In 2020, Henderson County public school students participated in mock elections to learn voting’s importance, but North Carolina’s 2023 “Parents’ Bill of Rights” halted such activities by requiring parental opt-in. Historically, civics education has been deprioritized due to standardized testing mandates focusing on math and reading, rising STEM emphasis, and political polarization. These factors, alongside parental pressures and unclear teaching boundaries, have constrained quality civics teaching. Educators report increased challenges discussing contentious issues, leading some to stop teaching civics. This undermines voter engagement, as early education and preregistration significantly encourage adult voting. Political polarization and community dynamics further reduce youth political involvement.
by Sarah Michels, Carolina Public Press August 19, 2025
In 2020, while their parents planned pilgrimages to the polls, Henderson County public school students from Kindergarten to 12th grade cast ballots of their own. In this civic education exercise, the youngest grades voted on whether there should be more hopscotches painted on the playground and jump ropes for recess, while grades 3-5 weighed in on whether all citizens 18 and older should be required to vote.
Depending on the grade, students also voted in the U.S. president, North Carolina governor, congressional and school board contests.
Of course, none of it counted toward the results. But the exercise counted in other ways. It taught kids about the importance and impact of voting from an early age.
Research shows that people who practice voting early tend to become more active voters as adults, said Bettie Liebzeit, co-chair of Students Voting for Democracy, a program run by the Henderson County League of Women Voters and Henderson County Public Schools every two years.
That is, until 2024. After the North Carolina legislature passed the “Parents’ Bill of Rights” in mid-2023, parents had to “opt in” before students could participate in surveys revealing political beliefs.
The legislation sounded the death knell for the mock elections, which were interpreted to be included in the policy.
“The problem was how to keep track of parents opting in, and how the digital facilitator was going to know which students had parents opting in and then sending the ballot electronically,” Liebzeit said. “We’re talking about 14,000 kids here.”
It’s not the first time the General Assembly has hindered civic education efforts, perhaps unintentionally.
In 2009, the legislature passed a law allowing preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds, including a requirement for county boards of elections to conduct preregistration drives at public high schools. In 2013, the law was repealed. While a court eventually allowed preregistration to continue, the county boards of election education mandate never returned.
The exclusion may have had real impacts.
Research shows that a combination of preregistration and a class demonstration has the largest influence on whether a student will ultimately vote, said Duke political science professor Sunshine Hillygus.
But now that it’s not required, a survey of North Carolina high schools found that only about half were doing any sort of voter registration at all, she said.
A man places signs at Highland Recreation Center polling place in Hickory in Catawba County during Super Tuesday’s primary on March 5, 2024. Melissa Sue Gerrits / Carolina Public Press
This is the second article in Civics Unlearned, a three-part investigative series from Carolina Public Press. This article explores how conflicting priorities and inconsistent delivery have hamstrung quality civic education.
The first article in this series showed that deprioritized and inconsistent civic education in North Carolina classrooms has likely hindered it from effectively spurring civic engagement evenly across the state. The final article will suggest ways to bolster civic education and engagement, both within and beyond the formal education system.
Civics left behind
Why has teaching civics been given a lower priority and been done in an inconsistent manner in North Carolina? Among the top culprits are standardized testing, STEM education and a polarized political climate, according to interviews with teachers, students and academics.
In 2002, Congress passed a bipartisan education reform bill: No Child Left Behind. The U.S. government was concerned about globalization, and the prospect of competing with the rest of the world economically.
President George W. Bush’s solution? Standardized tests. To get federal funding, states would have to hold their schools accountable by setting standards in subjects like math and reading, seen as measures of economic success.
The problem was, other subjects fell to the wayside as teachers worked frantically to get their students to pass exams. Those subjects included social studies, and more specifically, civics.
Students work on assignments at the Franklin School of Innovation in Asheville in 2016. Colby Rabon / Carolina Public Press
“We became very, very concerned about student achievement, especially achievement in the areas that would not only pay people more money, but also would make us economically powerful as a country,” UNC Charlotte political science professor Jason Giersch said.
