Not occupying his regular seat at the center of the dais, Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Rick Smith sat at a table across from school board members Thursday night.
“I thought I’d be a part of this team,” Smith told the board, as he sat beside Bill Kilbride, president and CEO of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, and Jared Bigham, director of Chattanooga 2.0.
For the next hour, the three men talked with the school board about the findings of a Chattanooga 2.0 report released Sunday that gives a sobering picture of local public schools and the failure to produce graduates qualified to hold the jobs coming to Hamilton County.
According to the report, only 35 percent of local public school graduates earn any postsecondary credentials after high school, barring them from 83 percent of the jobs in the county paying a livable wage of $35,000 and require some type of certification or degree.
Kilbride told the board how hard it has been to help businesses find qualified employees, making it “abundantly clear to us that the skills of high school graduates need more work.”