Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn visited Hamilton County Schools as part of the Accelerating TN 2021 bus tour across the state.
She participated in a roundtable with over a dozen Hamilton County Schools district leaders, community businesses and state lawmakers about post-secondary opportunities and career pathways in the district. She said the schools in Hamilton County reflect the adjustments and restructuring of traditional high school models to fit the needs of students.
"Coming out of the pandemic ... there's an appetite for adjusting and changing ... the purpose and role of high school ... and rethinking what that experience is," Schwinn said. "So it's not necessarily six periods per day and the desks in the rows, but it's actually preparing students for something after, because that is the role of K-12, it's not to get a diploma, it's to make sure that once you get to the diploma, you're ready to be successful, and I've seen a lot of that here."
Schwinn said the Innovative High School Models grant program - which started at $14 million in grants when applications opened in March - more than doubled to $30 million in grants after the department of education received more applications than expected. Hamilton County Schools received a $2 million grant through the program to create a MicroCollege program with Chattanooga State Community College with dual enrollment opportunities for high school students.
Participants also discussed barriers to some career pathways in the district that could be improved. Hamilton County Schools Chief Schools Officer Neelie Parker, Jared Bigham of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and John Maynard, head of career and technical education for Hamilton County Schools, said expansion of dual enrollment opportunities would be a great opportunity for students.
The state's dual enrollment grant fully funds up to four dual enrollment courses for high school students, and Bigham said expanding that opportunity beyond four courses would promote more post-secondary success, starting with Tennessee College of Applied Technology (TCAT) credentials.
"Really I think an easy first step is ... to start with our TCAT credentials and allow students to finish the TCAT credential in high school and get really far down the road with some of those credentials," Bigham said. "But it's an equity barrier when you think about students that can't afford to continue to pay beyond what dual enrollment pays for, so that's something that our legislators in the room that I feel like if the funding is there, I feel like our lottery system has really done well in the past few years that we could hold at least as a test or a pilot, to start a little TCAT credential and if a student wants to complete a credential, hanker down and let them do that and go into the workforce after they graduate."
Following the post-secondary discussion, Schwinn visited younger groups of students participating in the district's Summer REACH at Red Bank Elementary School. Schwinn visited two classrooms; one where rising sixth-grade students worked with robotics in different stations set up around the classroom, and another where rising first graders sang the alphabet and other songs in music class.
Summer REACH began last summer to make up for school closures at the onset of the pandemic and expanded this year according to parameters set by the Tennessee Learning Loss and Remediation Act passed by the state legislature in January. About 6,200 students are participating in the program this summer, which takes place over three weeks in June and three weeks in July.
Contact Anika Chaturvedi at achaturvedi@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6592.