County Mayor Weston Wamp
photo by Hannah Campbell
County Mayor Weston Wamp told the Civitan Club on Friday that the “bold” school facilities plan presented in August is not as scary as dissidents say.
Mayor Wamp characterized some opposition rhetoric as “intentional distortion of the facts” and “fearmongers.”
He said the plan recommends 700-student elementary schools, not mega-schools with 1,200 students. Each grade would have about 125 students and probably six classes, a size that offers diverse opportunities but also community, he said.
Thrasher Elementary School on Signal Mountain, arguably the best school in Tennessee, he said, plans to potentially expand to about 700 students, and no one has complained to him about that, he said.
“I find that curious,” he said.
Mayor Wamp said if every community in the county had a small school like Alpine Crest Elementary, which has 275 students, that would make 100 elementary schools, one every two miles, “which is obviously impractical and ridiculous,” he said.
Alpine Crest is listed with three other elementary schools to be consolidated into one at the Dupont Elementary School site on Hixson Pike.
Of three choices to renovate, replace or consolidate schools, he said consolidation is the best use of taxpayer dollars.
“There’s a perception that we’re busting at the seams,” Mayor Wamp said. He said the county student population has remained static overall for the last 10 years, and that school buildings as they stand today have capacity for 10,000 more students.
He said inefficient zoning, begun after the 1997 merger of the city and county school systems, is to blame for leaving some facilities “underutilized.” He acknowledged that the chasm between the best and worst facilities is wide. The worst are aging urban schools inherited from the city district, he said.
Mayor Wamp told the group he’s perplexed by the “lack of gratitude” from some unnamed municipal leaders for his desire and efforts to build the “best” schools.
In contrast, he said, the Brainerd community and the Soddy-Daisy community seem willing to work with ideas to bring Dalewood Middle School to the Brainerd High campus and to bring the Soddy Daisy middle and high schools to the 60-acre Daisy Elementary School campus, “a novel opportunity,” he said.
“A lot of families spend an arm and a leg to send their kids to a K through 12 school,” County Mayor Wamp said.
The continuity in K-12 setting is impactful and more valuable in at-risk populations, he said.