BOWL FOR KIDS’ SAKE 2008 – visit BigBrothersBigSistersETN.org
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Have fun with coworkers, friends or family while also helping children. Bowl For Kids’ Sake benefits Big Brothers Big Sisters of East Tennessee. Every dollar raised goes toward uniting at-risk children with caring adult mentors. It is a FUNtastic way to spend time together and help our community.

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Don't forget to attend the superintendent search forums tonight (11/26) at either Austin East or Central High School auditoriums, beginning at 7:00 pm.

The search firm will be conducting a survey of residents to see what the community feels are important qualities for the new superintendent.

Additional forums will be held Tuesday, 11/27/07, at South Doyle and Bearden High School auditoriums, also at 7:00 pm.

Click here or here for more information.

See you there!

According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, the Knox County school system is considering the possibility of establishing its own police force.

Meanwhile, advocates for school nurses keep hitting obstacles.

What does that tell you about how society views our children? And what kind of message does it send kids regarding respect for "authority"? If you keep treating kids like criminals, they'll start acting like criminals.

That said, I understand there's a security problem in modern schools that did not seem to exist when I was growing up. Perhaps full time officers are needed. And you can make an argument that they need different training and skills than a patrol officer.

Creating yet another law enforcement agency, though, does not seem like the best approach, especially one run by a school board that doesn't know much about law enforcement. We should be consolidating government and streamlining functions, not creating new bureaucracies and duplicating effort.

Knox County Schools Superintendent Roy Mullins responds to yesterday's KNS editorial that demeaned Knox County Teachers and criticized a plan to enhance their retirement benefits.

Mullins says "I take exception to the opinion expressed in the editorial" that is "clearly written from a position of ignorance concerning the Knox County school system’s budget, and it misrepresents an initiative that is designed to help keep certified teachers in our classrooms every day and in our school system for a career."

It also sounds like a page from the GOP playbook -- constant attacks on teacher's unions and public education to promote private school vouchers for rich kids instead of making public schools better for everyone.

The Knoxville News Sentinel has launched a new website focused on local school issues. It's called School Matters, and has blogs, forums, and social networking features. You'll notice some familiar names from around the Knoxville blogosphere among participants.

According to the site info, it is built on Ning, a hosted social networking service with free or business/private label branding options. Ning looks like a pretty slick package.

By way of Elaine Davis, an update on the effort to get nurses in all Knox County schools.

The East Tennessee Branch of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation is lending their support, and will speak to the School Board about it at the School Board's Aug. 6th meeting.

In addition, School Board Chair Karen Carson has called an informal public meeting on the topic. The meeting will be this Thursday, Aug. 2nd at 10AM at the Atlanta Bread Co. at Turkey Creek. Anyone interested in talking about funding for school nurses at all Knox County schools is invited to attend.

Ed. note: I'm surprised this is even an issue. I guess I assumed every school had a school nurse. Even tiny little South Knoxville Elementary had a nurse when I was growing up, and she was a primary source of health care for lots of kids.

Although school nurses should be trained not to leave kids alone in the exam room. I remember one occasion when I was sent to see the nurse due to complaining about, uh, non-specific symptoms. The nurse left me alone, and I ran the thermometer under hot water from the sink and managed to get sent home with a "fever."

"Education Week" has recently published their new "Diplomas Count 2007" report. Lots of information for the entire country with the ability to drill-down to the school district level using the "Mapping Tool".

The newest graduation rate data is for 2004 with comparisons to the previous nine years.

The Knox County 2004 High School Graduation Rate (according to this report) is 82.8%. This is a pretty big jump from previous years (68.1, 71.2, 55.3, 59.9, 69.6, 65.8, 64.3, 63.1, 66.6).

Maryville City Schools reports 81.1% graduation rate for 2004. Previous years for Maryville City are consistently better than Knox County, with the exception of 2002 (80.2, 70.6, 76.2, 63.5, 77.1, N/A, 66.1, 78.7, 75.5).

Blount County reports an elevated graduation rate for 2004, 84.4%. However, Blount County appears quite inconsistent in the past ten years (72.8, 59.0, 64.3, 44.2, 75.4, N/A, 62.0, 64.3, 62.6).

