Waynesville ABC Board has decided build a second liquor store.

The town shares a cut of profits from liquor sales with the county and law enforcement. Haywood County in turn shares its cut of ABC profits with school system.

A $2.5 million expansion at Pisgah High School in Canton will relieve chronic overcrowding and a classroom shortage that forces some teachers to spend their days as “floaters.”

Down by six touchdowns to the University of Alabama at halftime, Western Carolina University head coach Mark Speir never gave up on his team.

“When you’re getting into an ugly ball game like that, our players didn’t quit playing; they kept fighting,” he said. “At halftime, we were going to play for 30 more minutes and see where our program is at in [its] infant stage.”

Swain County voters are being asked this election whether they want a quarter-cent sales tax increase to help pay for school construction.

The quarter-cent sales tax would bring in roughly $250,000 a year and would pay for a $2 million expansion of East Elementary. The additional classrooms would let the school do away with “dilapidated” modular units that currently serve as classrooms to handle overcrowding, said County Manager Kevin King.

In the Sept. 19 edition of The Smoky Mountain News, there were some disturbing quotes from some of the local candidates for the N.C. legislature in regard to the importance of funding the NC Pre-K program (formerly known as More at Four). This is a program that offers a stimulating educational environment for at-risk children so that healthy brain development is encouraged and kids are ready for kindergarten. As one who has worked with some of the wreckage of this population of children for years, I can say that this is a program that is serving a critical need for our communities. It is taking some of our most fragile children and giving them opportunities to learn and play while teaching and reinforcing basic social skills at a very critical developmental age. Yes, it costs money. But it is either pay now or pay later, and I promise you the pay later option is much more expensive both in dollars and wasted lives.

Dawn Gilchrist-Young doesn’t just read and teach books, she defends them.

As chair of the English department for Swain County High School, Gilchrist-Young is joining “Banned Books Weeks”, which is a nationwide celebration this week in honor of one of our greatest freedoms. 

At first glance, this 14-year-old girl with a soft smile and a round face may seem like the all-American kid.

She’s been in Girl Scouts since the first grade. Her dad works in construction. Currently a high school sophomore, she hopes to work in the medical field some day.

At first blush, an obscure change to state law stipulating how many days students have to go to school each year seems like semantics.

But in fact, it could give local school districts flexibility to cut the number of school days in a year and instead go for longer hours — a schedule that could help cash-strapped school systems save money.