At the time, North Carolina was already having students take exit exams at the end of each grade in core classes: math, reading, writing, science, history, geography and civics. In 2011, after a testing pushback, the General Assembly removed the state’s civics exams to limit testing to only what was federally required.
Even when there was standardized testing in civics, social studies teachers told Hillygus that it was mostly “smoke and mirrors.” The tests were more about the ability to read a historical passage than actual practical knowledge, they said.
In 2015, No Child Left Behind was axed in favor of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which gave states more flexibility, but still required measuring reading, math and science performance.
Throughout this time period, STEM education — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — was gaining momentum. Again, the focus was on developing a generation of workers who could bring the country economic success.
“There’s a lot of pop these days, especially in higher education, on return on investment,” Giersch said. “So what majors and what classes are going to give a financial return in the form of more earning potential? Not many people argue that your salary is higher if you learn more civics.”
Principals aren’t losing their jobs because of low civics scores or engagement, said youth civic organization GenerationNation executive director Amy Farrell. So naturally, it garners less investment, financially and otherwise.
In fact, according to a 2020 study, the federal government at that time invested 5 cents per K-12 student for civic education, compared to $54 for STEM.
“What we hear a lot from students is that they just don’t hear from adults that this is important,” Farrell said.
Elementary schools might have social studies class once a week, and might have to share the time with science, Farrell said. Civics is perceived as extra, an add-on, despite being one of the primary reasons the public school system exists.
The tides may be shifting. People on both sides of the political aisle are noticing the effects of a civically challenged electorate, Giersch said.
“We have low levels of trust in one another, low levels of trust in democratic systems, low levels of trust in the government, low levels of trust in election results, and a lot of people are saying what we need is more civic education,” he said.
Class cancelled: Polarization enters civics class
A few years ago in Wilmington, John T. Hoggard High School social studies teacher Lindsay Noble asked her principal not to assign her civics classes anymore.
She had taught government and civics courses since 2001, and took pride in her work informing students how to vote and participate in civic society. But about a decade ago, the mood changed.
Lindsay Noble, left, poses with a student in her New Hanover County classroom. She is a former civics teacher who now teaches economics and personal finance at Hoggard High School in Wilmington. Provided / Lindsay Noble
Students got bolder, and less patient with each other, making civil discussions tenser. Parents wary of teachers pushing political agendas paid more attention — and objected — to lesson plans, and constantly got Noble and her colleagues called into the office.
“When I get to the section of immigration, it’s always been a difficult thing to talk about,” she said “And then abortion also has always been difficult to talk about, and now? Pretty much everything.”
In her colleagues’ English classes, book bans are complicating matters. In their science classes, there’s uncertainty about how to cover evolution. There is no break from parental commentary on teaching, Noble said.
For her, the breaking point came during the pandemic when she was teaching a lesson on the influence of polls, using a contemporary political issue: the Black Lives Matter movement.
Noble had her students, half in person and half virtual, listen to a short NPR podcast discussing a recent poll about whether people felt more emboldened to comment online in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement. The podcast mentioned President Donald Trump’s rhetoric surrounding the issue.
Suddenly, a parent popped into the Zoom call and accused Noble of indoctrinating her students. Noble didn’t know how to react. She went home and cried. While the administration supported her, it was the last straw. She’s done with civics.
“You try to walk a very, very narrow path so that you don’t offend somebody, but at the same time, you’re trying to teach these students facts,” she said.
In Morganton, Burke Middle College civics teacher Timothy Barnsback said the Parents’ Bill of Rights is “the Citizens United of teaching history.”
“We’re becoming customer service as a result, rather than creating an environment for our students that is best for the very diverse population of students that we have in our classrooms,” he said.
In recent years, membership in the Professional Educators of North Carolina has dropped about 65%, Barnsback said. North Carolina Association of Educators membership also plummeted. That tells him that teachers aren’t willing to put up a fight.
“I don’t think enough teachers are fighting because they’re worried about the public pressure that they may receive, or getting called into the principal’s office because we’re not allowed to teach certain concepts, even though they are probably the things that our students desire the most to learn about,” Barnsback said.
