VOL. 11 NO. 10
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March 8, 2017
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FIRST WORDS
School board will ‘buy local’ By Scott Frith
The Knox County Board of Education is picking a new superintendent, and some are surprised that both finalists are from East Tennessee. Don’t be. Political trends swing like a penduScott Frith lum. When looking for new leadership, folks often go in the opposite direction. Not convinced? The best local example may be in the county mayor’s office. Remember those feuds between Dwight Kessel and Victor Ashe? By 1994, voters grew tired of the bickering and elected Tommy Schumpert on the promise of peace. For the most part, Schumpert succeeded. Yet, as he finished a second term, some viewed his “getting along� and calm demeanor as not aggressive enough in promoting economic development. They looked to then-County Commissioner Mike Ragsdale, who possessed enough charisma and sound bites to fill the entire City County Building. Ragsdale was elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006. But then, voters elected Tim Burchett, who couldn’t be more different. Think Lexus sedan vs. beat-up Jeep Cherokee; tailored suits vs. a brown Carhartt jacket. You get the idea. The same pattern emerges with the superintendent of schools. State law changed in 1992 to require school board appointment of superintendents. In 1999, our board picked Charles Q. Lindsay, a Mississippi native best remembered for relocating principals and getting directly involved in the messy politics of school board campaigns. Lindsay left in 2007. The next year, the board hired Jim McIntyre, an education technocrat, whose roots in Boston (and lack of political skill) couldn’t have been more different from Lindsay’s southern drawl and political brawling. McIntyre left last year. And now the school board appears to be buying local. Finalists are Bob Thomas (assistant superintendent since 1990) and Dale Lynch (superintendent of Hamblen County Schools since 2001). Thomas is the favorite to win. Do not be surprised. Both are the opposite of McIntyre. Scott Frith is a local attorney. You can visit his website at pleadthefrith.com
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New West coach
Football team members run sprints before working with weights.
sees promise in team By Kelly Norrell Spring is in the air, and the new football coach at West High School and his team are getting to know one another. Things are looking great. Coach Lamar Brown, his support staff and the team are working out four afternoons a week in the field house weight room. Beginning April 26, there will be two weeks of spring football practice, scrimmages already scheduled with Austin-East May 5 and Science Hill May 12. A lot has happened since Brown took over the West High School
football program Jan. 17, after an acclaimed career as head coach at Morristown West High School. He replaced former West High School head coach Jeff Harig, who stepped down Dec. 9 after two seasons. Brown, who coached the Morristown West High School team to three regional titles and three state quarterfinal games in nine years, said he is excited about West High School. “What set it apart for me were principal Ashley Jessie and athletic director Steve Killian and the community support. It is a diverse
group of students with rich tradition and great community support. “West High School is three seasons removed from a state championship (won under head coach Scott Cummings in 2014). It is a place I think you can win and win consistently.� He brings promise and heart to the team. “I told the players on day one, I promise I would care about them. They wouldn’t have a bigger ally at West High School than me,� he said, noting that the first item on his list and the players’ was getting their academic performance
where it needs to be. “That is something that really needed to be fixed. They are working really hard to get their grades up. I want to help them achieve what they want in life.� Of the players, he said, “There is nothing I would change. Our kids have really bought in and are working really hard in the weight room. They are excited about the coming season. If that work ethic continues, I am excited to see what the future holds for this group.� To page A-3
Shattuck’s talk on the Clinton 12 invokes wonder, sorrow By Kelly Norrell A talk by retired Clinton attorney Jerry Shattuck on the “Clinton 12,� the courageous black teens who desegregated Clinton High School in 1956, gripped a full auditorium at the East Tennessee History Center recently. “Our culture had a malignancy. It was racial segregation,� Shattuck told a group of about 125 at a Brown Bag Lecture March 1. Shattuck was president of the student council and captain of the football team at the school that year.
Clinton High School admitted the 12, the only black high school age youths in Clinton at that time, after the “separate but equal� doctrine was struck down in 1954 and their parents successfully filed suit. It was the first high school in the South to Shattuck be integrated. Desegregation, an experience that would
have been hard enough by itself for the black teens, became horrific at the hands of virulent racists like John Kasper of New York and Asa Carter of Alabama, who hurried to Clinton. At their hands, thousands of bigots converged on the little town. The students registered for school without incident. But after stories on their entry hit national news, troublemakers belonging to groups like the White Citizens Council waitTo page A-3
Will rezoning bring resegregation? By Betty Bean While some worry that the proposed middle school rezoning plan will undo years of desegregation efforts and land Knox County Schools in federal court, the two players most likely to be on opposite sides of the courtroom look at the issue from very different perspectives, but do not seem overly concerned about that possibility – for now. “This (plan) is a good first step, as far as it goes,� said NAACP president John Butler, who filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights after the agreement to build a new Gibbs Middle School was unveiled.
Knox County has built new schools in recent years only in predominantly white communities. “Now that you are zoning (minority students) back in, we need to Armstrong have facilities and staffs looked at and steps taken to eliminate inequity,� said Butler. He wants new, state-of-the-art middle and high schools staffed with faculties who understand the needs of minority students. He will not withdraw the complaint, even after Buzz Thomas, interim superintendent, asked him to do so.
Knox County Law Director Bud Armstrong said desegregation was not the primary purpose of the 1991 rezoning plan that closed schools and bused inner city kids to distant parts of the county. He cited a 1991 opinion by U.S. District Court Judge Leon Jordan that found no evidence of intentional discrimination by Knox County Schools. Jordan said the only question the court could ask was “whether the motivation in adopting the plan was invidious discrimination on the basis of race, and the Court finds that there was not.� Armstrong said: “They did not close Gibbs and move them to Holston Middle School because
those schools were segregated. Conversely, if they reopen Gibbs, it won’t be to resegregate those schools.� Whether intended or not, the rezoning will result in some schools having a higher percentage of African-Americans while others have lower. To paraphrase former school board chair Sam Anderson: We can be sure black kids are treated fairly when they are sitting next to a white kid and both are treated the same. That’s what the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1954 (Brown vs. The Board of Education): “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.� Are we entering the post-Brown era?
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