News from Hamilton County's school system has been both heartening and disheartening in recent days.
On the up side, a long-known need for more technical/vocational education for students not able or interested in obtaining college degrees began to take clear shape last week when the county's Department of Education unveiled a preliminary plan for new "Future Ready Institutes."
The institutes, one in each county high school, are intended to be small learning communities, formed around industry-themed (and partnered) career and technical courses - along with traditional high school curriculum.
The institutes idea came out of work by education advocates in the district, as well as Chattanooga 2.0, the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, Chattanooga State Community College and the Tennessee College of Applied Technology. The plan is to pair a school with an industry partner to teach students to be ready for business, health sciences, advanced manufacturing or other STEM-related jobs here in the area.
The idea was born after education advocates looked at 2015 school and industry data to find 65 percent of Hamilton County Schools graduates failed to earn any education past high school. That number explained why local business leaders were not able to recruit a skilled workforce from the local population.
The program will build on the success of programs such as the Mechatronics and Polytechnic academies, which opened to 100 high school juniors after that 2015 report. The goal now is to expand on that and eventually have about 400 students in those and similar graduation pursuits.
In a related but separate announcement, Dr. Bryan Johnson, superintendent of our 43,000-student school system, reorganized the central office's top leadership, creating new positions that include a chief of staff, chief business officer and an equity officer - a change long called for by non-system education advocates to enable school leaders to act more quickly to improve student performance and system efficiency.
Serving as chief of staff to Johnson will be T. Nakia Towns Edwards, former assistant commissioner of data and research at the Tennessee Department of Education, where she focused on using data to achieve continuous performance improvement in public schools. Her work in research and evaluation, federal programs, and teacher and student advancement led to the district's teacher evaluation model and strategic compensation plan.
Another new position, chief business officer, will be filled by newcomer Don Hall, who in Manatee County, Fla., developed a fiscal recovery plan that turned an $8.9 million deficit to a $14.4 million surplus and got the school system recognized for financial excellence.
As chief equity officer, Marsha Drake, a current Hamilton County administrator, will lead equity initiatives, student services, counselors and social workers, English learners, special education, homeless services and coordinated health.
Two assistant superintendents have new titles:
Justin Robertson, now assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, will get the new title of chief schools officer to lead efforts in teaching and learning, school leadership, postsecondary preparation and professional learning.
Lee McDade's title changes from assistant superintendent of administrative services to chief operations officer, and he will be responsible for capital projects, student transportation, athletics and maintenance, before and after-school care, food services, and safety and security.
Jill Levine's appointment as chief of the Opportunity Zone was announced several weeks ago. She previously served as chief academic officer.
Still another newly created position of chief talent officer will lead teacher recruitment, help new teachers start and succeed, and head up personnel management. That position will be filled in the coming weeks.
One fly in the ointment is the unsettled arrangements (and funding) for student busing to and from the institutes. An even bigger disappointment is the school board's concern for optics.
While we may not yet know how to answer school board member Rhonda Thurman's question about how we'll fund student transportation to our "Future Ready Institutes," we already are talking to a public relations firm about "rebranding" the school system after a couple of years of derogatory school news.
The Hamilton County Department of Education may become The Public Schools of Hamilton County. And the tagline on a new website may become,"Open to All. Open to All Possibilities." The district now pays about $65,000 a year for its website. A request for proposals for the new website has been sent out, with 10 vendors answering it, according to the district. Administrators say they have narrowed down the vendors and will present their recommendation to the board for approval in January.
Here's the thing: All the websites and new logos and new mottoes in the world - along with all the dollars we'll spend for them - will not change how our students learn.
Only success will do that. Better, we think, to put that "rebranding" money toward getting students across town to classes that will help them get and keep jobs.