At its August meeting the Hamilton County School Board voted to name the football field at Sale Creek Middle/High School Ron Cox Field after the dedicated coach who started the football program 10 years ago.
Mr. Cox will be honored at a home football game Sept. 15 against Whitwell.
“He’s been a wonderful role model for these young men,” said board member Rhonda Thurman. She described eight years of football practice and home games at Finley Stadium before Davidson Stadium was built at Sale Creek.
“He suffered through that,” she said, and he installed the lawn’s sprinkler system himself, she said.
Mr. Cox is also a teacher leader of Sale Creek’s Construction Future Ready Institute and is credited with much of the success of the program.
Concerning the recommendation to consolidate aging and expensive school buildings throughout the county Thursday morning, board member Gary Kuehn said, “It’s proposals, not a plan.”
He and Facilities Committee Chairwoman Karitsa Jones said the school board will meet strategically with each community in the coming months for feedback, then the board will make its own plan recommendation to the county commission.
COUPON BOOKS
The price of Kids First coupon books is going up for the first time in 30 years, from $10 to $15. The fundraiser benefiting Hamilton County Schools now means $10 for schools per book sold, up from $7.
“Schools will make more money,” said Sherrie Ford, executive assistant to Hamilton County Board of Education.
CHOIR TRIP TO PARIS
The school board voted to approve a choir trip to Paris in June for Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences, but seniors are blocked from the trip since they will have graduated in May.
Members of the board, the attorney for the Department of Education, and the superintendent were in agreement that any senior in the choir this year would not want to go on a school trip to Paris after graduation.
“I don’t know of any graduates that would want to go on this trip, or any teacher who would want to take them,” said Superintendent Dr. Justin Robertson.
Board member Gary Kuehn said this is the first school trip to be approved since the COVID pandemic began three years ago, giving the board an opportunity to be more cautious with seniors on school trips because “things happened,” he said, during trips to Florida and on cruises in the past.
“There is a totally different set of guidelines for students versus non students,” he said.
Mr. Kuehn said the request for trip approval was submitted by the CSAS Community Superintendent Dr. Shane Harwood, who would have notified the board if would-be graduates were set to go to Paris, or if prohibiting them from going would disturb class enrollment or trip plans, such as the size of the choir or deposits made by the student.
While Mr. Kuehn said he worries about underage drinking in Europe, board member Rhonda Thurman said she worries about kidnapping.
“The world is a very dangerous place,” said Ms. Thurman, who voted against approval of the trip. “I just don’t like this.”
TEACHER MOU
The board approved unanimously the memorandum of understanding between Hamilton County Schools and the Hamilton County Education Association. Board members had requested an extra month to review the terms of the three-year contract.
Representatives of HCEA and a local Professional Educators Collaborative Conferencing Act committee expressed their satisfaction with the new MOU’s provisions for salary, leave, insurance, working conditions, fringe benefits and grievance process to recommend that the board vote to approve.