With only three days of school under their belts, students attending Shining Rock Classical Academy were already settling into their routine on Monday morning.

The guessing game of how many students will jump ship from Haywood County Schools to attend a new charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, won’t be known until the first day of school next week.

Neighbors who live near the proposed site of a new charter school in Haywood County plan to oppose a special use permit that would allow the school to be built in their community.

A damaged corn crop and a no trespassing order from a farmer’s lawyer could thwart Shining Rock Classical Academy’s goal of finding a permanent home for the new charter school by December.

Shining Rock Classical Academy, a new charter school opening in Haywood County next month, will pull in more than $2 million in state and county tax dollars its first year if the current enrollment of around 230 students holds.

As a public entity receiving public dollars, Shining Rock Classical Academy — Haywood County’s first charter school — is required to follow the state’s Public Records and Open Meetings laws.

“Hey buddy, you about ready to come out?” Michael Skinner asks the juvenile broadwing hawk standing in the back of a plastic carrying case. 

Skinner, executive director of the Balsam Mountain Trust and jack of all environmental trades, slowly reaches his gloved hands inside and pulls the raptor out. The bird flaps its brown-and-white wings for a moment but quickly settles down. Skinner sets him atop the cage for a moment, where he sits untethered, surveying the small storage room where Skinner keeps supplies for the nature center’s diverse charges — everything from box turtles to an opossum to a bald eagle.

Haywood School Superintendent Anne Garrett came up with a novel approach for predicting how many students a new charter school will siphon out of the public school system.

Third-grade teacher Carolyn Cope deals with many stresses day in and day out —making sure her students are happy and healthy, teaching them a new curriculum and making sure she’s prepared them well enough to pass their extensive reading tests.

After signing a five-year lease for a 29-acre property on Ratcliffe Cove Road, just past the traffic circle in Waynesville, Haywood County’s first charter school will soon be able to move somewhere a little bigger than the single-room office it now rents downtown.