City of Alcoa appears to be having a real problem with graduating their seniors with a 2004 rate of 55.5%. Except for two years (2001 and 2002), the City of Alcoa consistently has very low graduation rates (43.1, 77.4, 81.3, N/A, N/A, N/A, 42.7, 58.1, 65.6).

And just one more to review the wide discrepancies in East TN high school graduation rates, Loudon County Schools is reporting a 2004 graduation rate of 36.6%. This is the second worst year for Loudon County in the ten year reporting period. In 1999 Loudon County reported a graduation rate of 30.5%. Similar to the City of Alcoa, Loudon County is pretty consistent in their low graduation rates (63.5, 44.1, 54.3, N/A, 30.5, N/A, 52.0, 52.6, 80.0).

Musing the information.

Why the big jump for Knox County?

Why do the City of Alcoa and Loudon County schools do so poorly? Except for being in East TN, I don't think the two have that much in common. The City of Alcoa is more urban (if you can call it that) and has a more diverse population than Loudon County. I wonder if it is as simple as how they do the calculations.

Is your school system doing a good job of graduating its high school students?

At four p.m. today Knox County's school board and county commission had a joint gathering to discuss the budget. The mayor generally was upbeat about school performance. Interim Supt. Mullins a few others answered questions.

In response to one of my questions, Mullins found figures that Knox County is spending $7259 per pupil, $210 below the state average. These figures include federal Child Nutrition spending and other items not directly under state or local control.

I also asked about the effect of a significant cut in the county health department's school health budget. No one seemed sure, but several speculated that may be immunization visits. I'll have to ask the health department more about that.

One surprise: School Board's Cindy Buttry and I are veterans of the NFL. That is, National Forensic League. We're talking speech and debate, not cadavers. It is a club activity. Thomas Deakins and I talked briefly after the meeting about the advantages of it having a stronger presence in our schools.

Dan Murphy stressed that we shouldn't be so happy we've been able to meet our minimum needs and maybe a little extra for things that don't sound like extras, eg. some improved security. Our sights should be higher.

Tomorrow (Thursday June 7) at 5 p.m. is the public input session regarding the budget. I'm hoping for a good turnout with folks raising specific concerns.

--Mark Harmon

Yesterday as part of a health seminar, I toured the new Cherokee Health Center on Western Avenue in the Mechanicsville area. The event was sponsored by the Knox County Minority Health Coalition. As part of the celebration, a tribute was paid to Dr. Weaver, a local boy who became a highly lauded surgeon. In recognition of the doctor's talents and contributions Knox County Mayor Ragsdale had officially declared that day “Dr. William Weaver Day”.

In a truly heartwarming speech, surrounded by his children, old buddies from high school, and many students from the area, Weaver honored his teacher, Mr. Hills, a science teacher who saw he had talent and pushed him forward. "Many times I had to apply the 'Board' of Education," he joked, ”to William's 'Seat' of Knowledge." Many professionals in the audience also remembered Mr. Hills pushing them beyond what they believed was possible.

Weaver pointed out that at one time no black student could enter into the Knox County Science Fair, but Mr. Hill somehow got that barrier knocked down. A couple of students went to the fair the first year with a really embarrassingly simple project. They were dazzled by what the other kids knew (the ones who had textbooks and resources in their schools). and came home discouraged, but the experience only fired the teacher up. In spite of his having only one textbook to teach from and no equipment, Mr. Hill felt determined to win at that science fair the next year.

Apparently young Dr. Weaver was "a laid back kid, but with plenty of talent", so Mr. Hill focused on him. He went to his house to get the boy's parents' permission to work him as hard as he could and that included "whipping him a bit when that was necessary". The next year, young William Weaver brought home a silver trophy. He also knew he was going to be a doctor some day.

If only people could realize how many African American and minority students are succeeding in spite of going to Knox County's "inferior schools". It really would touch people's hearts and maybe give them a better sense of how the black community here really is, how it is not composed mostly of classic ghetto types founded on New York and Los Angeles images of adults who don’t care about their kids and roving gangs. In fact, it is led by a huge contingent of proud, educated, devoutly Christian, successful people who are knocking themselves out trying to give back to their community and uphold what is best in their race. They also love Knoxville. They have deep roots here, despite the fact that most of them suffered some pretty awful racism in the past.

