At the first class meetings of the year, students expected to hear Prin-cipal Dean Jones remind them to

“Do what’s right, all the time.” Instead, they heard, “Wash your hands a lot. Then wash them some more. Wash them for the length of time it takes to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice.” School officials, including Kim Berry, West’s school nurse, are concerned about the possibility of an H1N1 outbreak this fall and winter. “‘Swine flu’ itself is something of a misnomer,” Berry said. "Originally, they were thinking that it was from pigs; that’s why it got the name ‘swine flu.’ The newer things that I’m reading say that it’s just really similar to that virus and maybe it wasn’t exactly the same as the virus that infects pigs or swine.” H1N1 is distinctive in that it has claimed the lives of a wide age range, kill-ing people indiscriminately. Normal flu generally produces a higher fatality rate among the elderly and very young, but H1N1 flu is unique; some of the most at-risk groups are teens and young adults. Most individuals hospitalized with H1N1 have been between the ages of 5 and 24 and 80 percent were under age 50. Schools have taken extra precautions against the spread of H1N1, including op-portunities for students to get flu vaccines and efforts to promote good hygiene. “There’s been an Alert-Now message to students’ homes talking about frequent hand washing and other hygiene issues. If you have a fever that’s over 100, we recom-mend that you go and get checked by your doctor,” Principal Dean Jones said. “Once you do have a fever, we’re asking that you stay home until you’ve been fever-free for at least 24 hours.” Jones said students will need to use their absences wisely. “These absences typically aren’t waived. It’s the same as if you just had a regular sickness. Now if it becomes a chronic or a long-term illness, then certainly those days can go before the waiver committee.” Henderson County Public Schools are following the most recent guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Students who become sick should stay at home and away from public places for at least 24 hours after the fever dissipates. If students do contract the H1N1 flu, they can expect the same symptoms as sea-sonal flu: sore throat, fatigue, fever, aches and a runny nose. The Buncombe County school sys-tem has already experienced increased absences related to flu. “We don't have an exact figure for H1N1 cases, but out of 26,000 students in Buncombe County, we have 1,700 to 2,000 absences per day, which is much higher than usual for this time of year," Jan Blunt, director of communications for Buncombe County Schools, said.

8

6Pro athletesdouble as

role models

“You can always cram another baby in there.”

Alex Fisher, senior (discussing Colonial-era

bathing methods)

“If a three-legged cat climbs a tree on someone else’s property, you do have the right to stir fry it.”

Ben Seneker, social studies teacher

(talking about the legislative process)

“AP stands for ‘Always Pleasant.’ So we don’t say ‘shut up’; we turn to the person and say, ‘Please be quiet or I’ll bust three caps in you.”

Ken Rash, substitute teacher (discussing the

meaning of Advanced Placement)

2009 Homecoming Queen Merritt Smith and her escort,

Hunter Edmundson

•Homecomingqueen announced

Woodstock festivalstill oneof a kindwingspan

3600 Haywood Road, Hendersonville, N.C. 28791 • Volume XXVIII, Issue 1 • October 26, 2009

WEST HENDERSON HIGH SCHOOL

5Is Internetworth

the dangers?Oct. 30Nov. 6 Nov. 11Nov. 25-27

Teacher Work DayEarly Dismissal Day

Veterans’ Day HolidayThanksgiving Break

HHeard

in the

all

Looking A head

Yes78%

No22%

Did the cafeteria renovations

improve lunch service?

(based on a survey of 226 students)

Peregrine

Poll

School system avoids layoffs, reduces energy useMatthew Thielke

Sports Editor

Schools preparefor H1N1

Josh WentzelAsst. Opinion Editor

Senior Merritt Smith was crowned 2009 home-coming queen at halftime of the football against Brevard on Oct. 16. Smith was escorted by senior Hunter Edmund-son. Also representing the senior class were Ashley Ball, escorted by senior Matthew McMullen; Beth-any Humberg, escorted by senior Drew Adams; Yaneli Padron, escorted by senior Matthew Roberts; and Kaylan Proctor, escorted by sophomore Caleb Brown. Representing the junior class were Whitney Howell, Hannah Wilson and Aubrey Masters. Alisha Carland and Catherine Swift represent-ed the sophomore class, and Gabrielle Ball and Jac-queline Black represented the freshman class.

Phot

os b

y Je

ssic

a To

bin

School DaysIn a classroom at Blue Ridge Community

College, Lisa Hill (above) teaches her class of sophomores at Henderson County’s Early College. The students take high school and

college classes on the BRCC campus. Students (right) including former West student Haley

Brazell (left) listen to Hill’s lecture.