Bryan Proffitt is the vice president of the NCAE, but used to be a social studies teacher in Wake and Durham counties until 2015.
When he was in the classroom, he didn’t feel any political pressure, he said. But now, he hears about it all the time from his peers. He feels that there’s an effort to keep people divided politically, and keeping civic education on the backburner serves that purpose.
With the passage of the Parents’ Bill of Rights and legislation targeting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in schools and public life, teachers aren’t sure what it is that they can and can’t teach, Proffitt said.
“You also have people that are saying, ‘Look, I just need to follow the rules and be consistent with these standards, whether or not it is meeting kids’ needs, because I’m afraid of getting in trouble. I’m afraid of losing my job,’” he added.
At Rockingham Early College High School in Wentworth, social studies teacher Valencia Abbott isn’t going to let any of that stop her from following the standards as she sees fit.
She gets reported to the principal or called out in public probably every month, she said. She’s the only teacher of color at her school, so it’s “par for the course,” she said.
“I’m not concerned about what the political climate is, or if somebody’s going to get upset,” she said. “It is like, this is what the standards are. This is what my students need. This is what I’m going to teach.”
‘You’re losing me’
While civic education is a crucial factor in eventual civic engagement — or disengagement — other variables have to be considered.
Nearly half of North Carolina’s residents are transplants from other states or countries, according to a 2018 report by Carolina Demography. Their range of educational experiences and backgrounds may play a part in a civic detachment.
“They don’t have a longtime involvement in their communities in terms of civic activities,” Giersch said. “They don’t know what the local politicians are. They don’t know what the issues have been over the past few generations.”
Trump supporters do some last-minute campaigning just outside of the polling area at North Buncombe Elementary School on the afternoon of Nov. 8, 2016. Colby Rabon / Carolina Public Press
Additionally, while North Carolina is technically purple, upon closer inspection, it’s mostly a stitched together quilt of very red and very blue counties that happen to blend into a violet hue. Giersch wonders whether living in local communities where political outcomes appear so “set in stone” might foster apathy.
Catawba College political science professor Michael Bitzer isn’t surprised kids are turning away from politics. They don’t see a system that’s working, nationally or locally.
“They have known nothing other than the two parties at loggerheads,” he said.
“They’ve known nothing but this polarization environment. So it’s not surprising that they probably see politics as merely battles and war, rather than trying to find the common good and seek some compromise and some achievements and then go on to fight the next battle.”
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This article presents a critique of recent legislative actions and political pressures that have limited civic education in North Carolina schools. It highlights concerns about the impact of policies like the Parents’ Bill of Rights and the deprioritization of civics in favor of standardized testing and STEM education. The tone is generally sympathetic to educators and civic engagement advocates who see these developments as hindrances to democratic participation. While it does not explicitly endorse a partisan viewpoint, the focus on challenges posed by conservative-led legislation and the emphasis on the importance of inclusive civic education suggest a center-left perspective. The article aims to inform readers about the consequences of political polarization and policy decisions on education without overt partisanship, but its framing leans toward progressive concerns about access to comprehensive civic learning.
In Buncombe County’s 2021 property reappraisal, historically Black neighborhoods like Shiloh and Southside faced disproportionately high valuation increases compared to wealthier areas like Biltmore Forest, sparking equity concerns. Despite no intentional bias found, reports revealed systemic inequities. The county has since upgraded staff and technology and refined appraisal methods for the upcoming 2025 reassessment amid continued soaring home prices. Experts recommend improved neighborhood delineation, filtering speculative sales, and better outreach about the appeals process, which tends to favor wealthier homeowners. Interim Tax Assessor Eric Cregger aims to implement these changes to ensure fairer assessments in the future.
Raymond Harrell’s hope for the upcoming reappraisal of property in Buncombe County: It goes better than the last one in 2021.
That year, the 44 percent increase in the taxable value of his 772-square-foot, 73-year-old home in the historically Black neighborhood of Shiloh made it a prime example of the county-wide dispute about the reassessment’s equity that dragged on for more than a year.
