On Thursday, the Hamilton County Schools system begins its 2016-17 school year. By the time it ends next May, we want to believe the district will have begun an historic turnaround.
The waning days of 2015 and first few months of 2016, after all, couldn't have been much worse for the state of local public education.
First, a Chamber of Commerce-initiated report indicated only about a third of area students in the coming years will have the required level of education to take the type of living wage job offered in the area. It noted 15,000 jobs could not currently be filled by Hamilton County residents because of a lack of training, skills and education.
Second, standardized test scores showed district schools had fallen further behind the state and other metro areas in every high school test and on average ACT scores. The state Report Card showed the system's schools trailed the state's other metro areas in academic growth.
Third, the rape of an Ooltewah High School basketball player exposed, at a minimum, the lack of communication between the office of superintendent of schools and the Hamilton County Board of Education and between the superintendent and the public; the varying degree of education about bullying and hazing policies within the schools; and the lack of resolve on the part of the school board involving the effectiveness and contract of the superintendent.
Fourth, a Tennessee Department of Education response to the district's priority schools plan said its restructuring ideas for the now-upon-us 2016-17 school year "leaves the review team with great pause." It also said the plan for the district's lowest performing schools had a "lack of cohesiveness" and pointed to "an unfocused approach."
Fifth, state education leaders said last month that more needs to be done to ensure new teachers coming out of state training programs are ready for the classroom. Among those programs is the one at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, which supplies most of the estimated 300 teachers hired by the Hamilton County Department of Education annually but was ranked 327th out of 394 in elementary education programs nationally and 187th out of 406 in secondary education programs by the National Council on Teacher Quality in 2014.
Fortunately, pieces that indicate a turnaround are visible:
' The Chattanooga 2.0 steering committee, having assembled community ideas, strategies and plans over six months to transform education and workforce opportunities in the area after the Chamber of Commerce jobs report late last year, is expected to release its comprehensive report within weeks. Once that is released, its next step will be to transfer the report into action, to help implement the outlined changes and to sustain them.
' Three of four incumbent Hamilton County school board members up for election were defeated at the polls last week. That indicates, at least, that residents who have students in public schools and those who don't have paid enough attention to know the status quo with the Board of Education is not satisfactory - that change is in order.
When the new members - Kathy Lennon in District 2, Tiffanie Robinson in District 4 and Joe Wingate in District 7 - are sworn into office in early September, they will join the re-elected Rhonda Thurman and at least current board member Greg Martin in having advocated for change from a more central office-focused board to one more independent, transparent and accountable.
Martin has announced his intention to be a candidate for the District 3 seat on the Hamilton County Commission, which will be vacant when Commissioner Marty Haynes is sworn into office as the county assessor in early September. He will remain on the school board - should he be the Republican commission candidate - until at least the Nov. 8 election.
' The first order of business for the new school board will be to prepare for the selection of a new superintendent, the most important job each of the new members said they would have. To expedite that move, they will select a search firm to recruit and screen candidates before narrowing their search.
With three new members on the board, plus Thurman and Martin, all of whom have advocated for a change in focus, the chance of interim superintendent Dr. Kirk Kelly remaining in the position after the search has dimmed. Although Kelly has not said he would be a candidate for the job, he hasn't said he wouldn't be, either. But he was a member of former Superintendent Rick Smith's cabinet, so he may not be palatable to board and non-board education advocates looking for significant change in the system.
' New UTC School of Education director Renee Murley has said new strategies, new partnerships, continuing coalitions and the school's inclusion in a pilot teacher prep program should make a difference in the improvement of teachers coming out of its program and going into the public schools.
Superintendents, school board members and teachers alone cannot improve the performance of students in Hamilton County School. But new thinking, bold initiatives and a willingness to scrap what isn't working are a step in the right direction. We hope those steps are made over the next nine months.