Roy Exum
I am surely one of the biggest proponents of high school athletics there is, especially after half a decade of being an eye witness to the vast array of lessons that are learned every day by anyone associated with sports. That said, I have watched the Hamilton County Commission waffle on a $500,000 track at Central High School with a certain curiosity because the same high school has been waiting for over 50 years for an auditorium.
Seriously, over a dozen different county commissioners down through the years have promised an auditorium at Central every year because it is something that is used nearly every day by nearly every kid in schools everywhere. Today Central still holds big functions in its gym, with students awkwardly sitting sideways in the bleachers because the gym was rightfully designed for basketball, wrestling and athletic competitions – not a stage at the far end.
Yesterday the commissioners tabled the track for the time being, this because it will likely be included as a small piece of pie in a far-larger delight in the weeks to come. But the real truth is Hamilton County can’t afford to pass out athletic facilities when 60 percent of the restrooms at Apison Elementary are unusable. Lordy, there is a lengthy and ever-growing maintenance list at every single school in the district and the Department of Education buildings have to be among the worst in the state.
I can remember over 50 years ago when “the old City High” on East Third was deemed outdated and a new school was built on Dallas Road. Then the outdated building became Riverside, which was predominately black at the height of integration in the South. After 20 years the building was declared unusable again. Erlanger’s Nursing School camped in the building for several years and in 1986 it became the much-heralded magnet Chattanooga School for the Arts and Science.
What is amazing is that CSAS is the hardest school to get in, and produces more college students who graduate from college than any other school – public or private – in Hamilton County. How the 95-year-old building has survived the wrecking ball is beyond me, but it is indeed a monument to the fact Hamilton County’s school buildings are almost all in lousy shape. And why is it our other great magnet school, Chattanooga School for the Liberal Arts, is in almost worse shape than the Coliseum in Rome, Italy?
Athletic facilities have suffered just as badly. In fall of 2015 several football stadiums were condemned – East Ridge High being one – so the most heroic “save” in all of 2016 was when the city of East Ridge decided to totally “take over” the athletic facilities at East Ridge High School. The city’s recreation czar, Stump Martin, will turn the baseball field, the track, a soccer field, and the tennis courts into the best in Hamilton County and I can see Red Bank, Soddy Daisy, and other municipalities in the county watching the East Ridge effort closely.
The lone hang-up at East Ridge and in other municipalities is the actual property where the playing fields are located needs to be deeded to the communities instead of the schools. This allows the communities to apply for recreation grants the schools can’t get. I contend “the people” own the schools and the same “people” own the athletic fields but now a letter-of-understanding from school board attorney Scott Bennett has been prepared. It gives the school “first dibs” on using the adjacent athletic facilities but opens the door for the recreation department, for example, to use the Raymond James football stadium on Saturday mornings for the peewee teams to play there.
For a long time citizens have walked on the tracks at Red Bank, Central and other county schools. Nobody says anything if the tennis courts are used on the weekends and, with the idea of “community schools” beginning to blossom, it isn’t a stretch to see how the East Ridge community will benefit from what is really more of a partnership – everybody wins.
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When the school board meets tonight, some big-ticket items like bus and maintenance contracts will be discussed, as well as the search for a superintendent. So it won’t be nearly as fun as the one that was held in Williamson County (think Brentwood, Franklin) this week. Beth Burgos, a school board member who is also a genuine medical doctor, offered “scientific proof” why some boys have trouble learning as much as they should.
Cleavage. That’s it, and I can solemnly attest the more cleavage the more danger. It has caused me all kinds of problems for the greater part of my life. I can hardly wait for my friend Rhonda Thurman to pounce on this one with her wisdom and can only imagine the commotion it will trigger with Steve Highlander and Joe Galloway, the two preachers on the school board. Whooo-whee!
Here is part of an email Dr. Burgos sent to one of her constituents and stood to read to the Williamson County school board, right in front of the TV cameras and everything:
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“We as a board are committed to providing a safe and learning-focused school climate as free from distractions as possible. It is our intent to clarify through policy what is considered appropriate for students to wear to school in order to help achieve this goal. We are early in the process and met for the first reading of the policy revision last Thursday night. Dr. (Mike) Looney had met and received feedback from several shareholder groups prior to our meeting.
“He was asked the question if our school administrators had any concerns with the revisions in the policy. He explained that they in fact did have two concerns: cleavage and tank tops. I agree that we needed to further address these issues. Especially the issue of cleavage because I do believe it can be one of the main distractions in a learning environment, especially for male students.
“My comments have been misunderstood and misconstrued. I am not a sexist nor am I relieving males of responsibilities for their thoughts or actions. My comments were based on medical fact and directed to the gender differences that exist in male and female brains when presented with visual sexual stimuli.
“As a medical doctor I can tell you that it’s neuroscientific fact that male and female brains are different. It’s widely acknowledged in the medical field that there are definite gender differences in brain activation and audio visual sexual stimulation. Studies have been done using functional MRIs that confirm a difference in brain activity when visually presented with certain stimuli.
“It has been proven that men are more prone to physical attraction whereas women are more affected by the environment and emotions related to a sexual partner. This difference has been confirmed by scientific studies, even on adolescent brains. When adolescent boys were studied with functional MRIs, brain activity was very high in response to visual sexual stimuli. This was not the case for adolescent girls.
“So you see my comments are not meant to be degrading in any way towards our female students. Nor do I hold male students in low regard. It is important, however, to keep these neuroscientific facts in mind when developing dress codes and when teaching our students about appropriate dress in the classroom.
“It is never okay to say that a woman deserves to be raped because of what she’s wearing. It is all together another thing to teach our young ladies the sexual response that occurs in a male’s brain when he sees part of the female body exposed.
“With that knowledge, I believe our female students would want to be more aware of how their dress could potentially distract their male counterparts and be willing to promote a learning focused school environment by dressing accordingly. This can and will be done in a way that does not shame our female students.”
Williamson County Director of Schools Mike Looney said he sought to revise the district dress code after a parent claimed a school's dress code unfairly targeted female students. The new clothing rules will be more inclusive and gender-free.
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I’m trying to remember if I was in junior high or if it was in high school when I learned what the sun and cleavage had in common – you can look at both a lot longer if you wear dark glasses.
royexum@aol.com