School starts this week, and with it comes a new strategic plan, dubbed Opportunity 2030, focused on a holistic, community-centered approach to educating students.
“At the very center of this plan is the concept, the idea, that for us to do better, we have to serve students holistically,” Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Justin Robertson said when he announced the plan in February. “If we don’t ensure that we’re creating connections in the school and connections outside the community and serving the needs of students from that holistic approach, they’re going to continue to struggle.”
The district has outlined five focus areas: academic achievement, student well-being, facility improvement and equitable resource access, teacher support and community involvement.
School security
Following the March 27 mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Gov. Bill Lee signed into law his school safety funding package, which allows local law enforcement agencies to apply for grants to place school resource officers on every public school campus in the state.
Last year after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the Hamilton County School Board and Hamilton County Commission set aside funds to put a school security officer in every school. As of Friday, the district had filled all 52 security officer positions, spokesman Steve Doremus said by email.
In addition, as of late July, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office employed 28 school resource deputies and was in the process of hiring four more, spokesman J. Matt Lea said by email. The Sheriff’s Office did not respond to more recent requests for updated numbers.
A school security officer differs from a school resource deputy in that they are not actively employed by law enforcement. Just like school resource deputies, safety officers are armed but they are not legally allowed to make arrests, Jim Corbin, Hamilton County Schools’ student security coordinator, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press last year.
The Sheriff’s Office and school district are also currently collaborating in the state grant process.
Staffing
Thirteen Hamilton County schools will welcome new principals this year. At the district level, the system hired a new executive director of human capital and financial solutions and the current Harrison Elementary Principal Roxanne Anthony will assist in the district office with equity and professional development.
Doremus said the district was in a good staffing position ahead of the first day. As of Friday, just over 90% of district certified positions had been filled, and the district was continuing to process new hires.
This is lower than the percentage of positions filled on opening day last year, 96%, which Doremus attributed to the increase in exceptional education, English as a new language and student support coach positions funded by this year’s budget. The district also added funding for response to intervention teachers, educational assistants and social workers.
“We have actually hired more student-facing employees this year than last year, and our student-to-adult ratios will be lower in our schools than they were last fall,” Doremus said in an email.
New laws
Tennessee lawmakers passed a variety of laws that will affect K-12 public schools this year. They include:
— Expulsion policies: Adds students who threaten mass violence on school property or at a school-related activity to the list of actions considered in violation of a zero-tolerance offense, which could result in a one-year expulsion. The list also includes bringing a gun to school, assaulting teachers or staff and possessing drugs. School leaders can make case-by-case exceptions.
— Implicit bias training: Prohibits public schools, charter schools and public universities from requiring employees to complete or participate in implicit bias training.
— Sports safety: Current Tennessee law requires coaches to take a concussion safety class, a cardiac arrest care class, undergo CPR training and comply with a background check. The new bill expands that requirement to include training in physical conditioning and equipment use.
— High school course credit: Allows a high school to award a student credit for a class if the student attains a qualifying score on the final exam without requiring the student to enroll in the course. Students can earn up to four graduation credits from separate exams.
— Parental consent: Requires a school to get written consent from parents before minor students can participate in a survey or evaluation not related to the curriculum, receive instruction of a sexual orientation or gender identity curriculum or join student clubs.
Contact Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.