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School officials to consider transporting charter school grads to Smoky Mountain

By Lynn Hotaling
When local school officials meet next week, they are expected to discuss a controversial subject: Providing transportation down the mountain for Cashiers-area students who prefer to attend high school in Sylva.

If a formal request is received from parents of recent Summit Charter School graduates for transportation to Smoky Mountain High, Jackson County's School Board will discuss the matter at its next meeting, Wednesday, July 5, at 6 p.m., said board Chairman Martha Queen.

An informal inquiry has been made on behalf of eight to 10 students, said Superintendent Frank Burrell. Queen said she would like to have a formal request before opening the matter to discussion.

"If it's a formal request, we need serious discussion," Queen said during the board's June 26 meeting.

If transportation is offered, it cannot be limited to Summit graduates, board attorney Paul Holt said.

School Board member James Roper said he has received calls in opposition to providing such transportation. "That's a sneaky way of moving our school," he said he was told by one caller.

Policy in Jackson County has historically been to limit bus transportation to students attending school in their own district, Burrell said. About a dozen students per year request transfers from Blue Ridge to SMHS, he said.

Parents making the request are not satisfied with the number of course offerings at K-12 Blue Ridge, the high school that serves the southern end of the county, said Burrell.

Smoky Mountain, the county's largest school, ended the past school year with 897 students in grades 9-12; Blue Ridge, the system's smallest, had 274 students in grades K-12 and only 84 in high school.

Blue Ridge Principal Lib Balcerek said students who choose Smoky Mountain over Blue Ridge must be seeking a comprehensive high school, which Blue Ridge is not.

"I assume they're after a vocational program," Balcerek said. "If they want a good liberal arts, college prep program, Blue Ridge has that."

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