Incumbent Ben Connor, D-North Chattanooga, plans to continue focusing on improving school facilities and supporting teachers if elected to a second term on the Hamilton County Board of Education.
“The job’s not done,” he said in an interview. “I got elected because I was a father that wanted to listen to the families. I wanted to listen to the teachers. I wanted to listen to the students, and I wanted to get the job done right by listening to them. They’ve made it clear that there’s more they have for me to do, and I’m ready to do it.”
Connor is facing a challenge from Republican Cindy Fain, of North Chattanooga, in the race to represent District 6 on the Hamilton County school board. The district includes the Red Bank and North Chattanooga areas.
Connor, 44, was first elected to the school board in 2022. During his time in office, he said, he’s proudest of restoring students’ access to school-based mental health services after the board voted in August not to renew a long-standing agreement with Centerstone Community Mental Health Center. Connor added updated agreements with Centerstone to the September and October board meeting agendas. Republican school board members declined to consider the new pacts.
In November, the board approved agreements with five mental health providers.
“Of the thousands of emails we received, maybe a dozen were in support of getting rid of them,” he said. “Every other one was: ‘Please get this back.’ And not only did we get it back, but we got it back with five options. … It’s almost the phoenix analogy. Out of the ashes of something terrible, we have made something better.”
He responded to every email he received about mental health services, he said, because he wanted people to know he was listening.
“I have proven that I will listen and do what the community wants,” he said.
Connor works as a real estate agent for the Robinson team of Keller Williams Realty and previously worked in restaurant and sales roles. He was born in Chattanooga, he said, but his family moved throughout the Southeast when he was a child. He moved back to the city in 2018, and his four children attend public schools.
If reelected, one of his top priorities will be facilities. Connor wants to ensure the board creates a long-term plan to continuously maintain facilities and address needs as they arise, rather than waiting until things break, he said.
“It’s been kicked down the road too far,” he said. “We need to see that we are fixing these buildings to the proper way that our students deserve. It’s equally – as I talked about transparency and being good stewards of the dollars – formulating plans so that it doesn’t happen again.”
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He also wants to address the aging buildings at Normal Park Museum Magnet School, as well as see through the board’s facilities plan, which includes closing two of the schools in his district (Alpine Crest and Rivermont elementaries) and combining them with DuPont Elementary. The district has already looked into the feasibility of expanding and renovating Normal Park, and salvaging the buildings is what the community wants, he said.
His other main focus would be supporting teachers, he said. Beyond paying teachers more, Connor said, he also wants to ensure they have the proper support around them to succeed.
“A teacher is only as good as his or her support staff and supports in general,” he said. “Educators need everything from pens and paper up to a reading interventionist, a counselor, related arts. … When a teacher has the support that he or she needs, they thrive, and thriving teachers want to educate in our system.”
School board candidates are elected to four-year terms.
Andrew Stephenson, a North Chattanooga resident who said his children attend school with Connor’s, said he’s seen Connor consistently put students first, including through focusing on facilities and advocating for students to have access to mental health services.
“Ben definitely has been very effective at representing the interests of students and parents in this district,” he said by phone, adding, “effective leadership is something we always need.”
THE ELECTION
The general election is Aug. 6 and early voting runs July 17-Aug. 1.
OFFICE DETAILS
The general election is Aug. 6, and early voting runs July 17-Aug. 1.
Duties: Approving the budget, creating policy, hiring and evaluating the superintendent
Schools represented: Alpine Crest Elementary, Chattanooga High School Center for Creative Arts, Normal Park Museum Magnet, Red Bank High, Red Bank Middle, Rivermont Elementary
Key issues: Facilities, school staffing, preparing students for the workforce
Start date: Sept. 1
Salary: $14,300
WHERE THE CANDIDATES STAND
School-based mental health services
“There should be several options. What happened with Centerstone was pretty messy. It shouldn’t have happened how it happened, but there should have been other options. There shouldn’t have just been that one group. … I think that it needs to be done after school or before school. I don’t like the fact where you’ve got it where the child is being pulled out of the classroom to go see a counselor or therapist.”
– Cindy Fain, Republican
“Free access to mental health care — not costing the district, not costing the parents, not costing the community outside of the tax dollars we have already paid — is an absolute asset to Hamilton County Schools and children and families in general. A child in crisis cannot learn, and our whole goal and job is to educate these children and help them learn. …. Providing healthcare where our students are and especially to ones who may not be able to receive it otherwise, makes our schools better, makes our community better. Our community thrives when our children have access to healthcare. And again, I’ll restate, I’m not asking to have children taken out of educational time, quite the opposite. I’m asking for healthcare to help there be more educational time.”
– Ben Connor, Democrat
Books and curriculum
“All of them that are appropriate for their age. A child’s ability to learn should never be hindered. If something is age-appropriate, they should have access to it. End of story.”
– Ben Connor, Democrat
“I don’t think we need to have division in the curriculum, for sure. Victimhood, things like that, should be left out. Also, in our public libraries in elementary and middle school, it should be age-appropriate books. That is a concern of mine. We do, in Hamilton County, still have pretty graphic books that are in our school libraries, but age-appropriate is always the main thing. Curriculum … I go back to the basics. It should be where we’re teaching kids: science, history, math, to read, things like that. That’s how I feel. Definitely not a book banner or anything like that, but I definitely want age-appropriate books in our schools.”
– Cindy Fain, Republican
Contact education reporter Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.