Small high school to be safe from closing for 2015-16

Dr. Michael Thorsland, Oconee superintendent of education, is working on a statement in response to comments last night by the county council member representing the Salem area. Meantime, Chairman Andy Inabinet of the Oconee School Board of Trustees, says the county’s smallest high school, Tamassee-Salem, is safe from closing for at least one more year. The school district is about to open its newest high school, the new Walhalla High, on highway 11 a few miles from the high school at Salem. And last night District One’s Edda Cammick said, during a county budget meeting, that the district is about to “tear the heart” out of Salem by consolidating its high school with the new school. While Inabinet says nothing is imminent, he did not rule out that falling Tamassee-Salem enrollment numbers could force the school board’s hand. Inabinet, District One trustee Jerry Lee, and Superintendent Thorsland met last week with members of the Tamassee-Salem community, and Inabinet said the meeting was “a very good meeting, a cordial meeting, for the most part.”