VOL. 11 NO. 10
FIRST WORDS
School board will ‘buy local’
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March 8, 2017
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HVA RoHAWKtics bring home a win Team members celebrate the win.
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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For the 47 Hardin Valley Academy students attending the First Palmetto Regional Robotics competition, it started as a fun and exciting adventure and ended with a win. The HVA RoHAWKtics team 3824 traveled to Myrtle Beach, S.C., to participate in the meet. The team, totaling 57 students and 23 mentors, has been working on the project on their own time over the past school year. The winning alliance, as it’s called, was made up of four teams from three states working together. The national First Robotics Competition has roughly 800,000 individuals involved worldwide, and fosters skills like planning, execution and building confidence. Robots are the tools used to inspire students with a sense of what they can create for the future. The RoHAWKtics team is divided into seven sub-teams; captains lead each sub-team in the areas of scouting and strategy, building, electrical, design, business, safety and programming. Every student
The airship and playing field used in the competition. can participate on his or her own level and grow in the program with the help of mentors. Mentors include adults from all walks of life. Several work at ORNL and arranged for the HVA team to use the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, which is a big deal. The MDF was designed by ORNL to help industry adopt innovations in manufacturing, and now RoHAWKtics uses the
cutting-edge facility, too. Lonnie and Beth Love are a husband and wife mentoring team. Lonnie, who holds a doctorate, is a group leader at ORNL, and Beth is a homebound educator. She “loves being a part of this program because I believe it is the best example of the hands-on STEM education one can find.� Larry Huston, retired from a business career, has been with the
program for two years and says, “I am amazed at how the program involves all skill levels and helps young adults learn applied advanced math, industrial processes, mechanical engineering and business. “They work as a team, and many choose a career path they follow through life.� To page A-3
Vote is Thursday on urgent care facility By Sandra Clark
Metropolitan Planning Commission will take up a controversial use-on-review request by Helen Ross McNabb Center to allow a behavioral health urgent care facility adjacent to its Centerpointe facility on Dewine Road off Western Avenue near Ball Camp Pike. The MPC meets 1:30 p.m. Thursday, March 9, at the City County Building. MPC staff recommends approval of the request, and local government leaders are lining up in support.
But nearby residents are concerned. The Maple Grove Homeowners Association opposes the use-on-review, and a standingroom-only crowd attended an almost threehour meeting at Cumberland Baptist Church last week. While many supported the concept, they also questioned the location, citing the residential character of the area. The property is zoned O-1 for offices, but the proposed use falls under the definition of hospital, requiring approval of a site plan.
Connie Hughes asked Mayor Tim Burchett to delay the vote to give residents more time to gather information. Burchett said a delay could jeopardize his funding package – a deal among Knox County, the city of Knoxville, the state of Tennessee and Helen Ross McNabb Center. John Zimmerman challenged officials because, unlike Centerpointe, which is voluntary, this facility will be populated by lawbreakers who would otherwise be taken to jail. To 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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