The county assigned some of the biggest percentage hikes in value – the basis for property tax bills – to homes in two of the lowest-income neighborhoods and the smallest percentage increases to the highest-income neighborhood, Biltmore Forest.
A parade of residents complained about this pattern and their new values. An Asheville-based researcher made presentations detailing what he called bias in the appraisal process. To address his claims, the county formed an ad hoc committee which recommended the hiring of one consultant. The county later hired another.
County Magistrate and Shiloh resident Raymond Harrell discusses the impact of high property valuations in his neighborhood. // Watchdog video by Starr Sariego
Though their studies showed no intentional favoritism toward wealthy homeowners, the second of these reports, completed in June 2024, produced a list of inequities built into the system and recommendations to try to weed them out.
The county has acted on many of them, said Buncombe interim Tax Assessor Eric Cregger, beefing up the office’s staff and technology and refining the process for the next reappraisal, which is gearing up now. Later today, Cregger will present the County Commission with the Schedule of Values, the state-mandated document guiding the reassessment due to be completed in January.
But the trend fueling higher tax valuations – soaring home prices – has been even more pronounced in recent years than it was before 2021, creating the potential for many homeowners to be as shocked by their new assessments as Harrell was in 2021.
It wasn’t just the increase that concerned him, he said, but that the value of “my house has gone up a lot faster than homes in some of the other neighborhoods,” such as Biltmore Forest. “Definitely Biltmore Forest,” he said.
Harrell, 61, a county magistrate, could absorb a higher tax bill if Shiloh is hit with similar increases next year, he said, but “it would make it much more difficult for a lot of my neighbors to hang on to their homes, especially the older neighbors.”
Higher home prices, higher valuations
The goal of reappraisals – typically performed every four years in Buncombe but delayed in 2025 by Tropical Storm Helene – is to achieve a sales ratio of 100 percent.
These ratios measure the average appraised value of properties in a county against average sale prices.
In Buncombe, appraisals had fallen to 62 percent of prices by April. That compares to a ratio of about 84 percent in January 2020, the last time the county submitted this figure to the state Department of Revenue before the previous reappraisal (but also before the onset of the red-hot COVID-19 housing market that helped boost appraised values in 2021).
This graph from the Canopy Multiple Listing Service website shows Buncombe County’s rapidly rising median home price since the 2021 reappraisal.
The difference between these ratios is one indication that the new valuations are likely to climb even higher than in 2021. Another is the history of home prices in the county.
Waynesville-based Syneva Economics, the first consultant hired to examine the equity of the last reappraisal, found that average home prices climbed by 43 percent in the six-year period including 2016 and 2021.
Figures provided by Kathleen Cook, a broker with Mosaic Community Lifestyle Realty, showed a median home price of about $340,000 in 2020, the last year before the most recent appraisal. That compares to $515,000 in July, according to the Canopy Multiple Listing Service – an increase of about 51 percent.
Despite a brief dip in home prices after Helene and some signs of a softening market, such as listings lingering for a longer time on the market, prices are still rising, Cook said.
There is more inventory now than in some recent years, she said, but also plenty of demand. That’s partly because, she theorized, potential buyers who had been waiting for interest rates to drop have concluded that’s not happening any time soon.
“I feel like there’s a sense that, this is what the interest rate is, let’s just go ahead and purchase,” she said.
Conflicting reports
Higher valuations don’t necessarily mean higher taxes because local governments typically respond with reductions in tax rates, such as the 2021 cut in Buncombe of 4.1 cents for every $100 of taxable assessed value.
As a result, modest valuation increases can lead to reduced tax bills while big jumps usually mean increases, such as the hike of 34 percent in the total of county and city of Asheville taxes that Harrell saw in 2021.
Because many homeowners in wealthy neighborhoods received lower tax bills after the last assessment, this pattern can highlight the injustice of inequitable reappraisals – which the one in 2021 definitely was, said Joe Minicozzi, founder and principal of the Asheville-based Urban3 economic research firm.
