Hamilton County Department of Education Superintendent Rick Smith on May 9 armed Realtors who attended the latest Greater Chattanooga Association of Realtors Information Gathering with facts that can help them address one of the most commonly asked questions when showing houses to parents with school age children: “Where are the best schools?”
Smith discussed three issues during a 30-minute talk before several dozen Realtors: the launch of the STEM program in Chattanooga, teacher quality and school growth.
STEM
In March, the school system announced the August launch of a STEM high school on the campus of Chattanooga State Community College. Comprised of 75 freshmen, the school will offer a curriculum focused on advancing science, technology engineering and math skills among its students. At the GIG, Smith said he wants to take STEM into all of Hamilton County’s schools.
“I taught biology, chemistry and physiology, so I understand the importance of science. I want to see STEM integrated into all of our schools - from our high schools down to our elementary schools,” he said.
Smith also said the STEM program in Chattanooga will employ an “open environment concept” that will allow its students to “take ownership of their education.”
“We want our kids to become the owner of their education. That’s not true in most education systems. The teachers own it. We want to change that,” he said.
Smith said he plans to start small and then grow the STEM initiative. One small step will involve adopting an inverted science curriculum in which students learn physics before the other sciences. “That will create a better foundation for math,” Smith said.
Teacher quality
Smith said he knows having quality teachers in Hamilton County is important to Realtors. “When you entertain people moving to Chattanooga, what question do they ask you?
‘Where are the best schools?’ What are they really asking? They don’t want to know how new or pretty a school is, but how its teachers rate,” Smith said.
Smith called the last year “a game changer” in terms of teacher quality due to the implementation of a new teacher evaluation model.
“We had an archaic evaluation model. We evaluated tenured teachers only twice in ten years. Can you image evaluating someone who’s in your office once every five years?” Smith said.
Smith said Hamilton County went above and beyond the changes the state implemented to its teacher evaluation model by creating Project COACH, which combines random classroom observation with quick feedback to improve teacher performance.
“We have about 3,000 teachers in front of kids every day. Do we have teachers along the continuum of effective and ineffective? Yes. And we’re designing things to take care of that,” he said.
School growth
School population growth in Chattanooga has pushed the topic of overcrowding to the forefront of public discussion about local education. At the GIG, Smith tackled the topic of school growth head on, admitting Realtors do not want to tell parents the schools in the area of town in which they have found a house they like are overcrowded. While two new elementary schools will alleviate some of the pressure in their communities, Smith said more will have to be done to handle the greater number of students pouring into the county’s schools.
“Ooltewah Elementary is scheduled to open in 2013 on the McKenzie Farms property, at the foot of White Oak Mountain. If you’re working that area of town, you’re starting to see houses being built. The school is going to be large – 1,100 students. That’s the biggest school we’ve built in Hamilton County. The East Brainerd school is going to be 1,100 students, too,” Smith said.
But they are not going to be big enough to ease overcrowding, the superintendent said.
“Although we’re investing $45 million in elementary schools, that’s not going to take care of the elementary problem. We’re going to have people who have school age children taking jobs in our community. We have to be prepared for that. We’re going to have to do more,” Smith said.
Smith concluded his talk by taking questions.