UnifiEd seeking input to address school inequity
To Chattanooga Free Press Editorial Page Editor Clint Cooper:
I’d like to thank you on behalf of UnifiEd for your support in spirit of the APEX Project to address inequities across Hamilton County schools. However, I’d like to provide clarification to your readers about your Tuesday editorial, “UnifiEd claims to have plan to help students succeed.”
We don’t claim to have such a plan. Rather, we’re leading an initiative that will produce a community-developed plan to address educational inequities. UnifiEd will facilitate community discussion and provide best practice research support, data analysis and organizing support to help the community identify which inequity issues matter most and prioritize workable solutions. The “Action Plan for Educational eXcellence” (APEX) will be the policy created through this process and issued in February 2018.
Your piece warned against unrealistic expectations, and I agree. But the goal of the APEX Project is for community members to define for themselves what will realistically ensure a brilliant future for all children in Hamilton County.
I hope you’ll join us at the APEX launch event on Aug. 1 to expand on the solutions your piece suggested and add your voice to this important plan-development process.
Jonas Barriere
Executive director, UnifiEd
TV commercial gets thumbs-up
I’ve lived in Chattanooga all my life, and the television commercial for Atlas Bolt with Stacy Stansell and, “Now, you’re ready” is just about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Atlas Bolt is down home, and pure Chattanooga.
Mark Holden
Ooltewah
Please don’t trash Mother Nature
Traditionally, we Tennesseans have prided ourselves on the native beauty of the land we inherited.
Unfortunately, there are growing signs of a litterbug infestation across the country, and especially in our neck of the woods. I live near a small white bridge where lots of folks fish. A few yards down is a public boat ramp where others launch their boats. If this all sounds like a beautiful spot, it is – or at least it should be. The problem is that this popular corner of Mother Nature’s playground is becoming a dumping site. For heaven’s sake, please don’t leave your Vienna sausage tins, blue plastic worm containers, and those beer cans lying around. I don’t think Davy Crockett would approve.
This is Mother Nature’s house. You wouldn’t go to your mama’s place, trash it and throw your empties on the floor. As we tell our kids, “pick up after yourself” and “learn to share.” Let’s keep it clean! To paraphrase “Tickle” (an entrepreneur on TV’s “Moonshiners”), “If you love America, you gotta hate litter.”
Gary L. Riggins
Birchwood, Tenn.