Joe Minicozzi, founder and principal of the Urban3 economic research company. // Photo provided by Urban3
His presentation to the County Commission in 2021 prompted the forming of the Ad Hoc Reappraisal Committee. And in a 2022 follow-up presentation to that committee, a shortened version of which has been posted on Youtube, he said that assessors’ “practice bias” created disparities between Biltmore Forest and low-income neighborhoods.
One example, he says in the video, was the assessment of a 16,000-square-foot home on 22 acres in Biltmore abutting the Blue Ridge Parkway, making it the local equivalent “of waterfront property.” It received a slight reduction in its valuation to just over $3 million, he said, numbers confirmed by country records. Not only did it see that value cut, but the house would likely bring a price many times higher on the open market, he said. “It’s way undervalued.”
Countywide, he said, the reappraisal – by shifting the tax burden from high- to low-income residents – amounted to a “a gift, if you will, to the most high-wealth individuals in the county.”
Former county tax assessor Keith Miller pushed back on some data that Minicozzi presented, including the figures in a side-by-side comparison of Harrell’s assessment with that of a home in Biltmore.
One of Minicozzi’s slides showed a 266 percent “value increase” in the assessment of Harrell’s home, not the 44 percent documented in county records. Minicozzi, responding to an Asheville Watchdog email about this discrepancy, suggested the value might have been changed by the county and noted that the Asheville Citizen-Times wrote a 2021 story based on his comparison. It did, but used the 44 percent figure.
“I have no idea what to say about the Harrell property,” Minicozzi wrote.
The Syneva report also included figures supporting Miller’s argument that the assessments accurately reflected market conditions, including hot and highly localized investment activity in historically Black neighborhoods such as Shiloh and Southside.
Southside saw the highest average increases in home prices of any neighborhood in the county between 2016 and 2021, the Syneva report said, a whopping 116 percent. Its 2021 median increase in valuation, meanwhile, came in at a far lower 26 percent, the report said.
But numbers in both this study and in a presentation from Miller in January 2021, also support the argument that the assessments were inequitable.
A portion of a map presented to the Buncombe County Commission in January 2021 shows a small increase in median appraised value in homes in Biltmore Forest and much larger hikes in Southside and Shiloh
That percentage increase in median valuations in Southside – where the average household income is $35,000, the lowest of any neighborhood in Buncombe – was one of the largest in the county, the company’s report said. Close behind was Shiloh, where the increase was 22 percent.
Meanwhile, an area that included Biltmore Forest, with an average household income of $278,000, had the second-highest percentage increase in sales prices, Syneva said. But the Forest’s 4 percent median assessment increase was the lowest in Buncombe, Miller said at a January 2021 presentation that produced the following headline in the Citizen-Times:
“Tax increases likely to hit hard in historically Black Asheville neighborhood … Rich could see decrease.”
Addressing inequities
Kevin Keene, a nationally recognized expert in mass appraisals, conducted the 89-page study for Buncombe completed in 2024. Unlike Syneva, which focused solely on housing and valuation statistics, Keene looked at the appraisal process.
His report praised the county assessors’ “progressive approach to the work,” and wrote that they did “not consider demographics in producing estimates of value.”
But he also found that “bias is entering the valuation process through data collection, valuation process, sales validation, and neighborhood definitions and delineations. Improvements are needed in those areas.”
Among the improvements Keene recommended: refining the boundaries of neighborhoods, filtering out speculative buyers and creating a team of assessors dedicated to addressing sales of luxury homes selling at prices that far exceed the appraised values.
He also wrote repeatedly that the assessor’s office was understaffed and needed to add employees.
Which it has done, Cregger said in an interview last week, creating five additional positions for a total of 35 employees. It has also upgraded mapping tools and other technology, he said.
One of Keene’s recommendations is filtering investment purchases, which means flagging prices that appear to be above market values. It does not go as far as one of Minicozzi’s longstanding arguments on a related issue: The county should appraise short-term rentals as commercial properties, he said, allowing it to factor in their income-generating potential.
That’s not in the works, Cregger said, and referred to a recent blog post from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s School of Government saying that state law requires properties to be appraised based on the estimated sales price “regardless of whether they are occupied by tenants or owners.”
