Ready For Change In The School System

  • Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Normal Park and Jill Levine are in the news a lot and they need to be. The students and the parents that support the school are doing what all schools need to do and that is show up, stick around and get results.  Like the radio program "Lake Woebegon" all the kids are above average.

To teach in a school like Normal Park would be a teacher's dream.  Probably few behavior problems leaving teachers time to teach and not intervene.  Probably a telephone call from teacher to mom at home gets immediate results and probably moms in abundance are in the schools helping out.

Normal Park, however, is not the norm. Far from it and yet we talk about Normal Park and we should be we forget the other schools those in the shadows and those only in the news when there is another homicide or gang violence. 

The HCDE school board is now tasked with the job of what to do with Rick Smith, school superintendent. My personal feelings is that he should be shown the door. No buy out, nothing. Leave the system.  Will the board have the courage to at least ask this question or will they abdicate and charge the taxpayers for what is a grievous irresponsible delay in reporting the incident of the rape of the student in Sevier County over the holidays?

There is a lot more to the operational fears dictated to all down the line of command since Rick Smith took over the schools. Everyone has been cowed.  Shut up, don't tell anyone just how bad it is. 

The school board has a most difficult task before them and that is to find a school superintendent that will not just look with great pride at Normal Park, but build pride of neighborhood and school in places like East Lake or Clifton Hills. Can it be done? Just as the sun comes up each day it can be done, but it takes and will take the imagination and great wisdom to do it. Plus courage to say to the naysayers, we must and we will.

The community needs to address what actually goes on in central office. What does the school director do to make $125,000 a year? Who is actually in the school helping teachers and how often? The community needs to know what each person does and how they do it.

When I was in the public schools here I rarely saw anybody from central office. If the school superintendent was to visit it was like the Pope's visit a while back. So rarely did anyone see the person that it was possible not to recognize the school superintendent if seen on the street.  

Taxpayers in Hamilton County do not pay high school taxes. Let me repeat that. Taxpayers in Hamilton County pay very little in school taxes, but to pay what is required to turn the system around the school system must be doing what means the educational excellence for all. Not just a bunch of empty words, but products leaving the schools that can function in a more complex society.

Are you ready for change? I know I am.

Robert Brooks

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