The Clay County School Systemis located in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina. It is a small, rural school system of approximately 1,250 students. There are three schools in the county located on a single campus. Hayesville Elementary is a K-4 school of approximately 450 students. Hayesville Middle School is a 5-8 school with approximately 400 students and Hayesville High School is a 9-12 school with approximately 400 students. All schools are accredited by the North Carolina State Board of Education and Hayesville High School is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Test Scoresare consistently in the top 10% of all schools in North Carolina. Hayesville Elementary has been rated Exemplary every year since the ABC's began. Hayesville Middle School has been classified either a School of Distinction or School of Excellence every year since the ABC's began. Hayesville High School consistently has the best SAT scores of any school in the area. We currently have students or recent graduates at Duke, MIT, UNC-Chapel Hill, Georgia Tech, West Point Military Academy, Naval Military Academy, Coast Guard Academy, and the Air Force Academy, as well as many other two and four year colleges across the nation. Hayesville High School offers a balanced curriculum in all disciplines, including art, music and foreign languages including and Latin.

The Athletic programat Hayesville High School is an integral part of school life. The Hayesville High School Athletic program is consistently one of the best in the Smoky Mountain Conference and has been very successful at the state level with State Championships in Baseball, Basketball, Track and Cross Country.

Technologyis a priority at Clay County Schools. The entire campus is connected with fiber optics that allows high-speed T-1 connections to the internet into every classroom, Pre-K-12. The campus has seven computer labs for instruction as well as individual computers in every classroom, K-12. No other school system in the state has this kind of internet accessibility.

Our Staffis highly qualified, well-trained, with nurturing, caring attitudes. Our mission is to develop lifelong learning skills in all students.

For a detailed history of Clay County Schools, we have provided a web version of Mark Leek's graduate research on this topic. Click here to view the web-page version. Click here to view the MS Word Document of our history. (Warning: VERY large file of app. 4.5 MB).