Prices of luxury homes are difficult to access, Cregger said, because some buyers are able to pay prices that “just don’t make any sense.” But because there have been more recent sales in that end of the market, there will be more valid deals to use for comparisons this year, he said.
And his office has, as Keene suggested, created a team to look closer at such purchases as well as similarly unexpectedly high prices paid for properties on the opposite end of the market.
The office will use improved technology and onsite visits to respond to another of Keene’s recommendations, creating better delineations of neighborhoods. This is an attempt to ensure, Cregger said, that large investments in isolated areas of a community don’t unfairly influence values in other sections.
The ad hoc committee also recommended better communications that could help address another source of inequity that Keene highlighted – the appeals process.
This “tends to be biased towards wealthier constituents with higher value properties,” he wrote, because they “can take time off to attend hearings; can avail themselves of professional representation; and often are influential in the community to a degree that can bias the outcome.”
If low-income residents don’t have these resources, they should at least be more aware of their right to appeal, the ad hoc committee’s recommendation said.
This is also in Cregger’s plans, he said.
The county intends to enlist real estate agents to hold clinics and to employ social media and other tools to spread information about appeals.
“This fall, winter and spring, we’ll be out there in the communities … We’ll be online,” he said. “There’s definitely plans for getting some more outreach, especially about appeals.”
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Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Dan DeWitt is The Watchdog’s deputy managing editor/senior reporter. Email: ddewitt@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s local reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This content focuses on issues of property tax reassessment and its impact on historically marginalized, lower-income, and predominantly Black neighborhoods, highlighting concerns about equity and systemic bias. It emphasizes the challenges faced by these communities and the need for reforms to address disparities, which aligns with a center-left perspective that advocates for social justice and fairness in public policy. However, the article maintains a balanced tone by including multiple viewpoints, data, and responses from officials, avoiding overt partisanship or ideological rhetoric.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-08-19 09:15:00
Category 2 Hurricane Erin is moving northwest at 7 mph, about 720 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras. The National Hurricane Center forecasts it will turn away from North Carolina’s shoreline by Thursday. A storm surge watch is in effect from Cape Lookout to Duck, with tropical storm watches and warnings for parts of the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. Hurricane-force winds extend 80 miles from the center, tropical storm-force winds up to 205 miles. Mandatory evacuations are ordered for Ocracoke and Hatteras Islands. Rip currents caused 60-70 swimmer rescues at Wrightsville Beach. NC12 roadway may flood or wash away. Recovery from Hurricane Helene, which killed 107 in NC, continues.
(The Center Square) – Category 2 Hurricane Erin moved northwest at 7 mph about 720 miles to the southeast of Cape Hatteras on Tuesday morning.
Still forecast to be turning away from the shoreline of North Carolina on Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said a storm surge watch is in effect from Cape Lookout to Duck; and a tropical storm watch is in effect from the Beaufort Inlet to Duck inclusive of the Pamlico Sound.
Closer to its 8 a.m. position, a tropical storm warning was in effect for the Turks and Caicos Islands and Southeast Bahamas, and a tropical storm watch was in effect for the Central Bahamas.
The forecast of the Hurricane Center said, “A turn toward the north-northwest with an increase in forward speed is expected today, followed by a northward motion on Wednesday and then a northeastward motion on Thursday. On the forecast track, the center of Erin will pass to the east of the Bahamas today and tonight and then move over the western Atlantic between the U.S. East Coast and Bermuda on Wednesday and Thursday.”
Hurricane force winds, meaning sustained 74 mph or greater, extend up to 80 miles from the center. Tropical storm force winds, meaning sustained 39 mph or greater, extend up to 205 miles out.
Mandatory evacuations have been issued for Ocracoke Island in Hyde County and Hatteras Island in Dare County. Each county has declared an emergency.
Multiple published reports put the number of swimmers rescued between 60 and 70 at Wrightsville Beach near Wilmington on Monday. This was due to rip currents. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune planned to close Onslow Beach on Tuesday.
