The Hamilton County Board of Education voted 5-2 to approve a teacher code of professional conduct at its Thursday meeting.
Board member Marco Perez of Signal Mountain moved to postpone the vote due to concern about a line in the policy stating teachers have to be careful with expressing themselves.
"We live in an environment right now where it's almost impossible to express something that won't alienate people or create barriers," Perez said.
When the item was added back to the agenda, he and board member James Walker of Birchwood voted against the policy.
The board first discussed the policy at its Monday agenda meeting after a teacher spoke against the policy at the August board meeting. Heather Modrow, a teacher at East Ridge Elementary, said the district policy was redundant because of the existing state policy. She also questioned a difference in the wording of one section of the district policy.
"Additionally, this policy changes language from 'make a reasonable effort to protect the students from conditions harmful to the learning or health and safety' in the Tennessee code to 'employees must protect the health and safety and students,'" Modrow told the board in August.
"In a pandemic, how can you require teachers to protect the health and safety of students when our hands are tied by the state with an opt-out order, Executive 84? What are the legal ramifications for staff if a child becomes seriously ill, are we gonna be sued?"
The executive order, signed by Gov. Bill Lee last month, requires local school districts to allow families to opt students out of local mask mandates put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Modrow spoke out against the policy again on Thursday.
On Monday, Perez asked board attorney Scott Bennett to explain the differences between the district policy and the state policy, saying it was the same policy the board reviewed last October.
Bennett told the board the district policy applied to both teachers and other employees who work with students, while the state policy only covers teachers.
"Think of the state law as the old King James Version, everything in there is valid, but it's a little hard to understand," Bennett told the board Monday. "Think about this as the New Living Translation, it's designed to make the law easy to understand to all of your teachers."
The board also unanimously approved the selection of Tucker McClendon of East Ridge as the chair of the board and Tiffanie Robinson of Chattanooga as vice chair. McClendon previously served as vice chair.
Contact Anika Chaturvedi at achaturvedi@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6592.