Blue Ridge principal to retire

By Lynn Hotaling

Members of the Jackson County Board of Education Monday (March 17) approved Principal Lib Balcerek's retirement, effective April 30.

When asked why she was leaving before the end of the school year, Balcerek said she has worked 30 years and is ready to retire.

"Blue Ridge is a good school with a good faculty," Balcerek said Tuesday. "They'll be fine."

Superintendent Mack McCary said he had urged Balcerek to stay at least through the end of the current school year, but she declined to do so. Balcerek's departure from the school is in no way connected to ongoing litigation that resulted from the sex scandal that rocked Blue Ridge almost two years ago, McCary said.

Balcerek was named as one of six defendants in a January 2002 lawsuit filed by Sybil Smith of Cashiers on behalf of her daughter, who was one of several teens involved in the 2001 sex scandal at Blue Ridge.

Smith's complaint stems from events that shocked the Blue Ridge School community and resulted in criminal charges against the school's athletic director and resource officer.

The lawsuit accuses Balcerek, the school board and former Jackson County Sheriff Jim Cruzan of negligent supervision of their employees and with failing to protect Smith's daughter from harm while she was at school.

Former Blue Ridge AD Joe Brooks pleaded guilty in July 2001 to having sex with a student and facilitating students having sex with each other both at his home and in his office during school hours. He was sentenced in November 2001 to five years in prison and is incarcerated at Mountain View Correctional Institute, a medium-security state facility in Spruce Pine.

Judge Marlene Hyatt denied Balcerek and other defendants' motions to dismiss the complaint and ruled in November that the lawsuit should proceed to trial.

A decision on Balcerek's replacement has not yet been made, the superintendent said. Balcerek's current contract would have expired June 30.

Balcerek has worked in Jackson County's public schools continuously since 1975. She went to Blue Ridge as assistant principal in December 1996 and was named principal the following November.

Balcerek, who earned her doctorate from the University of Tennessee around the time she was named principal at Blue Ridge, was assistant principal at Smokey Mountain Elementary until her 1996 reassignment to Blue Ridge. She has also served as a counselor at Sylva-Webster and later Smoky Mountain High.

Her appointment to the principalship at Blue Ridge was not without controversy because her brother, Frank Burrell, was superintendent in November 1997. School officials waived a nepotism policy to allow Balcerek to serve as principal and named Assistant Superintendent Nancy Sherrill to be Balcerek's immediate supervisor.

Also Monday:

- School officials told architect John Cort to proceed with plans for a six-laboratory science building at Smoky Mountain High to be constructed next to the existing "B" and "C" buildings.

Estimates place the cost of the new science space at about $3.4 million. When completed, it will provide handicap access for all three buildings through a system of ramps and an elevator in the new building.

New science laboratories have been listed as the top priority in the next phase of planned improvements at the 43-year old school. Plans call for the school's facade, lobby and existing cafeteria to be renovated at the same time the science building is being constructed, Cort said, bringing the total estimated project cost to $4.75 million.

School officials hope to have funding in place to put the project out for bids in May.

- Board members tabled a decision on a planned April 13-23 Discovery II field trip to Washington, D.C., citing concerns with regard to overnight trips with the United States poised for war with Iraq.

Smoky Mountain High's senior trip to the Virgin Islands was also mentioned as a "cause for concern," said McCary, as were county elementary schools' traditional eighth-grade trips to Raleigh and the N.C. coast; however, no trips have been cancelled at this point, he said.

Looming war creates a dilemma for school officials, McCary said.

"We don't want to stop our lives and let terrorists win, but on the other hand, our responsibility is to keep kids safe," McCary said.

- As part of an ongoing information-gathering process prior to finalizing the school system's budget for the next fiscal year, board members heard a request from Melinda Kuehn, president of the Jackson County Band Boosters.

Kuehn urged school officials to include funding to strengthen the overall band program by hiring an additional band instructor specifically to work with students in grades 6-8.

- Assistant Roy Douthitt demonstrated to board members Blue Ridge's website, www.blueridgeschoolpk12.com.

The new site was funded through two grants the school received, Douthitt said. Important features include allowing parents to access student grades through a secure password system and sending alerts to parents via email or cell phones in the event of a school emergency, Douthitt said.

Assisting in the presentation was Aaron Houghton, president of Preation Inc., the Chapel Hill-based software company that designed the site to meet Blue Ridge's needs and proposes to set up similar web sites for other schools in the county using the company's "MainBrain School" software.

Houghton, a 1999 SMHS graduate who will earn a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May, told school board members that MainBrain was one way to "bring education into the 21st century" by consolidating all school schedules and information online.

McCary expressed interest in the program.

"We're interested in evaluating what Blue Ridge has done and seeing if it has broader applications," McCary said.

Back to Archive: 03/20/03.