While cold weather kept students away from Hamilton County public schools all week, emotions heated up Thursday night’s school board meeting.
One flash point was the Hamilton County Commission’s 7-2 vote Wednesday to put a condition on the installation of up-to-date security cameras in all 76 county schools.
County commissioners voted to fund the school cameras with $2.2 million from the sale of the old Ooltewah Elementary School — provided that proceeds from the future sale of the East Brainerd Elementary School property be divided evenly between the commission’s nine districts, which mirror the county’s school board districts.
The commissioners of each district will decide how their share of East Brainerd Elementary School money is spent, in coordination with their respective school board member, the resolution states.
“Do not like it,” East Ridge school board representative David Testerman said. “I do not think this is right.”
The County Commission overstepped its authority, according to the school district’s attorney, D. Scott Bennett.
Principal Tom Arnold demonstrates the camera system at Ooltewah Elementary School in this Nov. 21, 2014 file photo.“The General Assembly has decided that’s this [school] board’s job, rather than the commissioners’ job,” he said of deciding how to spend the funds.
Bennett drafted a resolution Thursday morning that “respectfully requests” that commissioners purchase the security cameras as quickly as possible and then let the school board decide how any proceeds from East Brainerd Elementary’s sale are spent.
But since three school board members hadn’t received Bennett’s resolution by email — Hixson’s Greg Martin, Brainerd’s Karitsa Mosley and Ooltewah’s Steve Highlander — the board voted 4-5 to table the resolution until its March meeting.
Martin made the motion to table, saying he wanted time to vet the matter. But others wanted to proceed, citing the importance of cameras for students’ safety.
“If we put this off, it’s just another month that we’ve got no cameras,” Lookout Valley school board representative Joe Galloway said.
Schools Superintendent Rick Smith said he was “disappointed” and “angry” with the commissioners’ vote.
Another contentious moment Thursday came before the school board’s 7-2 vote to spend $50,000 toward the Principal Leadership Academy, a $750,000 program to groom assistant principals for the principal’s job with help from the business community. The partnership has been in place since 2010 between the Hamilton County Department of Education, Public Education Foundation, Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Soddy-Daisy school board representative Rhonda Thurman said “we’re all idiots” for continuing to spend money on the program.
“We’ve been doing this over and over and over again,” she said. “There has not been one ounce of improvement in some of these schools.”
Martin took offense at that.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to insult one another on this board,” he said. “We’re putting in $50,000. Other parties are putting in $700,000, and we’re getting all the benefit.”
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.