Assuming a sale goes through for the old East Brainerd Elementary School property, the Hamilton County Board of Education would find itself with a net gain windfall of $4.1 million.
So the question begs: What to do with $4.1 million for our 43,000-plus students in a school system with far more needs than dollars!
At most of our schools, there are no art teachers, no music teachers.
As of Thursday’s board meeting, seven more of our schools will no longer be able to feed all students a free breakfast and lunch – the very building block essential for learning whether the child lives in poverty or in a mansion.
And there’s a long, long list of $200 million in deferred maintenance needs – millions of which school board members have deemed urgent. (But don’t worry – our school board has already voted to replace stadiums. We can do without labs and classrooms, but not sports-field bleachers.)
Then there’s I-Zone funding that now is endangered because, according to a state education report, our school administration squandered last year’s priority school allocations with poor planning and coordination. Now the Hamilton County Commission may not be willing to step up to the plate again with funding for the program.
And, of course, there’s the extra $24 million that Interim Superintendent Kirk Kelly wanted the county to add to the school system’s budget. County commissioners have already said they will not raise taxes, and extra school system money would require a tax increase.
So there’s no shortage of things on which to spend an extra $4.1 million.
But there’s only one smart way to decide where to spend the money. Let’s spend it on schools that need it most – schools in high-poverty areas with at-risk students.
Our lucky schools in neighborhoods where middle- to high-income parents have already formed their own alternative funding sources – like Signal Mountain’s Mountain Education Foundation and the Normal Park Museum Magnet Education Fund – don’t need this help. But the Orchard Knob Middles and the Brainerd Highs of our system do need it.
Let’s make sure that how we spend this public money received from the sale of a public school first be determined by where we will spend it – and then by the needs of that particular school population.