James Walker will run to again represent the Harrison and Birchwood areas on the Hamilton County school board.
Walker, 59, was appointed to the board in August 2021 by the Hamilton County Commission after the Harrison/Birchwood seat was left vacant when Steve Highlander was named to the commission. In May 2022, Walker lost the Republican primary to Gary Kuehn of Ooltewah, who went on to win the seat in the general election.
After that election, Walker said people in the community approached him saying they’d like to see him continue to serve and asking what he was going to do next. He decided to run for school board again, he said, because he still feels the same as he did four years ago.
“Our children are our biggest, our best resource,” he said by phone. “I think our community needs community voices on there, and I think the school board is a great way to hold the Department of Education accountable.
“I mean, nothing has changed since then,” he continued. “The kids are still the same. The community is still the same. I still care about our community.”
Walker added he thinks the school board is where he can best provide leadership for his community and stand up for children and families.
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In May, he will face Kuehn, a retired teacher and administrator, in the primary election for the District 9 seat.
Walker, a Central High graduate and lifelong resident of District 9, is a district sales manager for the Tennessee Education Lottery Corp. He also volunteers through coaching youth sports, with the high school’s alumni association and the Ooltewah Harrison Education Foundation, he said.
“The school board position, to me, is just an extension of community service,” he said. “I’m not a politician. I like to be outspoken in our community and try and stand up for what’s right for our students and families and teachers.”
If elected, Walker said he would be a “conservative, common sense” voice on the board. He’d also like to boost parent involvement and evaluate all of the district’s outside funding, including state and federal grants, to see what’s required, as well as what does and doesn’t work, he said.
Walker said he wasn’t a fan of any outside funding, but he’d like the district to maximize what it does get and look at how it can be used in a way that best benefits students.
“That’s the first thing that comes to mind when I talk about being conservative: Let’s use our money wisely,” he said. “We don’t need any more money. We don’t need any more taxes. We don’t need any of those increases. We need to use our money wisely that we have.”
Half of Hamilton County Schools‘ funding comes from local sales and property taxes, about a third comes from the state and the rest comes from the federal government, according to data published by the Tennessee Department of Education.
One of the largest issues Walker sees facing local public schools is the number of families choosing to homeschool or send their children to private schools. He’s a proponent of parental choice, he said, but he’d like to figure out a way to capture why people aren’t choosing public education.
Since the Chattanooga City and Hamilton County school systems merged in the 1990s, public school enrollment has increased by a few thousand students, he said.
“We know Hamilton County and Chattanooga’s population has grown enormously in the last 25 years,” he said. “The No. 1 thing I would like to do is identify why our students are leaving and have honest, frank talks about it.”
Contact education reporter Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.