618 Enka Lake Rd
Candler, NC 28715

This has been our personal experience with Enka High School, and I’d like to address both some concerns with Academics and School environment.As far as academics go-If you have a child or student who wants to go into the arts, I would suggest that Enka High School is not a good school for advancement. Very little funding is put into the arts programs, and two classes in the arts have already been cut in the past few years. It appears that Enka prioritizes funding towards their sports programs, and that has resulted in a slow but steady loss of the arts programs. I feel that this puts students in county schools at a large disadvantage compared to city schools. This is a large concern to many students who are low-income, and rely on scholarships for art school.I would like to clarify, that this has nothing to do with the teachers who work in the arts programs. They are all amazing, and do their best to work with the resources that they are given, despite having to pay out of pocket for supplies a majority of the time. They do their best to try to prepare students for what art college will be like. However, I feel that students will have to learn how to adjust quickly to more structure, and higher standards in college.In my personal opinion, staff do very little to address discrimination and harassment within the school. Many teachers and staff have excused discrimination-based bullying, and targeted harassment towards minorities and marginalized groups. In our experience, it’s something that current and former staff members have even contributed to. Many past students who are from a minority or marginalized group, have had to drop out simply due to the bullying and lack of action from staff. I would not ever recommend someone’s child go here, after our experience with the severity of intolerance in the school environment. There is even a bit of a reputation in the general area of it being one of the worst schools as far as bullying goes. If your child already struggles with mental-health issues this is not a good school.Our experience has been that Accommodations for students with IEP’s have also not been respected by all teachers. When these issues get brought up with Administrative staff, there is little to no reprimand, or the student is blamed.I would say it is a very hard learning environment for your child to succeed in, and there are far better schools in the area.

Great experience with my middle schooler! Great teachers who care about the whole child.

Two kids, one pandemic. This has been a great school for my children. They have loved every single one of their teachers over the last 5 years.The communication between the school and parents is good and consistant.There has been a few different principals through the years, but I’ve appreciate our last two ones the most.Homework has varied greatly both depending on teachers and the pandemic, which made it hard to build a good habits.The school counselor is amazing in developing their SEL skills, following up with IEP for our friend’s kids, and supporting family.The environment is very safe.PTO is involved and organizes multiple things every year.Kids can participate in different programs such as battle of the books, student council, flag team, math count, etc. Most are during school hours.A few things that haven’t met my expectations: kids are still getting candy rewards in most classes.When we dealt with the pandemic and virtual school, my kids were introduced to adult YouTube with 0 efforts from Buncombe County Schools to make it safe/add free for them.

Engaged teachers, who are always interested in helping your child get the most out of the school curriculum. It is an overall amazing school.