One North Shore condominiums are on Manufacturers Road.
Rhonda Thurman is seen in this file photo.The second meeting in as many weeks regarding rezoning at Normal Park Museum Magnet School grew so contentious that one school board member walked out and missed the vote altogether.
School board members Chip Baker and Linda Mosley asked the board to consider rezoning One North Shore condominiums into the Normal Park zone. That, just two weeks after the board voted 5-4 to move homes in the Hill City area into the zone of Normal Park, a high-performing school that includes students from a neighborhood boundary as well as magnet students from across the county.
Some board members thought the discussion over One North Shore was a waste of time and that the board should focus on other schools that don’t perform as well as Normal Park.
“There are other kids that are just as important as the kids at Normal Park,” said board member Rhonda Thurman. “We have beat this horse to death.”
North Chattanooga parents have often asked for inclusion in the Normal Park zone. Thurman said the board was focusing too much time on a few hundred students, while ignoring the needs of tens of thousands of other students in Hamilton County.