🗞️ School starts August 10. Here is your two-week game plan

🗞️ A beloved old school in east Winston-Salem is coming back to life

🗞️ Lenovo just opened a $77 million plant, and it is hiring

🗞️ See where the Triad's new neighborhoods are going up

🗞️ That scare at Camp Hanes turned out to be a false alarm

🌤️ Warm and mostly sunny | High: 86°F | Low: 68°F

Summer is back after a soggy stretch. Expect a mostly sunny start to the week with just a stray afternoon shower possible and highs back in the mid 80s. Comfortable mornings in the upper 60s. A good week to knock out those outdoor to-dos before the school-year scramble.

Deep breath, parents. Summer is not over, but the first day of school for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools is Monday, August 10, which means the countdown is officially on. Here is a simple, low-stress plan for the next two weeks so the first morning does not sneak up on anyone.

Start with sleep, because it is the one that takes the longest to fix. If bedtimes have drifted later all summer, begin nudging them earlier now, about 15 minutes every couple of nights, and wake everyone a little earlier too. By August 10 their bodies will already be on school time instead of getting hit with it cold.

Knock out the health paperwork this week, before every pediatrician in town is booked. North Carolina requires certain immunizations and a health assessment for kindergartners, and a Tdap booster and meningococcal shot for rising seventh graders. If your child needs either, call now. The same goes for eye exams and any medication forms the school nurse will need.

Then the fun part, the supplies. Check your school's supply list on the district website, and remember you do not have to do it alone. The Back to School Community Bash on Saturday, August 1 at VFW Post 5352 will have vendors, giveaways and local resources for families, and it is on our events list below.

Finally, ease back into routines. Bring back a little daily reading to shake off the summer slide, start talking up the new year in a positive way, and if your child is nervous, drive by the school or walk the halls at open house so the building feels familiar. Watch for your school's specific open house and meet-the-teacher dates in the coming days. You have got this.

See the school calendar

Here is a good-news story about second chances, for a building and a neighborhood.

The historic Skyland School, a 1923 landmark in east Winston-Salem that had sat vacant, vandalized and fire-damaged, is being brought back as a community education and economic hub. A local nonprofit led by Karen Cuthrell and Jimmie Bonham, running what they call the Emotional Intelligence (EI) Factory at Skyland, bought the roughly 41,100-square-foot property from Forsyth County for $210,050 late last year and got to work fast.

They did not wait for perfect. A renovated annex is already open and running a summer program for 15 to 30 kids a day, with emotional-intelligence lessons, literacy activities, leadership development, daily hot meals, and a free clothes closet called Lotta Love's stocked by community donations. "We saw children who needed somewhere to go, something meaningful to learn, and adults who believed in them," Cuthrell said. "We planted the seeds, the community helped us water them, and now good fruit is beginning to grow."

Skyland has real history. Named for R.J. Reynolds' old Skyland Farm, it opened as an elementary school and served the community until 1984. Now the next phase aims to convert the main building's old classrooms and gym into skilled-trades training space for things like culinary arts, cosmetology and HVAC repair, exactly the kind of workforce training neighbors said they wanted. It is a reminder that sometimes the best new thing for a community is an old place, loved back to life.

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More good jobs news for the Triad, and this one is big.

Lenovo cut the ribbon Friday on a $77 million expansion of its Whitsett campus, just east of Greensboro, which it is calling its North Carolina Smart Campus. The 520,583-square-foot plant builds the servers and hardware that power artificial intelligence, and the company was blunt about why it invested here: speed. "This factory was built with speed in mind because that's how you win the AI race," said Lenovo executive Ben Massie.

Here is the part that matters for job seekers. Lenovo has nearly hit its original pledge of 420 jobs at the new facility and has now set a goal of 1,000 employees there, which would push its total North Carolina workforce past 4,000. The next wave of hiring will span manufacturing, engineering, logistics, operations, administration and quality control. Between the Whitsett plant and its older nearby facility, Lenovo already employs about 920 people locally.

Governor Josh Stein called Lenovo "an important contributor to North Carolina's economy for more than two decades," and Guilford County has approved up to $1.16 million in performance-based incentives tied to the jobs. For a region that has taken more than its share of factory-closing news lately, a growing plant hiring by the hundreds a half-hour up the road is a welcome change of pace.

See Lenovo's announcement

If it feels like there is a new subdivision going in around every corner, you are not imagining it, and Kernersville is right in the thick of it.

The headline project is a big one. PulteGroup, the third-largest homebuilder in the country, is developing Del Webb Winston Reserve, a nearly 600-home, 55-and-older community on 243 acres near historic Bethania in northwest Winston-Salem. It is the largest single-family project approved in Forsyth County since 2021, with single-story homes starting in the low $300,000s and an 18,000-square-foot clubhouse, pools, pickleball and bocce courts, walking trails and a dog park. Experts call a national builder planting a flag like this a kind of vote of confidence in the whole area.

But here is the local angle worth knowing: of the 11 largest developments approved in Forsyth County since 2021, four are clustered in Kernersville, including nearly 500 homes at Caleb's Creek. Five are in northwest Winston-Salem, and there is Riverwalk near Tanglewood in Clemmons with roughly 400 homes approved. In other words, Kernersville is one of the busiest growth spots in the county.

The flip side is that the pace is actually cooling a bit countywide. Single-family approvals peaked above 3,000 in 2022 and have run under 2,000 each year since, partly because the big, easy-to-build tracts with sewer access are running low. So if you have been wondering where the region is growing next, the map increasingly points to a handful of pockets, and ours is one of them.

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If your kids go to Camp Hanes, or you saw something about it online over the weekend, here is the reassuring update.

Around noon Friday, an unknown caller dialed 911 and reported a possible firearm on the YMCA Camp Hanes property in Stokes County. Out of an abundance of caution, and following its emergency procedures, the camp immediately went on lockdown while staff secured every camper and worked with law enforcement.

After what the YMCA of Northwest North Carolina described as a comprehensive investigation, officers determined the report was false. There was no firearm and no threat to the camp. The lockdown was lifted and normal camp activities resumed the same day.

The camp said extra local law enforcement would stay on campus through the rest of the week, mostly to reassure campers, staff and families during drop-off and pickup. Scary in the moment, but the system worked exactly as it should, and everyone was safe.

More about Camp Hanes