N.C. 12, the famed 148-mile roadway linking peninsulas and islands of the Outer Banks, is likely to go under water and parts could wash away – as often happens with hurricanes.
NC12 begins at U.S. 70 at the community of Sea Level and runs to a point just north of Corolla and south of the Currituck Banks North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve. Two ferries, Hatteras Island to Ocracoke Island and Cedar Island to Ocracoke Island, are part of the route.
The storm’s miss of the state is particularly welcome in light of Hurricane Helene. Recovery from that storm is in its 47th week. Helene killed 107 in the state, 236 across seven states in the South, and caused an estimated $60 billion in damage to North Carolina.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
This article provides a straightforward report on Hurricane Erin, including its trajectory, related warnings, and local impacts in North Carolina. It does not express opinions, adopt ideological language, or frame the event in a way that suggests a political viewpoint. Instead, it relays factual information, emergency measures, and the context of a prior hurricane without attributing any blame or praise. The content is consistent with neutral, factual reporting focused on public safety and storm developments rather than political ideology.
When will Helene-damaged Broadmoor Golf Course be ready for play? FernLeaf Charter School back in business in previously flooded location? • Asheville Watchdog
The Broadmoor Golf Course near Asheville Regional Airport, owned by the airport and leased to DreamCatcher Hotels, suffered over $10 million in flood damage from Tropical Storm Helene. DreamCatcher is rebuilding the course, clubhouse, and maintenance buildings using insurance and company funds, aiming to reopen in spring 2026. Meanwhile, FernLeaf Community Charter School in Fletcher, flooded by Helene, reopened its elementary Creek Campus after nearly a year with new modular buildings. Despite challenges, including ongoing construction and flooding risks, the school rebuilt on its original site with community support and flood insurance, celebrating resilience and continued education.
Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers:
Question: The Broadmoor Golf Course near the airport suffered catastrophic damage during the floods of Helene. Only the driving range has been able to operate. But now there is great activity that looks like the course is being rebuilt. I think the property belongs to the airport, and it is contracted out for management. Who is paying for this work, and when might the course be ready again for play?
My answer: I do miss playing this course, mainly because it’s not often I get a chance to hit a wayward shot onto an interstate, in this case I-26. Usually my drives are confined to the woods or a simple two-lane road.
Real answer: In short, a lot is going on at Broadmoor, which is located off Airport Road about a mile from Asheville Regional. The airport does own the property, but it leases the golf course to a company, DreamCatcher Hotels, which operates the golf course and plans to build a hotel on the property.
Zeke Cooper, president and CEO of DreamCatcher, told me his company has a 50-year lease, and it is committed to site improvements.
“As always planned, we are developing a hotel on the property, which we plan to start site work on later this year,” Cooper said via email.
Tropical Storm Helene inundated the Broadmoor Golf Links course, causing over $10 million in damage. // Photo provided by DreamCatcher Hotels
Helene, which struck our area Sept. 27, inundated the golf course and clubhouse. The French Broad River is close by, and the property is, as the name implies, relatively flat.
“The golf course lost over 1,000 trees and had 12-18 inches of silt covering 60-70 percent of the course,” Cooper said. “The first step was to remove all of the tree debris and remove the silt.”
The company finished that in April, and golf course reconstruction started shortly thereafter.
“The clubhouse had two feet of water on the first floor, with the basement completely submerged,” Cooper said. “The maintenance and irrigation buildings were submerged, resulting in total losses of the buildings and all equipment within them. It was a mess!”
Fortunately, they did have flood insurance. Cooper said total damage exceeded $10 million.
“So a lot of the work is being paid for with insurance funds, as well as our own money,” Cooper said. “We do not have an opening date yet, but expect to reopen in spring of 2026.”
For the golfers out there, Cooper gave a detailed breakdown of all the work they’re doing:
On the golf course: Stripping all greens surfaces, adding in new greens mix and reseeding with bent grass. All greens are completed and currently growing in. The 11th green was completely destroyed, as well as some tee boxes. Those have been rebuilt and are growing in.
