Staff photo by John Rawlston/Chattanooga Times Free Press
Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger talks with people gathered for a public meeting at the Hunter Middle School on Monday night, the first of several that the new mayor plans to attend in various areas of the county.Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger threw out a conversation starter Monday night when he answered a resident’s question about school expansion during a forum at Hunter Middle School.
When a resident asked him during his first County Conversations meeting what the county was doing to address an anticipated rise in the number of middle school students, Coppinger implied a new middle school may be under discussion.
“It’s on the radar screen,” Coppinger said. “We are looking at that. It’s being looked at, extensively.”
How extensively is an open question.
District 9 school board member Mike Evatt was at the meeting and said afterward the school’s current facilities plan does not include a new middle school anywhere in Hamilton County. He said the greatest growth the county faces is in elementary schools.