Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Dr. Justin Robertson speaks to the Rotary Club of Chattanooga Thursday about efforts to deepen school culture, career and technical schools and reading proficiency
photo by Hannah Campbell
With $250 million in bonds for school facilities officially on the way from the Hamilton County Commission, Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Dr. Justin Robertson was free to discuss other hopes and dreams for public schools at Rotary Club of Chattanooga’s meeting Thursday.
“We are going to press into athletics and arts,” Dr. Robertson said. “We are investing heavily in those areas.”
The school system is working through its strategic plan Opportunity 2030, revealed in early 2023. Thursday Dr. Robertson outlined gains for employees and a better adult-student ratio built over the last two years.
The next phase appears to center on classic school culture: athletics, the arts and school clubs, plus an expanded focus on career education for students who don’t go to college.
The district-wide facilities plan has been criticized for consolidating several neighborhood schools, but fewer buildings to staff and maintain will free the annual budget for new ventures, he said.
“We have too many buildings and too many schools,” Dr. Robertson said. “We have to be more efficient in our operations.”
Middle- and high-school teachers are being asked to start extra-curricular clubs to connect and involve kids more at school, he said.
“That is a strategy that we have implemented,” he said.
Dr. Robertson challenged owners of businesses of all sizes to open their doors to youth and adult apprenticeship programs and work-based learning.
“I think that is a very clear path,” he said. “Those experiences matter.”
He said he’s branching out to include computer science training at a career school planned for the Gateway building at the base of Cameron Hill.
Such programs lead to jobs with starting pay in the $50,000s with room for growth to triple digits, he said.
“The need for construction workers right now is immense,” Dr. Robertson said. “They can earn livable and thriving wages, without going to college,” he said.
“Not every kid needs or wants to go to college,” but that kid does need a skill, he said.
Dr. Robertson said that while he does not object to state vouchers for education for families who earn low wages, he cautioned against an “open season” program without income restrictions.
He said estimates about what Tennessee can afford don’t factor in the county’s high percentage of students who already attend private schools: 23 percent.
“The impact to rural communities is going to be devastating,” he said.
A few years from now, Tennessee will be Arizona, he said. Seventy percent of Arizona students getting vouchers have never attended a public school, he said.
“It is causing a significant financial issue in Arizona,” he said.
Recent statistics put just 39 percent of Hamilton County third graders at a proficient reading level. Dr. Robertson’s goal is a “realistic” 60 percent by 2030, he said; realistic when compared with the highest-performing district in the state, Williamson County, whose proficiency statistic is 71 percent, he said.
He will focus on kindergarten to reach his goal, he said.
“We’ve got to go down younger,” he said.
The Chattanooga 2.0 report in 2015 criticized the school system in ways it “probably deserved,” Dr. Robertson said.
Since then, he said, the county has jumped to retaining 88 percent of teachers and 91 percent of first-year teachers. Salaries have increased 8 percent over the last two years, plus a $1,750 flat raise this year.
He praised the system’s 1:10 adult-to-student ratio, tightened with hiring of counselors, resource officers and other student support roles he called necessary investments during a nationwide mental health crisis amongst young people.
County public schools have 45,000 students who speak more than 100 languages, he said. The district employs almost 6,000 people and its buses drive 23,000 miles a day.