Roy Exum
Three of Tennessee’s largest four cities are now searching for school superintendents. Jesse Register retired last June and, after botching the first attempt, Nashville city leaders are intensely helping the Board of Education in a search for the best candidate. In Knoxville and Chattanooga the superintendents have resigned, both under a cloud, and now the leaders of the ‘2.0’ initiative are offering to help the Hamilton County Board of Education find both an interim and a permanent head of schools.
In Nashville a glittering cross-section of city leaders is partnering with the school board because all of them – just like us in Chattanooga – realize we cannot fail again. The Chattanooga 2.0 report clearly demonstrates a dismal picture. Our central office is rife with cronyism, favoritism, and a fractured leadership.
The school board has also lost its respect after the last three superintendents the board has selected have each gone down in flames. As a group, our teachers are disheartened, fearful and disrespected. Classroom misbehavior is off the charts. Bullying is rampant, as a district attorney’s investigation will soon reveal.
So in the midst of such challenges, the Hamilton County School Board has a golden opportunity to include the 2.0 leadership, allow our area leaders to become part of the solution, and form a select committee to help “all of us” through the storm. It is, quite literally, an offer our elected school leadership cannot refuse. On the field of opportunity, it’s plowing time again!
It is a fact that Chattanooga’s people have lost confidence in our public schools. Parents are upset. Businesses that need our graduates are greatly concerned. There is only one bright spot and that is the hope our school board members will embrace a cross-section of other community leaders with open arms, open ears and open hearts. I cannot remember a better opportunity where everybody wins in the end.
Make no mistake. The nine elected school board members will select the next superintendent. But with business leaders, legal minds, financial experts and others asking questions and offering suggestions, the selection process will not only be enhanced but also simplified. And the totally transparent process won’t cost the HCDE or its board one thin dime.
With a budget of over $400 million any of us can see how volunteers from the business and financial sectors in our community would be a godsend. They’ve never wanted to help before; suddenly it has become a mission for all of us to pitch in. None of us knew how bad things have gotten until the 2.0 report, but now what? Suffice it to say, there has never been a drowning man who refused to take an outstretched hand.
A huge factor to consider is that the school board, with HCDE funds already strained, can hardly afford to pay for a concerted search for Department of Education leadership. But if the board will call on the 2.0 group, with its foundations and concerned businesses and readily-available resources, they will find not just the help, but added wisdom in the search for the best superintendent we can find.
I believe this “process” could build bridges that would result in some wonderful partnerships that would give our students summer jobs, encourage on-site learning, sponsor events and allow many concerned people to help in more ways than you might imagine.
When the Hamilton County School Board meets next Thursday night, I pray chairman Jonathan Smith will have a welcome mat at the door.
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Donna Horn, a school board member who was quick to object when I worried about the “good ole boys” on the school board, was well within her rights to protest she wasn’t among such a crowd. That is gratifying to know.
But what was tragic was that Donna, who once taught math in the HCDE, included the sentence, “I retired with 20 years because I would not work under what I would deem a dictatorship, or even better put, under a bully, so I walked out three days short of retirement.”
Do we need a better testimony of the rancor that we must overcome than that! While I am disheartened that Donna hasn’t used her voice on the school board to eradicate the unquestionable bullying of many teachers in HCDE by the GOB, it is absolutely deplorable she had no other recourse but to quit.
What’s more, her term will end in August. Why hasn’t any other school board member who knew of her ordeal had the courage to confront her bully? The whole thing is incredulous and is a spectacular reason we must all come together to assure the next “Donna Horn” will never, ever, be bullied.
royexum@aol.com