The first time Erica Flowers visited Orchard Knob Middle School, her fears of a school in chaos were confirmed. It was time to get her daughter out.
“I went over … and [the students] were so loud. I was standing there and a teacher was like, ‘Can I help you?’ And I was like, ‘Um, no, I’m not the one who needs the help here,'” she said, adding that was the moment when she thought her daughter “can’t do another year at Orchard Knob.”
In fact, Flowers never wanted her daughter, Alayah Jackson, to go there in the first place. She’d heard stories of fighting and gangs at the school, and it just didn’t seem a good place for her daughter to go after Hardy Elementary.
Although federal law gave Flowers the opportunity to transfer her daughter from the low-performing Orchard Knob to a higher-performing school, the process took too long the first time around. Alayah ended up spending her sixth-grade year at Orchard Knob.
But this year, Flowers got her paperwork turned in early. So, along with 77 of her classmates, Alayah, 12, transferred to Hunter Middle School, a 30-minute bus ride from her home in East Chattanooga. Another 21 students from Orchard Knob transferred to Ooltewah Middle.