A Hamilton County school board member wants to change the grade bands the schools in the East Brainerd area serve in order to accommodate the district’s growth.
School board member Jodi Schaffer, R-East Brainerd, pitched the idea Monday, saying it would help retain families and take a proactive approach to the new housing being built in the area.
All of the schools in District 7, which Schaffer represents, would be impacted. Those schools are Apison Elementary, East Brainerd Elementary, Westview Elementary, East Hamilton Middle and East Hamilton High.
Under Schaffer’s proposed reconfiguration, the grades served by schools in District 7 would, for the most part, shift to have primary schools with kindergarten through third grade students, an intermediate school with fourth through sixth graders, and a high school with seventh through 12th graders.
East Brainerd Elementary would continue to serve some fourth and fifth grade students.
“By just restructuring in District 7, we can get every school under 100% capacity,” Schaffer said at Monday’s school board facility committee meeting. “If you look at those numbers of projected enrollment, I can get every building under 100% capacity without the modules. That’s exciting to me. That’s exciting for our students. That’s exciting for our families and for our community.”
(READ MORE: Nearly 400 homes rising in fast-growing East Brainerd)
There are parts of the district where the typical grade band structure isn’t filling schools, Superintendent Justin Roberston said, and this proposal allows the district to think differently about what it could look like.
The part that gives him pause, though, is trying to get it done by next school year. A change like this, he said, would require the district to redo staffing and bus routes.
Schaffer, elected in August, hopes to make the change for next school year because the schools in her district are losing families, she said.
“Every day, we’re losing more families to other schools, and I want to retain my community,” she said. “I ran to make the schools better for my community, to represent my community, and that’s what I’m asking this board to let me do. Let me represent my community. Let me make things better for them and make space to welcome new people into the East Ham fam.”
District 7, which covers the East Brainerd and Apison areas, has had 2,000 new sewer line permits granted this year, Schaffer said.
The restructuring would address the area’s growth without needing to build something new, she said. It could also help with emphasizing literacy in kindergarten through third grade and building continuity with athletics and arts in the older grades.
Proposed reconfiguration
Apison Elementary
— K-3 students would remain
— Grades 4-5 would move to East Hamilton Middle
East Brainerd Elementary
— K-3 students would remain
— Grades 4-5 zoned for Ooltewah Middle would remain, and those zoned for East Hamilton Middle would go to East Hamilton Middle
Westview Elementary
— K-3 students would remain, and grades 4-5 would go to East Hamilton Middle
East Hamilton Middle
— Would become intermediate school serving grades 4-6
— Sixth grade would remain
— Grades 7-8 would go to East Hamilton High
East Hamilton High
— Would serve grades 7-12
Several school board members said they liked the idea and were interested to hear what the community thinks. A community meeting will be held at 6 p.m. March 6 at East Hamilton High to gather feedback.
School board member Ben Daugherty, R-Signal Mountain, said the elementary schools in the Signal Mountain area he represents are also near or at capacity.
“That excites me because I think growth is probably the best indicator we have that we’re doing something right in our public education system,” he said. “Growth is a challenge, but it’s also a good barometer of what we’re doing, and I think this is an opportunity to look at a low- to no-cost alternative to provide a necessary throttle for some of the growth.”
School board member Jackie Anderson-Thomas, D-Chattanooga, said she recognized this was a temporary fix, but it seemed as though everything was being built and added to these schools while there are things at the schools she represents that need to be fixed. Anderson-Thomas represents the downtown area.
“That’s my concern is that we seem like we’re only worried about a certain area of students,” she said. “For me, they don’t look like the students in my district. They don’t have the same problems that the students in my district have, and so I want them to be able to walk into school and feel the same way, not overcrowded, as students in East Brainerd and East Hamilton would have.”
Contact Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.
Staff photo by Shannon Coan / A map of the current capacity statuses of elementary schools in Hamilton County was presented Feb. 25, 2025, at the school board facilities committee meeting. Areas in red represent the zones of schools that are near or over capacity.