Nonprofit CEO Sandy Pricer hopes to support the community as a Hamilton County school board member.
“I’m not in it for me,” she said in an interview. “I’m not in it for my own gains. I’m in it for the community, for the next generation and how I can help them and our community.”
Pricer, an independent from Hixson, is running against Republican Ashley Dillon and Democrat Ruth Walker in the race to replace Chair Joe Smith, R-Hixson, as the District 3 representative on the Hamilton County school board. The district includes the Hixson and Lakesite areas.
The general election is Aug. 6, and early voting starts July 17.
In 2020, Pricer, 46, founded RiseUp Cooperative, a nonprofit that provides life and leadership workshops to teenagers and young adults. She previously worked in social services, primarily in roles connected to the foster care system.
She also serves as the board president for Ivy Academy, a public charter school in Soddy-Daisy.
“I know how a board works, and I know its purpose,” she said. “A lot of times, I’ve noticed through my board experience that when people don’t have board experience, they don’t understand what boards are for. That learning curve can take a while to learn, and I already have that knowledge and experience.”
Pricer is a Chattanooga native and graduated from Notre Dame High School. Her six children attended a mix of public, charter, private and homeschools, and the two youngest attend public high schools.
If elected, her top priorities include increasing students’ access to workforce development and hands-on learning opportunities, as well as supporting teachers.
“I have so many of them that have come to me and shared different stories of how they don’t feel supported or why or what’s going on in their schools specifically,” she said. Her priorities include “being able to find a way to help support them more or at least make sure they feel supported, because that’s a lot of times why great teachers leave is they don’t have that support system.”
She is also focused on school safety, including student discipline.
“We want to increase scores in math and in reading and in those different areas,” she said. “Well, how can we do that if some of the children in some of our schools are regularly disrupted?”
She plans to meet with the district’s social emotional and academic development department, which oversees school counselors and social workers, to figure out how the board can help with discipline issues, as well as work to ensure general safety policies and procedures are implemented and followed on every campus.
(READ MORE: Hixson area Hamilton County school board candidates talk priorities, healthy schools)
Pricer is running as an independent because she didn’t want partisan politics to affect her nonprofit. Her values also align with both parties, depending on the topic, she said.
“I will vote in the best interest of the students,” she said. “If that’s more Republican leaning, if that’s more Democrat leaning, so be it.”
In the past two decades, Pricer has not voted in a county school board election, according to records from the Hamilton County Election Commission.
Two years ago, she went through the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce’s leadership program, which includes a session focused on local government. That — combined with one of her children becoming interested in politics and educating her — taught her about the importance of local politics, she said.
“I feel once you know something, once you’ve learned something, you can’t turn your back on it,” Pricer said. “Not being educated on it is why I hadn’t voted. Becoming educated on it is why I will going forward vote and why I’m running.”
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School board candidates are elected to four-year terms.
Regena Young, a Hixson resident who volunteers for RiseUp Cooperative, said Pricer’s experience on the Ivy Academy board means she knows what it takes to run a school, as well as how important it is to give teachers what they need to educate students.
“I really believe in Sandy,” Young said by phone. “I know her heart is with the kids and the teachers. She has dedicated so much of her life to supporting folks. … She really has a heart for making sure our students get what they need. She also believes in listening to the teachers.”
THE ELECTION
The general election is Aug. 6 and early voting runs July 17-Aug. 1.
OFFICE DETAILS
Duties: Approving the budget, creating policy, hiring and evaluating the superintendent
Schools represented: Big Ridge Elementary, DuPont Elementary, Hixson Elementary, Hixson Middle, Hixson High, Loftis Middle, McConnell Elementary, Middle Valley Elementary
Key issues: Facilities, school staffing, preparing students for the workforce
Start date: Sept. 1
Salary: Around $14,000
WHERE THE CANDIDATES STAND
Parental rights
“As parents, we have the ultimate say as to where our children go to school. I think parental rights need to be extremely respected. No one is forcing a parent to send their child to the zoned school, and we should treat parents as such. … There are so many different options in how to educate your child that the school board and the schools need to be mindful of that, and there’s a lot of laws surrounding parental rights that we need to make sure that we’re respecting and following. I just think it’s really important that we’re honoring and respecting the role of a parent.”
— Ashley Dillon, Republican
“When they’re in school, we’re not the ones schooling them. We are giving a lot of those rights over to the school system, to the individualized school and teacher, but that does not remove our parental rights in the equation at all. There are opt-outs and opt-ins and PTOs, PTAs (parent teacher organizations), ways that we can be involved and have our voices heard as long as we are involved. I think parental rights are huge, and I really wish that more parents were involved in all the schools. … I think that could continue to better the schools, the community and our students if more parents were involved and understand that they do have a parental right for their child’s education.”
— Sandy Pricer, independent
“It is so important for parents to have decisions and the ability to be involved in their child’s life in the school system. … Sometimes when they feel like parent rights are being infringed on, I think it’s because they just don’t feel involved with the process. If we can get them involved with the process, they can understand they have every right. They have every right to say that, ‘I don’t want my kid to read that book.’ OK, they don’t have to read that book. They have every right to come in and say that ‘I have a concern about our curriculum or I have a concern about this.’ And they have every right for the teachers and the principal and everyone to sit down with them and to talk them through that and to help them understand and to make accommodations where needed. If we can get them more involved, I think that we can help them feel more empowered.”
— Ruth Walker, Democrat
School-based mental health providers
“One person that I had spoken with, she said that it takes longer for a student. If they’re getting the services, it’s taking longer to initiate because now they have to go through five different providers and call and do the research. It’s just an added step, and it’s an added barrier. When we’re already 50th in the nation for youth access to mental health services, why are we creating additional barriers and additional steps to do that? … They need to be credentialed. They need to be licensed, and we need to, of course, vet them appropriately. All of those things. Centerstone had all of those things, and so now I’m concerned about who’s not receiving services that needs it.”
— Ruth Walker, Democrat
“I know through my experiences firsthand that a child cannot learn if they’re hungry, if they’re scared, if they didn’t sleep the night before. The mental health providers give them something that they might not be able to get anywhere else. I know there’s an argument that after-school is the time for that. A parent needs to set that up. Well, there’s situations where a parent can’t. A parent’s working two jobs, and if the child doesn’t get that mental health in school, they’re not going to get it. Our job is to educate the youth, and if they literally cannot be educated because of being hungry or scared or feeling unsafe, … then we’re not doing our job.”
— Sandy Pricer, independent
“I think that one’s already been decided, and it was a very hotly contested issue. I don’t think it’s going to come back up. The things that they are doing now, as long as they’re following the law and the ethics code, it’s been decided. I don’t think it’s an issue that has to come back up. Now, I do think that we need to be mindful that everyone is staying in their lane. There are ethics codes around who is allowed to do what and any licensed professional counselor should know the ethics code for their job. … This also goes back to parental choice and making sure that parents, one, they know what they’re signing their kid up for and they know that they have options.”
— Ashley Dillon, Republican
Contact education reporter Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.