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Thursday, October 29, 2026Oct 29

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State board committee recommends ‘corrective action’ for five Hamilton County schools

Staff Photo by Seth Carpenter / The Hamilton County Department of Education is pictured. Hamilton County Schools officials testified March 25 2026, during an accountability hearing held by the state Board of Education to discuss the five district schools that received an F under the formula Tennessee uses to assign letter grades to every public school.
Staff Photo by Seth Carpenter / The Hamilton County Department of Education is pictured. Hamilton County Schools officials testified March 25 2026, during an accountability hearing held by the state Board of Education to discuss the five district schools that received an F under the formula Tennessee uses to assign letter grades to every public school. Staff Photo by Seth Carpenter / The Hamilton County Department of Education is pictured. Hamilton County Schools officials testified March 25 2026, during an accountability hearing held by the state Board of Education to discuss the five district schools that received an F under the formula Tennessee uses to assign letter grades to every public school.

A state Board of Education committee recommended a corrective action plan Wednesday for Hamilton County public schools that received an F under the formula Tennessee uses to assign letter grades to every public school.

Five Hamilton County schools — Tommie F. Brown Academy, Calvin Donaldson Elementary, Dalewood Middle, East Lake Academy and Orchard Knob Middle — received either an F letter grade for two years in a row or a D followed by an F, making them subject to accountability hearings from the state. Those schools served around 1,700 students during the 2024-25 academic year.

For roughly an hour Wednesday, the state board committee questioned Hamilton County Schools officials about the root causes of the schools’ underperformance, leadership hiring decisions, budgeting, curriculum implementation and community partnerships.

(READ MORE: Hamilton County Schools receive A-F letter grades from state, with typical school earning a C)

This academic year, the district has committed additional instructional resources to those schools, and it is doing walk-throughs during which staff members assess instruction on a more consistent basis, Superintendent Justin Robertson testified.