If Hamilton County’s lowest performing schools do not improve, the state says it will intervene, Interim Superintendent Kirk Kelly told the school board Thursday night.
The state has been considering taking control of Hamilton County’s lowest-performing schools for months, as those schools have posted little, if any, academic progress for years.
Kelly said the state is demanding improvement of Hamilton County’s five priority schools – Brainerd High School, Dalewood Middle School, Orchard Knob Elementary, Orchard Knob Middle and Woodmore Elementary. If progress is not made this year, those schools are likely to join the state-run Achievement School District.
Tennessee has been identifying a list of priority schools – the bottom 5 percent of schools statewide – since 2012. Each of the district’s five priority schools were on this original list and have failed to move off, despite increased federal funding and additional support being pumped into them.
“We have a history of those five schools not being able to move,” Kelly admitted to the board Thursday night.