To our recollection, Hamilton County’s five most recently named school board members – and the four who were elected two years before in 2014 – all told the Chattanooga Times Free Press and local voters they wanted to see more accountability and transparency in school administration and on the board itself.
We mention this today because the entire board, led by its chairman, Steve Highlander, failed the test last week.
The Hamilton County Board of Education narrowed its list of superintendent finalists from 14 to 10 through private emails.
Each school board member emailed a list of the 10 candidates they want to interview, and Highlander, with the board’s secretary and a representative from the board-hired superintendent search firm, tabulated the results in private Tuesday.
These board members are the same people who were outraged when the former superintendent and the current interim superintendent kept quiet the dire academic growth rates of Hamilton County students. They are the same board members who were horrified to learn about the gravity of an Ooltewah basketball team hazing rape from the newspaper rather than from school officials. And they are the same folks who were shocked by a damming state report that found school administrators seriously dragged their feet in spending $11 million in federal money earmarked for the county’s lowest performing schools.