Thursday the Tennessee Department of Education released a toolkit on child wellbeing checks to help ensure the needs of children are being met during and after extended periods away from school and to empower local communities to support child wellbeing. To support this work, the department is setting aside $1 million in federal COVID-19 relief funding to provide regional support ... (click for more)

Jessica Laliberte Bowman, a Chattanooga choreographer and teacher for Hamilton County Schools, is one of 21 artists selected internationally to join Curriculum in Motion Institute, a yearlong professional development program for choreographers at Jacob's Pillow. Motivated by a desire to make new dances with young artists, Ms. Bowman co-developed the Student Choreography Project ... (click for more)

Police Chief David Roddy said a surge in violence in Chattanooga since late May is mirroring that of many other cities across the country. He said homicides and aggravated assaults here are up 17 percent and criminal shootings have risen 24 percent. At the same time, other categories or crime are about the same or trending down. Chief Roddy said, "There are a lot of theories" ... (click for more)

The Hamilton County Health Department reported Tuesday that the total number of Hamilton County resident deaths has risen to 56, an increase of one since Monday. Total cases now are 6,278 in Hamilton County, up 87. There are 4,763 people that have recovered from the virus in the county. The number of COVID patients in Intensive Care has increased one since Monday to 27. ... (click for more)

I have filed many open records requests over the years, and no open records administrator has performed as HCDE’s Tim Hensley. It is truly lala land seeking public records from governments and their agencies. There are many methods utilized to render public records unattainable to citizens, such as making the records cost prohibitive, government attorneys declaring their entire ... (click for more)

You’ll remember the COVID crisis abruptly ended the 2019-20 school year in April and then followed a miserable four months where the flu effectively prohibited our children from seeing their friends, playing Little League baseball and being on the swim team. Our psychologists tell us the children have also suffered from “negative mental health issues.” Children need to begin catching ... (click for more)