ARTICLE TOOLS

E-mail story

Comments

Printer friendly version

iPod friendly version

Share This

Text Size: A A A A

Hamilton County: District 4 candidates tout experience, inexperience

By: Kelli Gauthier
(Contact)

Included in this article

School board candidates Debra Matthews and Gregg Juster recognize their District 4 schools need some work, but they vary on how best to bring about change.

Ms. Matthews, a 10-year veteran on the Hamilton County Board of Education, maintains that the downtown schools are improving and wants to continue her work in low-income schools with the Benwood Foundation and the Public Education Foundation.

“I am seeking re-election to continue the work I started 10 years ago when the district was at its worst, countywide,” she said. “We have new schools and renovated schools. We have quality teachers and we have good leaders in the Fourth District, as opposed to what we had when I first came on the board.”

Since Volkswagen chose to build an assembly plant in Chattanooga, the company must approve of the school system, which means administrators are doing something right, Ms. Matthews said.

But Mr. Juster said it’s no secret that District 4 schools — including Howard School of Academics and Technology, the “poster child for badness” — are the “worst schools in the entire system.”

Mr. Juster touted his inexperience in government and with public schools as his biggest selling points as a candidate, saying his outsider status gave him an ability to have plenty of “wild ideas.”

“I think this system desperately needs someone from the outside,” he said.

The Chattanooga transplant and longtime businessman said he wants to see the school system post an online check register so citizens can keep track of every single expenditure.

He also suggested it might be a good idea to take illiterate and math-challenged high school students from Howard and place them in a separate area of the school. Their only curriculum would be math and reading until they could read, write and do basic math, he said.

Although he did not raise his own son while he went through public education, Mr. Juster said he believes home schooling is the best way to teach students, although it often is not practical for parents. He said he was willing to see whether some home-school methods had a place in public education.

Both candidates agreed that improving historically poor parental involvement in District 4 schools is crucial.

Ms. Matthews favored working with legislators to provide structured training for parents who may be young and uneducated themselves. Meanwhile, Mr. Juster said he planned to knock on doors to bring in parents who “have no voice” from the Alton Park, Bushtown and Avondale neighborhoods.

“There’s no community input, because our current school board member isn’t allowing any input,” he said. “I’m not sure that community will ever get involved enough, but unless we pull them in and try, we’ll never know.”

Mr. Juster, who said he has been “shocked at the support I have in the black community,” called Ms. Matthews the least independent-thinking member on the current school board.

Larry High, an East Ridge resident who owns Bear’s Barber Shop in Alton Park, said Ms. Matthews has refused to listen to community members’ concerns in the past.

“I really don’t know how Mr. Juster would be, but I know how Debra is,” he said. “It’s a chance we have to take.”

Ms. Matthews said that, since Mr. Juster never has spoken with her personally, she questioned how he could know anything about her.

“He’s never bothered to have a conversation with me, so I don’t know how he could have any views on what I view or think,” she said. “He has an opportunity just like I do to get out there and let the voters decide, but voters should be able to make their decision on honesty and not a bunch of lies.”

Quenston Coleman, a Brainerd resident and former Parent-Teacher Association president at several district schools, said Ms. Matthews is a diligent worker who makes decisions that are the best for students but not always popular.

“It’s easy to stand on the outside and say, ‘She doesn’t listen and doesn’t do this,’” he said. “Debra works quietly and quickly with those involved to meet the needs of students and voters in the district.”

Comments