Students offeredlearning alternativeat community college

Natalie RiceFeature Writer

While students and teachers were on summer vacation, Dr. Ste-phen Page, superintendent of

the Henderson County Public Schools, and his staff struggled to make ends meet — literally. As members of North Carolina’s Gen-eral Assembly worked to create a balanced state budget with an anticipated $4 billion shortfall in revenue, the effects trickled down to the local school system. Local school officials were left hanging until a state budget was signed by Gov. Beverly Perdue on Aug. 7. “The state budget situation made for a very unhappy summer,” Page said. “We couldn’t get any closure. I personally have a hard time taking vacation and time off unless I can have some resolution in my mind that we have things worked out.” There were concerns about what would be cut from the state’s budget and

A week before the Henderson County schools opened for the 2009-2010 academic year, sopho-more Haley Brazell was already headed back to

class. Worried about whether she would know anyone in her new school, Brazell walked into a room full of stu-dents waiting for the first day of speech class. Her anxiety faded away when she saw some familiar faces sitting, waiting for the teacher. “I was so glad for the day to be over. It’s always the worst because you don’t know what to expect. But I was also excited because I love this school so much. I was so glad that I made the decision to come here,” Brazell said. Brazell is one of the 78 students attending Hender-son County’s new Early College. Included are 16 students that have been or would have been West students. Early College is a specialized high school program where students agree to attend school for five years in-stead of the usual four, and in that time, they earn a high school diploma as well as a two-year associate’s degree. • See College on Page 2

• See Budget on Page 2

FirstClass

The motivation for many students to attend Early College is financial. Early College graduates get their first two years of college free. Brazell had a different reason for enrolling in the program after her freshman year at West. She said she wanted a smaller school setting than West offered so that she could receive more attention in her classes. She also wanted to attend a school where she would know everyone. “I thought that it would be a great opportunity be-cause it saves a lot of money, and it’s completely differ-ent than West. There were too many people. It was really crowded, and it just wasn’t something that I liked,” Bra-zell said. While Early College is a good opportunity for some, for others it isn’t a good fit. West sophomore Genesis Santiago attended Early College for a week before she decided that the school didn’t meet her needs. “I left because Early College didn’t have the math that my teacher said I needed to take. They just didn’t have the right options for me,” Santiago said. Planning for the Early College began last year, but educational leaders ran into challenges as the school year approached. On Aug. 8, the original principal of Early College resigned. On Aug. 11 Dr. Helen Owen, the secondary director of math, science, arts and second lan-guages for grades six through 12, was named principal. Because of budget constraints, the grant that plan-ners applied for wasn’t approved until Aug. 11. But in the spring, the school system had decided that regardless of

“

In the end it turned out OK in a sense that we were able to balance the budget and didn’t have to cut or do anything worse.

“

Dr. Stephen Page superintendent

how many teachers would lose their jobs. “We were one of the few systems around who did not lay anybody off. I’m sure there were many teachers that were anxious until we got the (state’s final) budget,” Page said. “But nobody got the pink slip, and nobody got called in and told the budget has been cut and we can’t keep you.” The stimulus bill that was passed last January by the U.S. Congress con-tributed to balancing the state budget. It supplied money needed to main-tain teaching positions. Many of these jobs could have been lost. “We would have had to lay off teaching assis-tants if we did not have monies available through the stimulus package, but if the stimulus money goes away and we haven’t

found a way to pay the salaries of those assistants, then we could have layoffs,” he said. Page and the school board plan to cut

expenses in other ways as well, including energy conservation. Henderson County Public Schools re-cently signed a two-year contract with Educon, an energy management company. “They guaranteed that we would save enough money to pay for the con-tract, and they would pay the salary of the energy manager,” Page said. Refrigerators, micro-wave ovens, fans, heaters and other household ap-pliances that were used in

some classrooms have been removed to help cut energy consumption. “We couldn’t let everybody have his

or her own refrigerator,” Page said. “Class-rooms are just that and not extensions of their homes. I had a refrigerator I took out. I try to live by the same things I expect people to live by.” The school system avoided imple-menting the pay-to-play athletic plan discussed last spring. Under the plan, stu-dent athletes would have paid a fee to par-ticipate in athletics. “We had talked about a $15 fee per athlete for middle school and $25 for high school, but that recommendation will not be taken to the school board,” Page said. School officials eliminated money for Advanced Placement exams as a way to cut the budget. In the past, the school system had a budget of $50,000 to cover the cost of approximately 650 AP tests. Students in AP classes must now pay the $86 fee for each test. Students on a free or reduced lunch can still receive assistance. “We couldn’t find any other school system that pays for students to take the