After hearing from residents - who were divided on the issue - during a two-hour meeting last Monday night, town of Signal Mountain officials voted to form a committee tasked with investigating the viability of breaking away from Hamilton County Schools.
More than a dozen community members spoke, and the group that's spent months researching the feasibility of forming a separate district shared its preliminary findings with the crowd.
"Signal Mountain schools have had success despite the Hamilton County Department of Education," said Rob Hensley, speaking on the group's months of research. "We are only able to address the symptoms of the problems rather than the underlying causes."
But others shared concerns about how breaking away from the county could hurt its other schools.
"The very idea is elitist," Bob Linehart said. "We are not just residents of Signal Mountain, but of the county as well."
Hensley argued the mountain's schools are underfunded and the community is already supplementing many of the things Hamilton County Schools doesn't provide. Despite the swell of community support for the school, it still has little control over what happens, he said.
Preliminary research shows that launching a separate district would impact student achievement by allowing the mountain to retain and hire top educators and administrators, and it would boost the amount of money the schools receive, Hensley argued.
If municipalities decide to form school districts, the schools will receive state and county per-pupil allocations, meaning Hamilton County Schools would receive less money because of a decrease in enrollment, according to the state.
Some in the crowd rged the town to continue considering the breakaway, saying it should do whatever it can to guarantee the schools are the best. Hamilton County School's overall low academic performance, the continual turnover in leadership and decisions made by the school board were reasons community members said the town should consider creating its own system.
But some community members said they fear the district would be too much of a financial burden on the town. One parent said she was worried her kids would no longer be able to attend Hamilton County's magnet schools if a separate district was formed. Another mom said the new district might not be able to adequately support exceptional education.
Rodney Van Valkenburg urged the council to select a diverse committee to study the implications of the town forming its own school district, saying those who worked on the preliminary investigation should not be included in the new one.
"The worst thing that can happen is this being taken to the voters without it being fully vetted," he said.
The Signal Mountain Town Council voted 4-1 in favor of forming a committee; Dan Landrum was the only vote against.
The idea isn't necessarily a bad one to consider, Landrum said, but he feared a committee appointed by the council would be biased.
Other council members argued that the committee, which can include up to seven people, will be chosen with diversity in mind and tasked with answering the community's questions about the idea and not making a recommendation.
If the findings seem to be favorable to breaking away from the county schools, residents of the town would vote on the move in a referendum.
Hamilton County Schools has signaled that it won't give up the school buildings without a fight.
Scott Bennett, Hamilton County Board of Education's attorney, warned the town of Signal Mountain's attorney in an email earlier this month that if the mountain decides to start its own district, its school buildings could be sold to developers or repurposed for the county's school system.