All of the fairways and tees have been stripped of silt, regraded and tilled. All of these areas are currently growing in with Bermuda grass.
All of the bunkers were stripped, regraded and rebuilt with new drainage and sand. Sod was used around every greens complex and all bunkers, with the work completed about a month ago.
Tropical Storm Helene left behind 12 to 18 inches of silt on the Broadmoor Golf Links course in the Fletcher area. Workers had it removed by April, and the company that operates the course is rebuilding. // Photo provided by DreamCatcher Hotels
The irrigation electrical system was destroyed, and has now been replaced. New irrigation pumps have been operational the last couple of months. Workers also had to clean out and replace drainage systems, along with lots of bank restabilization.
Driving range: “We were able to open the driving range in a temporary capacity while work was being undertaken on the course,” Cooper said. “We closed the range on Aug. 11, in order to fix damage from the flood. It is currently under construction and we hope to reopen it in the next three to four months. No timetable, yet, as it’s weather dependent this late in the season.”
Clubhouse, maintenance buildings: The company gutted, cleaned and rebuilt the clubhouse. “We are close to hopefully reopening the clubhouse and restaurant in the next two months,” Cooper said. “We are working on finalizing some construction items for a full Certificate of Occupancy, as well as waiting on furniture, fixtures and equipment.”
The maintenance and irrigation buildings are completed and in use, Cooper added.
Question: What is going on with the FernLeaf Community Charter School in Fletcher? I’ve seen they’re putting back in mobile classrooms in the area that flooded, and it looks like it’s close to reopening. I thought they moved all the students to their location further south that sits on top of a hill?
My answer: I suspect all of the new mobile classrooms are actually barges. Pretty ingenious, really.
Real answer: Back in April I wrote about FernLleaf, the flooding at its location off Howard Gap Road in Fletcher, and the school’s plans to rebuild. Helene’s floodwaters filled the buildings with up to six feet of water and swept some of them off their foundations, Nicole Rule, communications, marketing and events coordinator for the school, said then.
On Monday she had some happy news about FernLeaf’s “second act.”
FernLeaf Community Charter School, which sustained major damage at its “Creek Campus” elementary school location in Fletcher, has reopened with new modular buildings. // Photo by Nicole Rule of FernLeaf Charter School.
“On Aug. 13, FernLeaf Community Charter School in Fletcher reopened its Creek Campus — 321 days after Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic flooding swept our main buildings off their foundations and left the campus under several feet of water,” Rule said via email. “In that time, over 430 elementary students and their teachers relocated to our Wilderness Campus (previously home to middle and high schoolers), where they continued learning without missing a beat.”
Rule said, “Community partners, including general contractor Beverly Grant and even the Carolina Panthers Charities (with a $20,000 grant), rallied to help us rebuild.
“While one building is still under construction due to this summer’s unrelenting rain, the reopening marks a milestone for our students, families, and the broader Fletcher/Asheville community,” Rule said. That building should be ready by the end of September.
Michael Luplow, FernLeaf’s executive director, said the school’s “journey has been a powerful demonstration of what we can achieve when we come together.”
“We are immensely grateful for the unwavering support of our students, families, staff, and the broader community,” Luplow said in the press release. “The re-opening of the Creek Campus is not just about a new set of buildings; it is a celebration of our collective spirit and our enduring mission to provide an innovative, inspiring education to our students.”
By the way, FernLeaf did rebuild on the same footprint, which is close to Cane Creek. But this is all approved.
“Since Fern Leaf had previously been constructed in a manner that met our current elevation requirements, they are permitted to go back in at the same elevation,” Town of Fletcher Planning Director Eric Rufa told me in April. “I have encouraged them to go higher, but current circumstances with regard to grade and ADA requirements may hinder that.”
The school did have flood insurance.
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Political Bias Rating: Centrist
The content presents factual information about local community issues, such as flood damage and rebuilding efforts at a golf course and a charter school, without expressing partisan opinions or advocating for a particular political ideology. The tone is neutral and focused on reporting details relevant to the community, reflecting a balanced and nonpartisan approach.
