Joe Smith
The Hamilton County School Board on Thursday night elected Joe Smith as its new chairman and Gary Kuehn as vice chairman.
The board also voted to approve a Center for Creative Arts high school choir trip to London this summer. Mr. Smith and board members Rhonda Thurman and Faye Robinson voted against the trip.
“I just don’t like that responsibility being on the school system,” said Ms. Thurman, focusing on the dates of the trip which fall outside the regular school year.
“It is viewed as an extension of the school program,” said county schools attorney Scott Bennett, but that since the trip request has traveled through proper channels, liability is low.
Board member Ben Connor said the students will perform where Shakespeare did and that the trip “is something that they’ll talk about for the rest of their lives.”
EMPLOYEE HEALTH PLAN
The board voted to approve the Option 1 employee health benefits package, which maintains the same benefits but at a higher premium. The board has not raised premiums in 12 years, it was stated.
“Medical expenses rise at rates that are unfathomable, and yet we’re trying to do right by you,” said board member Marco Perez, who heads the finance committee that had presented the options.
TENNESSEE RATING SCHOOLS A TO F
Supt. Dr. Justin Robertson told the board that his office will contend for student academic growth data to be equally counted with student academic achievement data in a new Tennessee schools rating model.
Schools are graded A through F using students’ Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System scores and other measurements. The model was adopted by the state in 2017.
“We’re really pushing the state in this conversation,” said Dr. Robertson.
Dr. Robertson and Deputy Superintendent Dr. Sonia Stewart said that schools with mostly low-income students have lower achievement data but strong growth data, which skews the current rating system against low-income schools.
Board member Thurman cautioned against including income in a school’s performance and improvement score at any level.
“We don’t ask for their parents’ W2 forms before we give them a grade,” she said.
But Dr. Robertson said that studies done in 2008 and 2021 show that poverty impacts achievement.
“We’ve got to get comfortable having this uncomfortable conversation,” he said. “There’s something there.”
“We need to have a balance of both achievement and growth,” he said.
Several members of the board told Dr. Robertson they are “extremely concerned” with the rating system in general.
“It doesn’t tell the whole story,” said board member Perez.
“The children in those buildings never define themselves as under-performing,” said board member Karitsa Jones. “I don’t agree with this for a lot of reasons,” she said.