In an election year when outsiders nationally have made big splashes and when many voters have said they wanted to throw out all incumbents, four members of the the Hamilton County Board of Education seek re-election.
In light of the district's low test scores, the board's extension last summer of now former Superintendent Rick Smith's contract, the communications nightmare of the Ooltewah rape case and the board's handling of the selection of an interim superintendent, incumbents may have room to be a bit nervous.
The Chattanooga Free Press believes three of those four current office-holders, Rhonda Thurman (District 1), George Ricks (District 4) and Donna Horn (District 7) ought to be replaced, while Dr. Jonathan Welch (District 2) deserves another term.
Hamilton County School Board District 1 candidate Patti Skates answers questions during a candidate forum held by the Greater Chattanooga Association of Realtors at their headquarters on Amnicola Highway on Wednesday, June 1, 2016, in Chattanooga. 9 school board candidates answered questions about their candidacy at the forum.DISTRICT 1: DR. PATTI SKATES
Every board should have a Rhonda Thurman, someone who comes prepared, raises questions, asks "why" and doesn't vote for increased spending without a thought as to where the money goes. But the incumbent has been in office 12 years, boasts she's "not good about compromising" and continues to say her only priority is to look at the board "from the taxpayers' point of view."
With great respect for Thurman, 59, who says she won't "dazzle you with my brilliance" but not give you "a bunch of bull" either, we believe Dr. Patti Skates offers new leadership for a school system that is desperately in need to turn the corner.
She is a former Hamilton County Schools and Walker County (Ga.) Schools teacher who now works with dual enrollment students at Georgia Northwestern Technical College. She also is vice mayor of Soddy-Daisy, which is at the heart of District 1.
While we are leery of putting more teachers on a teacher-heavy board that needs broader representation, Skates, 62, vows she wouldn't be another rubber stamp for top-down-only central office policies. She says the board and schools "don't have the trust of parents" because "we haven't earned their trust."
She says she would be "outspoken" in advocating for more vocational choices, see that board policies and procedures are updated, bring in businesses and churches as resources, think "out of the box" in choosing the next superintendent and would offer "solutions or thoughts on a solution" instead of Thurman's usual "no" vote.
Skates also insists the system "doesn't have to spend a lot of money" and certainly "can't continue to go to the County Commission and say we need more money" without showing better test results.
"It's time we were held accountable to the community," she said.
The third candidate in the race is Jason Moses, 38, a Chattanooga fire fighter and former Chattanooga policeman who recently served as PTA vice president at the now-closed Falling Water Elementary School. While he vows to ask questions, compromise and work well with other people, we believe Skates is the best choice for what we hope will be a much improved school system by the next school board election.
Staff photo by Angela Foster / Jonathan Welch listens during a meeting of the Hamilton County Board of EducationDISTRICT 2: DR. JONATHAN WELCH
When Dr. Jonathan Welch, 38, took over as school board chairman last fall, he had no idea what awaited him. Beginning in late December, the Ooltewah incident, the low test scores and the superintendent's resignation scenario unfolded in rapid succession.
Though much of what happened was out of his hands, he "kept asking questions" and insisted the board needed answers, he said. Although he said not having a communications background hampered him when all problems seemed to default "to the chairman," he remained unflustered and kept a steady hand on the board as all around him seemed to be falling apart.
Welch also instituted work sessions to get more of the board's work done and with Erlanger Health System helped engineer a telemedicine program for low-performing schools.
For that, for his desire that the board revisit its policies and procedures before hiring the next superintendent and for his sincere desire to change a board that's been "dysfunctional for a long time," we endorse his re-election to a second term.
Welch's opponent is Kathy Lennon, who was a 25-year teacher and administrator in parochial schools and is now director of special projects and development at Chattanooga WorkSpace.
She advocates a financial strategic plan for the schools (not done in-house), school board meetings at different venues and at different times, more arts in the classrooms and more community activism in the schools.
Welch says the board must focus "more than anything on [grades] K-3 literacy, must address the lack of improvement in the low-performing schools, help the district hire better teachers and retain more of them, and spend less time on little things and more on being more "student-centric."
Tiffanie RobinsonDISTRICT 4: TIFFANIE ROBINSON
Tiffanie Robinson, 31, the president and chief executive officer of Lamp Post Properties, is the prototype change-agent member the board needs in what she calls the system's "most diverse" district.
She would like to see the district adopt student-based budgeting that would help low-performing schools and create more autonomy for principals. She also wants the district to forge a better relationship with the state and County Commission. Future relationships, she said, must be "less about egos" and "more about getting the job done." Too many in the past have been "built on what-can-you-do-for-me."
Robinson is comfortable discussing the influx of Hispanic students at Howard High School, a community school model that could offer "wrap-around services" for students and parents, the need for more vocational education and a superintendent who has "experience in turning around an organization."
The incumbent, George Ricks, 66, says things aren't as bad in the schools as people believe. Yet, he says the challenges of the past six months "woke the community up" and "got all of us talking." The problems, he said, are not the fault of the district's central office, which now has an "awesome team put together" and an interim superintendent in Dr. Kirk Kelly "he wouldn't mind voting for" if he sought the superintendent job. He said the district has never been funded at the level it should be. "You never have enough money," he said.
The third candidate in the race is Woodmore Elementary School health and physical education teacher Montrell Besley, 35. An enthusiastic, energetic father of three children in public schools, he wants to see more transparency in the district, less testing, better hiring practices, more pre-kindergarten classes and a superintendent who will "hold people accountable."
Despite the two men's heartfelt passion for youth, Robinson is the best choice of the three.
Hamilton County School Board District 7 candidate Joe Wingate.DISTRICT 7: JOE WINGATE
Joe Wingate, 43, a health and physical education professor and coach at Chattanooga State Community College, says he felt a burden for the public schools when his son began kindergarten and he observed "a gradual decline in [general] scholarship effort" since he attended school in the area.
"The distance between the haves and the have-nots is greater than it has ever been," he said, "and that's not good for everybody."
Unfortunately, Wingate said, the board has had a sense of arrogance and has seemed at times not to want the community's input. But its track record, he said, "doesn't show [the members have] got a handle on it."
Too often, he said, the majority of former educators who are board members "have voted in favor of the [school] system" when they should vote "in favor of the student and the teacher. I don't feel like I'd fall in line."
Wingate says he wants to provide principals more autonomy, form partnerships for more vocational opportunities, ensure schools are safe environments and overcome the district's "deficit in quality leaders." He is open to student-based budgeting, believes the next superintendent must have common sense and "real-world experience," and wants to end the board's bickering with the County Commission.
His opponent, incumbent Donna Horn, 65, a former classroom teacher, says she'd like to be re-elected because "so many things are in limbo." Among those things is the next superintendent, and in that person she'd like someone with the "managerial skills for a huge corporation" and a candidate with an "awareness of what's going on in schools," "real communications skills" and "a strong advocate for teachers."
No fan of vouchers or charter schools, she wants to expand a bullying/hazing intervention program she helped begin in District 7, "find [more] philanthropist money" and try to align the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga teacher education program with needs in the local district.
We believe Wingate deserves the edge in this rapidly growing area of the county.