Meet the new principal at Tuscola High

RUMBLE: You are the first female to be lead principal at Tuscola High School. Is this meaningful to you? 

Tuscola grad looking forward to future

The Class of 2020 — what a year to be alive, much less graduating high school and heading out into the real world. 

Tuscola still seeks ‘level playing field’

In January, Haywood County Schools Superintendent Dr. Bill Nolte told The Smoky Mountain News that HCS would engage in a “long haul process” to exhaust every “reasonable and legal thing that we can do” in the fight to reassign Tuscola High School’s athletic programs to a more appropriate division. 

Tuscola sports classification not all fun and games

Grumblings about Tuscola High School’s athletic reclassification from 2A to 3A seem to have fallen on deaf ears, but administrators at Haywood County Schools say they’re not yet done trying to bring attention to what they say is the school’s unfair plight. 

Haywood Schools will buy land adjacent to Tuscola

It took a while, but after a surprise addition to the Haywood Board of County Commissioners’ agenda, no small amount of debate and an unusual procedural move, Haywood County Schools will move forward with a land acquisition it’s been eyeing for more than a year. 

THE MILL VS THE HILL: Small town high school football in the rural South

Doug’s in Clyde is a typical manifestation of a stereotypical small-town barbershop in the rural American South. 

Its wooden walls are lined with knick-knacks, claptrap and faded family photos of people and places long gone. Three men stand behind three vintage teal and steel barber’s chairs, while three men sit in them. Others wait on red vinyl couches next to checkerboards beneath the watchful gaze of Andy Griffith and Floyd Lawson. 

Keil Nathan Smith - Friday Night

It's gameday in Haywood County! Here, for the first time anywhere, is Canton-based singer/songwriter Keil Nathan Smith's ode to one of the most intense high school football rivalries anywhere - the Black Bears of Pisgah High School versus the Tuscola High School Mountaineers. Scroll below to listen. 

 

 

Haywood Schools administrative staff takes shape

Just days after taking the reins as Haywood County Schools superintendent, Dr. Bill Nolte announced the support team that will help him maintain and improve upon the school district’s top-ten percent ranking in the years to come.

After an 80-minute closed session the night of July 12 during which the Haywood County Schools Board of Education deliberated over the changes, Nolte took to the podium to present them in open session.

“I want to thank the board for your support in putting, I believe, a strong senior administrative staff team in place that should carry us for the next five to 10 years,” he said, just after the board approved them unanimously.

Dr. Trevor Putnam will leave his job as Waynesville Middle School principal to become the associate superintendent for support services, managing facility use. He’ll also chair the policy committee, oversee random drug testing and serve as athletic director.

Also elevated to a sub-superintendent role is Jill Barker, who’ll serve as the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction and be responsible for enrollment, faculty curriculum and instruction, student transfers, remediation budgets, teacher allocations and some public information duties. Barker had been Pisgah High School’s principal.

Mark Sheppard assumes the role of transportation director, and is charged with managing transport operations, driver’s education and determining road quality during inclement weather. Sheppard’s old job of student services director has largely been subsumed into Dr. Putnam’s new position.

Todd Barbee moves to Waynesville Middle School to fill the role of principal at the system’s largest middle school, leaving Canton Middle School.

Carol Fox will leave her assistant principal role at Tuscola High School to serve as the new principal of Canton Middle School.

Kim Jackson is the new technology director, tasked with supervision of system infrastructure as well as library and media services; her old position of assistant technology director will likely go to a data specialist, according to Nolte.

Clint Conner is the new Pisgah High School principal, leaving his principal’s job at Clyde Elementary School.

Byron Burnette will serve as the new principal of Clyde Elementary School. Burnette leaves his assistant principal position at Pisgah High School; board member David Burnette recused himself from the vote on Byron Burnette due to a familial relationship.

Assistant principals are recommended by principals, and Nolte said he expects some recommendations to fill the open slots - those of Fox and Burnette - will be presented to the board on Monday, at its regularly scheduled meeting.

In a press release sent by HCS earlier this evening, Nolte said his only regret was not having “enough openings to place everyone who is qualified and ready.”

Look for more on this developing story in the next issue of Smoky Mountain News, on stands and online Wednesday, July 18. 

Pisgah-Tuscola rivalry is as good as it gets

op coxWhen my daughter, who is a freshman this year at Tuscola High School, made the Color Guard this summer, the first thought I had was that I would soon be seeing high school football games again for the first time since the late 1980s, when I was a fledgling sports writer for the Watauga Democrat in Boone. My second thought was that I would finally get my first real taste of the vaunted Tuscola-Pisgah rivalry, an intense battle that has been going on for more than 50 years.

Evacuation at Tuscola: All OK after threatening email sent to high school

fr tuscolaThings are back to normal at Tuscola High School after an emailed threat prompted a complete evacuation of the school April 30.

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