Late Thursday night. I’m sitting in my recliner. Netflix and the half-full lukewarm beer next to the chair have both lost my interest. I lean back into a horizontal position and take inventory of my apartment, the humble abode that I’ve called home going on nine years now.
The first thing my eyes gravitate toward is the wrinkled and ripped Jack Kerouac poster on the wall nearest my front door. Purchased my freshman year of college in Connecticut, the large piece of printed paper has followed me throughout my entire adult journey thus far, just like the words do of the author whose face looks directly at mine when I walk outside each and every day. Always looking. Always judging, perpetually posing the age-old question, “Are you living the life that you so choose?”
Haywood County is getting a new high school.
During Shining Rock Classical Academyâs December meeting, board members decided to begin offering high school grades starting in August 2021.
State law allows Shining Rock to add one grade level per year, and the board decided that the 2021-22 school year was the best time to offer ninth grade.
An additional high school grade will be added each year afterward.
During a nearly three-hour virtual meeting, the board weighed the risks of moving forward. In the end, the vote passed 5-2, with board members Melanie Norman and Larry Wilkerson opposing.
Both Norman and Wilkerson questioned whether it would be more beneficial to delay the initiation of high school grades and remain as a K-8 school.