On Aug. 18, 2021, Tyner Academy students walked out of class to protest the school’s poor conditions. Exactly four years later, students, staff and county leaders gathered to celebrate the grand opening of the new Tyner Middle High Academy.
As Hamilton County officials held a ribbon cutting ceremony Monday morning at the school’s new gym, the recurring theme was of the leadership and legacy of the class of 2022 that made this day happen.
“We teach students a lot about advocating for themselves, how they can use their voice for the positive,” Principal Rashaad Williams said in an interview. “To see students actually take the lessons learned and use them, it’s very rewarding.
“As a teacher, we taught students voice. We taught students how to be courageous, and we taught them what it means to be a leader and do the right things. To have a student body that took that, ran with it, and now they have a result of their labor, it’s very rewarding.”
Long-awaited Tyner Middle High Academy opens four years after student walkout
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The new Tyner building was a long time coming.
A 2019 facilities report rated Tyner Academy and Tyner Middle Academy as the second and third worst school buildings in the county.
The situation reached a tipping point the day before the 2021-22 school year began when water leaks from the roof caused the 400 building, which housed Tyner’s Freshman Academy, to close. Students staged a walkout in protest, and three seniors later addressed both the Hamilton County school board and the County Commission.
Within days, the school board voted to approve hiring an architect to design a new school.
Then, in December 2022, when bids came in at around $17 million more than expected, district and county leaders assured the public they would see the project through anyway. The school board authorized a $95 million bid for the building’s construction.
Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp called the school’s completion a rare example of good political leadership that began with the grassroots leadership of young people. He said Tyner was the first new high school built as a replacement for an existing campus in the county in more than three decades.
That, he told students, was a bet on them and the school’s leadership.
“I want you all to know that it was the performance and the improvement of this school in the classroom,” he said during the ceremony. “It was the performance at a championship level on the athletic field. It was the pursuit of careers here, from teaching to engineering, that caused this county to make its biggest bet ever on the Tyner Rams.”
High school students were welcomed into the new building in the spring, and middle school students transitioned in at the start of this school year.
The new facility, which combined and replaced Tyner middle and high schools, provides a lot more opportunities for students, Williams said.
It hosts a theater, two gymnasiums and a new football field, which is expected to be completed by early October, he said. The school also now has teams for every sport the county offers.
The school’s future ready institutes — small learning communities that focus around an industry theme to prepare students for careers after graduation — added a pathway for audio/visual production, as well as one for social workers, counselors and school psychologists, Williams said. Students hoping to pursue careers in early childhood education can also get hands-on experience at the new micro-center on campus. The center provides child care to the children of Hamilton County Schools staff.
“We have something for every student in that building,” he said.
Contact education reporter Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.