"I worry," Dr. Weaver said, "about this neighborhood. You see the new Food City and this new facility. Things look different. The projects are gone. But what most people don't know was that those projects were full of love. If I did anything wrong somebody in the community would set me straight or they'd call my mother and she would. Today, I happened to notice a tree my buddies (several of his friends are now officials in county and city government) and I used to stand under. That tree is still standing and to me it represents the soul of our community. That's something we should work hard to keep."

As I sat there surrounded by all the neighborhood camaraderie, by generations of Knoxville's black community talking about their deep love for our city, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the people in Knoxville who feel prejudiced about race because they don't really know the black community here. They have no clue how hard many people are working to keep the Eastside a place they can be proud of, a neighborhood that reflects not their poverty but their gentleness and caring. If more of us white people did we would not just be amazed, but also realize how lucky we are in Knoxville to have a black community who cares as much as we do about raising successful children, improving their incomes, and then coming back home to give.

In between awards, chatting and touring a young woman from Austin East played the violin. She had just won a scholarship to UT and was now playing with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. The Knoxville branch of the UT nursing sorority was also there, a small army of bright minority women dedicated to helping everyone in Knoxville live healthier, longer lives.

I guess in the end I thought the old saying "You can't judge a book by its cover" seemed especially apt. And you also can't judge a person by their color.

Working together Knoxville can remain a city that honors its diversity, but still retains its old community flavors and ways. All it takes is a little respect, and the knowledge that in our hearts most of us want the same things for ourselves, our kids, and Knoxville. The “soul” of Knoxville is precious, and it belongs to all of us, and we ought to do whatever we can do to preserve it.

Even before anybody had any evidence that Cho Seung-Hui, the shooter at Virginia Tech, was "mentally ill", the talking heads on TV were making hay with the idea that students should be watching fellow classmates for "signs" of mental illness. Considering that it is estimated that 20% of the students (and god only knows how many faculty members)at Virginia Tech knowingly suffer from depression, you can imagine a little shiver of shame and fear ran down their spines. They probably felt terrified someone might find out they were being treated for depression, post traumatic syndrome, bi-polar illeness, or schitzophernia.

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Since we can't go back in time and un-build the new high school, re-zoning IS going to happen. Knox County is not going to let a shiny new school sit empty while other schools overflow and decay. If we trust those who now say that only seventh grade and younger will be affected by this move, then no student should be forced to transfer school in the middle of their high school career. For anyone keeping track, that means that three of my children will still be affected by this re-zoning. I am personally concerned about the increased travel time and distance through busier intersections. The prospect of siblings attending different schools is very disconcerting to me as well. I know that several of you are facing having your historic communities torn apart. Without slinging mud at any of the specific schools, since there is someone who loves and cares about each school (except KAEC, nobody cares about it), what compromises are we willing to make?

Looking for thoughts on two local school districts and areas to live - Oak Ridge and Maryville. I've been in the Knoxville area less than three years and live in Halls. The WalMart-Home Depot behemoth going up (thanks for nothing, MPC & political enablers / hacks that ignored local residents) made me think about moving, and since I have three (soon to be four) young children, I thought I'd take the opportunity to move into the best local school district. Thankfully the cost of housing isn't a barrier to moving into Oak Ridge or Maryville. (Not interested in Farragut / West Knox)

So, what's your take? Looking for non-biased (and biased!) thoughts on education and the quality of life in those two districts. I'd especially love to hear from those who moved from one of those places to the other.

Thanks!

An interesting conversation developed in another unrelated thread. I am moving the comments here for further discussion of this controversial and important topic.

The issue boils down to, well several things. Should the new high school be Farragut Middle School or a new high school? How does a new high school built in a different district relieve crowding at Farragut High? Does the proposal go too far in relieving crowding at Farragut High by rezoning too many students? Does the plan take into account where the growth is occurring? Is $40 million too much for Knox County taxpayers to spend to help out the town of Farragut? Do Farragut residents feel they needed a new $40 million school? I think I've summarized it correctly, apologies if not.

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