In honor of National School Fitness month, I asked our Coordinated School Health Counselor, Aneisa McDonald, to lead us in some seated fitness activities during a short 2-3 minute break. Our 3-4 hour sedentary meetings can be back-breaking, and getting the blood flowing helps us physically and mentally.

We're always asking students to eat right and be more active, so on occasion it's nice to practice what we preach, even at the risk of looking silly, which I admit we certainly do in that photo.

As for the School Board's Capital Plan and Carter Elementary, the Board reaffirmed its March vote to support a complete renovation of and addition to the existing building. The March vote was 9-0, last week's vote was 8-1. In the interim the Superintendent looked into various options for new construction, visited other sites in other counties and did more analysis to determine which made more sense educationally and fiscally, renovation or new construction. After this additional scrutiny the conclusion remains that renovation is the right approach, just as it has been at numerous successfully renovated schools across the county.

We all agree that the existing Carter Elementary facility is inadequate. A renovation will fully modernize the building, add classrooms, expand the cafeteria, address plumbing and HVAC issues, etc. Renovation costs $3m, new construction costs $13m. You can read all the details and supporting documents at knoxschools.org.

Indya

Hopefully, a new school board will have a better ear for the legitimate concerns of Carter residents.

I hope you are right, but I guess that remains to be seen.

After 8th District representative Patrick Richmond asked for a personal privilege deferral of the vote for 30 days, which is automatically granted under board rules, the board chair and superintendent decided to declare an emergency situation so they could get around the personal privilege deferral and vote against a new school anyway.

Yeah I'm not really getting what the big deal is. They were stretching. Whatever. If they had been taking a long, synchronized swig from a fat can of Coke, that would have been more in line with SOME people's idea of proper classroom nutrition.

Anyway, has anybody heard about the budget crisis, and the implications of the foretold double dip recession as it will relate to state and local governments, including boards of education? We can line up for flu shots this fall, but I don't see any immunity from that money problem.

Oh good grief, lighten up Bean. It wasn't "ridiculing" McDonald to post this picture.

What really struck me about the photo and the reason I posted it was because it looks like the school board has their hands over their ears, not listening.

Which is sort of funny, because their action to declare an "emergency vote" on the Carter school issue has certainly gotten attention from people all over the county since it was clearly a political move, designed to get around their rule to allow a school board member to request a vote deferral for 30 days. They have now set an interesting precedent they will have to live with and stirred up a lot more unnecessary controversy. It certainly wasn't a move designed to win friends.

Let's see if I can contribute anything here without ticking off the both of you...

Lisa, Betty's right that WRT staking a community claim on the school capital plan, timing is everything. Carter would have been wiser to have lobbied every school board member individually back last spring, when the board was first addressing the capital plan, rather than to have packed this August board meeting, asking the board to "back up and start over" (I know only because I failed with the same tactic tried on behalf of Powell Middle construction). They would also have been wiser to demonstrate with hard comparative data why their capital need is more pressing than others the board was considering, too, rather than to just clamor that they're being ignored.

But Betty, Lisa's right that Carter has been on a back burner for a long, long time AND that the board has long had difficulty explaining/defending how they prioritize projects. I've asked for years why the board doesn't seek the help of some group like CTAS or TACIR in developling a formula to guide their capital planning, since they must necessarily weigh apples-against-oranges (aging facilities versus overcrowded facilities or projected growth, etc.).

And of course you're both ignoring the dismal forecast for state and local tax revenues Hildegard mentions.

Even if Carter residents' timing had been better and their comparative argument stronger, and even if the board weren't laboring under a public perception that capital funds are doled out only to the "squeakiest wheel," the fact remains that KCS isn't very likely to incur new debt for much of any reason this year and next.

Ducking and covering, now...