A lot is riding on the new Hamilton County schools superintendent: more than 44,000 students and their parents, 6,000 school employees and a $440 million budget are just the obvious things.
It’s true that the new guy is inheriting a system where improvements were made thanks to four years of hard work by innovative former Superintendent Bryan Johnson and the state’s threat to take over – or at least be imposing – our poorest performing schools.
It’s also true that other county officials finally stepped up, or almost up, to the plate to improve education funding with a tax increase.
A bonus of those efforts has been that, little by little, the school board members, the county commission and Chattanooga city leaders have finally begun to talk together, ever so gingerly – thanks primarily to business and employer insistence about six years ago via the establishment of Chattanooga 2.0, overseen by the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce.
(READ MORE: Justin Robertson chosen to lead Hamilton County Schools)