University of Tennessee at Chattanooga professor Ruth Walker plans to make data-driven decisions that support students and teachers as a Hamilton County school board member.
“I’m ready to listen,” she said in an interview. “I’m ready to make those connections and do the work, and I want to be able to serve my community.”
Walker, a Democrat from Hixson, is running against Republican Ashley Dillon and independent Sandy Pricer in the race to replace Chair Joe Smith, R-Hixson, as the board’s District 3 representative. The district includes the Hixson and Lakesite areas.
The general election is Aug. 6, and early voting starts July 17.
Walker, 43, didn’t go to college immediately after graduating from high school in Ohio. Her parents didn’t graduate from high school, and she didn’t believe she could afford college, she said.
After marrying her husband, she studied early childhood development and taught preschool students for several years before getting her doctorate in psychology. Since 2020, she has taught courses in developmental psychology and statistics at UTC, she said. Recently, her work has focused on career preparation.
“We don’t currently have someone with my specific expertise and background on the school board,” she said. “I would be able to bring my educator mindset, as well as bring that expertise and comfort with research. When central office is presenting those presentations and the data, I get that. I’ve got great questions, and I can’t ask them in the audience because there’s no space for that.”
Walker initially decided to run for office after the school board voted not to renew a long-standing agreement with Centerstone Community Mental Health Center to provide school-based services to students, she said. To her, the data didn’t line up with the decision, and she found it concerning that there was no plan put in place for students to continue accessing services.
(In November, the board approved agreements with five mental health providers, reestablishing services after 13 weeks of discussions.)
As she began talking to District 3 residents about their concerns, she said, she found more reasons to run. Those factors included supporting students with disabilities and facilities needs. Facilities are more than just buildings, she said. They’re where students are learning and staff are working, which impacts morale and how well students are able to perform.
Her two children attend public schools.
(READ MORE: Hixson area Hamilton County school board candidates talk priorities, healthy schools)
If elected, her top priority would be to support students and educators. Beyond advocating for increasing compensation, Walker said, she would work to ensure teachers’ expertise is respected and they’re being listened to.
“If we can retain and recruit good educators and provide them with adequate compensation, with respect, with support and the different supports that they need, then our students are going to have better outcomes,” she said. “The data just shows that.”
In her view, funding is the biggest issue the school system is facing, and she intends to advocate for increasing the amount of money the district receives. As Walker has knocked on doors, many residents have told her they chose to homeschool or send their children to private schools.
“What that signals to me is that we don’t have the trust in our public schools that that wasn’t their first option or their ultimate option,” she said. “I would love for us to be that option for them. We have such phenomenal educators and principals and support staff there, so it’s not a people problem. This is genuinely we have such a funding problem, and funding is very intimately tied to outcomes.”
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Walker also plans to establish an advisory committee with teachers and parents from all eight schools in District 3 to ensure she’s listening to the community and representing it well.
School board candidates are elected to four-year terms.
Amanda Callahan, a Hixson resident who said she met Walker through the League of Women Voters, said after hearing Walker speak about the importance of mental health services, she decided to put her support behind someone who has the same values.
“Every time she speaks, she brings up how she wants to bring the data and the research into the conversation,” Callahan said by phone. “And I have a lot of appreciation for that.”
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.