The Hamilton County school board and district officials met for a retreat to discuss the board’s goals for the district and its role in governing it.
The board — just less than half of which was newly elected in August — focused during the Friday-Saturday event on building connections, the board’s vision, governing structures and board communications
Here are three takeaways from the board’s two-day discussion.
1. The board is fairly aligned in its top budget priorities.
As the school board ranked its budget priorities, members consistently placed literacy supports for kindergarten through second grade, elementary and middle school intervention and gap closure, and safe and secure schools at the top of their lists.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County Schools meets expectations for year over year student improvement)
Board Chair Joe Smith, R-Hixson, said the district has done an “amazing amount of work” around securing schools since he joined the board in 2016, and other members shared the changes they’ve seen in their schools. In recent years, the school system has invested millions to harden school entrances, improve systems and provide armed security in every school.
This is a good example of what priority-based budgeting — the method the district uses to design its budget — over time can do to solve issues, Chief Strategy Officer Shannon Moody said.
The board typically passes its annual budget in the spring. It then heads to the Hamilton County Commission for consideration.
2. There’s interest in increasing the district’s prekindergarten seats.
Tennessee law only obligates districts to educate kindergarten through 12th grade students, but the school system should also be educating prekindergarten students, Vice Chair Karitsa Jones, D-Chattanooga, said. In order to do that, she said, the board should advocate for changing the law’s language and for the state legislature to fund prekindergarten in its school funding formula.
“We set ourselves up for failure, I feel like, by not being able to play a part in the kindergarteners that we receive,” she said.
The district operates 44 prekindergarten classrooms in 26 different locations, according to its website. Board members and district officials have in recent months floated the idea of potentially using some of the buildings closed as part of the school facilities plan for prekindergarten classes.
3. Additional student support staffing has value.
In 2023, the district used its $67 million windfall from Tennessee’s new school funding formula to add more than 500 new positions. Those positions included behavior specialists, counselors and social, emotional and academic development coaches.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County school board to vote on moving forward with five facilities projects)
“They are so valuable not just to help those students but to give the teacher the chance to teach all the other students, and that’s the difference in really teaching the whole school,” school board member Gary Kuehn, R-Ooltewah, said.
School board member Jodi Schaffer, R-East Brainerd, said schools should consider hiring athletic coaches to fill social-emotional development positions.
“I wasn’t for the SEAD positions when I was running,” she said. “But as I’ve thought about it, and I’ve looked at my schools, and they’ve hired coaches. I’ve thought, ‘OK, I can see that this, a coach, is a great person to help because they’re a life coach.’ It also builds our athletic programs to invest in good coaches — which I am for — to retain our students in our communities.”
Contact Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.
