HAMILTON COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD IS FAILING THE TEST
To our recollection, Hamilton County’s five most recently named school board members — and the four who were elected two years before in 2014 — all told the Chattanooga Times Free Press and local voters they wanted to see more accountability and transparency in school administration and on the board itself.
We mention this today because the entire board, led by its chairman, Steve Highlander, failed the test last week.
The Hamilton County Board of Education narrowed its list of superintendent finalists from 14 to 10 through private emails.
Each school board member emailed a list of the 10 candidates they want to interview, and Highlander, with the board’s secretary and a representative from the board-hired superintendent search firm, tabulated the results in private Tuesday.
These board members are the same people who were outraged when the former superintendent and the current interim superintendent kept quiet the dire academic growth rates of Hamilton County students. They are the same board members who were horrified to learn about the gravity of an Ooltewah basketball team hazing rape from the newspaper rather than from school officials. And they are the same folks who were shocked by a damming state report that found school administrators seriously dragged their feet in spending $11 million in federal money earmarked for the county’s lowest performing schools.
So, yeah, you bet these board members were campaigning and telling us all that they, by golly, would get some light into the dark corners of our school district.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so disgusting. Yet it’s not just disgusting: It’s a violation of the law. More on that later.
Highlander said Tuesday the decision about who the board will interview would be based on the board members’ emails, which he also solicited in secret (though Times Free Press reporter Kendi Rainwater found out about it). Questioned about the emails, Highlander would not elaborate on how he tabulated the final list.
Tell us, Mr. Highlander, how exactly is this not just like the secretiveness of former Superintendent Rick Smith and the then-director of testing and accountability (now superintendent candidate) Kirk Kelly that so irritated you and other board members nearly two years ago?
State law requires any deliberation by the school board to occur in public, and board members are not allowed to cast secret votes or ballots or use emails as a way to avoid open meetings laws.
“All votes of any such governmental body shall be by public vote or public ballot or public roll call. No secret votes, or secret ballots, or secret roll calls shall be allowed,” according to state law.
The Times Free Press asked for list of tabulated names under the Freedom of Information Act, and it finally was released Thursday afternoon. But we — and you — should not need to fall back on legal maneuvering over something as simple as narrowing a list of superintendent candidates.
Why would school board members want to hide their finalist preferences?
Two words: Kirk Kelly. Kelly is an unfailingly nice man who has been part of the Hamilton County School District’s administration for decades. And that means politics. Our school district needs a housecleaning, but Kelly can’t do that because he’s part of the house. Maybe the school board can’t, either. Four members, including Highlander, are former Hamilton County educators.
Highlander last April joined Joe Galloway, George Ricks (a former board member), Karitsa Mosley Jones and David Testerman to name Kelly the interim superintendent. Then in November, new board member Kathy Lennon made a motion to hire Kelly as superintendent, but the board split on the nomination, with Mosley Jones and Highlander saying they wanted to talk to their constituents before voting. Kelly then asked the board to conduct a transparent search before hiring him.
The board ultimately did hire a search firm. That search has cost us about $60,000 and brought us the 14 candidates that our board now has narrowed in secret — after they first tried even to keep all 14 names secret. Again, Rainwater obtained the names, despite Highlander telling board members via email, “it would be best not to share information outside our group until we make our first cut. …”
Nothing about our schools — and especially nothing about the schools’ leadership — should be secret from the parents and grandparents of the children educated there, especially at a time when Hamilton County schools are struggling so hard for parental and taxpayer trust. What are our school leaders thinking? And, no, it can’t all be laid at Highlander’s feet: Why didn’t the board members stand up and say, here’s my list, it’s not secret, make a count out loud.
Deborah Fisher, executive director for the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, sums it up well:
“Allowing back-room dealing as a way to choose the next director of schools is not transparent government,” she said. “The candidates’ names are already public. And citizens have a right to know the choices of their school board members on the matter.”
Parents and taxpayers, if you’re feeling betrayed, you are not alone.