Hamilton County residents may have to pay 17 percent more in property taxes so the local school system can have enough money to create 350 new positions.
And Hamilton County School Board member Rhonda Thurman told The Tennessee Star many of those proposed positions are unneeded.
School board members have already voted in favor of the plan.
Thurman was one of two school board members who voted no. County commissioners must still give the OK. They will likely have a vote next month, Thurman said.
That extra money, if county commissioners go along, should generate an extra $34 million for the school district, Thurman said.
Proposed new positions include counselors. graduation coaches, a data warehouse programmer, a testing coordinator, a director of social and emotional learning, new assistant principals, and a college and career advisor, among other things.
The money would also pay for 15 new truancy officers.
“We already have 10 truancy officers. That (addition) will get us 25. They’re just going to drag kids back to school who don’t even want to be there who then misbehave when they get back,” Thurman said.
Thurman said a quote from former Republican President Ronald Reagan best describes how the school system operates:
“The more the plans fail the more the planners plan.”
Members of the school system never purge themselves of a program that’s not working, Thurman said.
“All we do is keep adding on to them. No one ever loses their job or is held accountable. All this great and wonderful stuff that is supposed to happen, and they tell us how these positions will improve everything. Then that doesn’t happen,” Thurman said.
No one from Hamilton County School Superintendent Bryan Johnson’s office returned The Star’s request for comment Friday.
Thurman said the school system wouldn’t need these new positions if parents did a better job raising their children.
“It’s bad scores. It’s kids who drive the teachers crazy,” Thurman said.
“Behavior is our worst problem. It’s why we can’t keep teachers. Behavior is why you can’t keep bus drivers. Behavior is why people put their kids in private school. And we want to think that money can fix that, but it can’t.”
Hamilton County resident Nancy Patty said her property taxes will go up an extra $500 a year if board members enact the plan.
“They have so many people in the central office at the department of ed. All the non-teaching positions should be evaluated to see how they are servicing the school system and what are they doing for the children,” Patty said.
“All the new positions they have asked for are social workers, not teachers. That is totally wrong. Just let the teachers teach.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Hamilton County Courthouse” by Brian Stansberry. CC BY 3.0.
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