Roy Exum: You Can’t Sue You

  • Wednesday, December 7, 2016
  • Roy Exum

The Hamilton County School Board will convene an hour earlier tomorrow to discuss “facilities” and the question of the hour is “Which ones?” Several communities are actively studying pulling away from the county’s Department of Education and the stew is thickening by the day. Now comes the revelation that school board attorney Scott Bennett has sent an email to the town of Signal Mountain that some believe is an early scare tactic.

According to a newspaper account, the lawyer’s email states, “that if the mountain decides to start its own district, its school buildings — Signal Mountain Middle/High, Thrasher Elementary and Nolan Elementary — could be sold to developers or repurposed for the county's school system.”

I’m not sure what genius on the school board directed the attorney to take such inappropriate action at this point but it appears we are approaching a volatile situation. To threaten Signal Mountain with “developers,” – when Signal folks clearly don’t like them or their lot sizes -- is about the last thing the current conversation needs. It is known that Red Bank and East Ridge are looking at independent school districts as dissatisfaction with HCDE mounts but right now we need “cooler heads to prevail.”

When Hamilton County was established in 1819, it was formed with a portion of Rhea County and Indian lands. The reason was because a good-sized crowd had gravitated to the area, which was a glorious source for a rarity known as saltpeter. The substance was gathered from inside the many caves in the area. Saltpeter is actually scraped from the walls of caves where bats live at night, boiled down, and dried into a powder.

One part of saltpeter, two parts of Sulphur and three parts of charcoal make “black powder,” or gunpowder as you know it, and with the drums beginning to beat disharmony (a Civil War) might occur, there was keen demand. Lest the suspense is about to kill you, saltpeter is actually “bat guano,” or excrement, which is quite ironic: Some who are now so totally disgusted with the school board allegedly feel some of the school leaders are “bat-guano crazy.”

But I digress. In 1919 what was James County went bankrupt and was absorbed by Bradley and Hamilton Counties. That formed basically what Hamilton County is today. Several communities within the county incorporated, levying taxes in addition to county taxes to better their own community. This is not uncommon. Today there are seven cities, three towns, nine census-designated places and seven unincorporated communities within the boundaries of the 576-square-mile county and some of these hamlets are quite different from others.

You must understand, all of these subsets, if you will, are still part of the county and all pay county taxes. Each area of the county (there are nine) is represented by commissioners who vote on what they feel will best serve the county but also, with a heavy emphasis on the constituents of their district. Each city and town within the county pays additional taxes to further enhance those communities with upgraded police, road crews, recreation facilities, etc.

Some are studying how to administer education to their individual communities. They have done it with police, road crews, recreation and other venues and believe it is within their rights to try. So the idea is for county citizens to go to the other county citizens, via the commission, and opt out of a countywide system to one that will better address their community’s needs. They have as much right to the county buildings as any other group and believe they can improve the education their community’s children will receive versus being “dragged down” by the county’s poorly-performing Board of Education.

It is my understanding the Department of Education does not own the school buildings or the land they are on. They are governed by the County Commission because they are owned by the county proper. The county – if you’ll connect the dots – is ultimately owned by the people who pay taxes in that county. Don’t lose sight of who those people are … and you cannot sue you.

If the people in a given city, town, or census-designated place, vote to take over the schools in a newly-formed district, they as Hamilton County citizens, become the care-takers and administrators of the school buildings. The county in which the city or town is included is still the “owner” of the land but it is appropriated by a quick-claim deed. If a proposed school district fails, the buildings and land revert back to the county proper. This is why schools in Memphis that became part of new school districts were transferred on a cheap, quick-claim deed.

The new “lease holder” assumes all physical and operational costs, which benefit from county and state monies that are appropriated based on the number of students served. Prosperous communities can pour money into buildings, faculties, grounds and, with additional income from grants and the like, can soon have thriving schools as the Memphis experience has proven.

So don’t get wrapped in in the “push me-pull you.” Everybody involved still lives in Hamilton County. If East Ridge passes a referendum to take over education within its city limits, the County Commission must approve it. But because we vote to elect our officials, and each commissioner wants what he or she feels is best for the community they serve, it is doubtful you’ll see a unified stand either way.

The only way to stop this exodus is for the school board to convince those communities who want to leave that the better view is to stay. The Department of Education has allegedly forced some inner city children into suburban schools, busing them to schools not where they are zoned for various reasons. HCDE hides behind “No Child Left Behind’ but has actually made grievous errors in judgement and created havoc in doing so.

The suburban schools have complained and complained. Believe it or not, race has nothing to do with the complaints – it is deportment, lack of discipline, disrespect for authority and misbehavior that the inner city children bring with them. The Board of Education has allowed and even encouraged “hardship transfers” and the suburbans – at wit’s end – have found their own school district can block what the Department of Education refuses to do.

The Department of Education has little choice but to rescind “hardship transfers” immediately, going straight to the main cause, and forcing all children – black, white, Hispanic – back to where they are geographically zoned. A hard discipline stance will be horrendous at first – after letting it go for so long – but in order to save the current system, the governing school board must demand solutions rather than suggestions.

Me personally? I liken the system to the United States, where “all for one” should be the norm, but derelict and therefore gross mismanagement by the school board, a horrible lack of accountability by HCDE and a “do nothing” approach has resulted in what many believe is the worst metro school district in the state. The result is what we now find - a catastrophe.

The “do nothing” approach leaves Signal Mountain, Red Bank, East Ridge, Soddy-Sale Creek, Ooltewah-Collegedale and an East Brainerd consortium with no other recourse. That’s why I find a “facilities discussion” tomorrow afternoon ridiculous and decry the school board for ignoring the telling signs of absolute failure.

royexum@aol.com

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