Indya KINCANNON 2nd District School Board Representative

Greetings! I hope everyone is enjoying the summer so far. We are enjoying the slower pace, abundance of fresh local produce, lots of swimming, and long hours of day-light. The School Board meets year round, and sometimes the summers are even busier than other times of year. This week, for example, we had a lengthy workshop Monday, a 13.5 hour tenure revocation hearing Tuesday and a relatively short voting meeting Wednesday. And of course there is preparation and study in between meetings too. I enjoy the work and am happy to be part of a constantly improving school system. Below is an update on what we’ve accomplished recently. As always, I welcome your feedback. Strategic Plan Last December Dr. McIntyre presented his vision for the future of our schools to the community. I say “his” vision, but it’s based on input from people across the community, including students, teachers, parents, and of course School Board members. At the time a frequent comment was “This sounds great, but how are we going to get there?” Yesterday we unanimously approved a detailed plan for how to turn that vision into reality. The plan has 4 main goals: 1. Focus on the student; 2. Effective Educators; 3. Engaged Parents and Community; and 4. Infrastructure – Enabling Student Learning. I’ve studied the plan and think it’s thorough, ambitious, and achievable. The plan reflects the rising educational standards that our children must meet to succeed in the world today. I’ve seen many plans and reports gather dust on a shelf. This plan has firm timelines and outcome measurements that should ensure that it’s actually implemented and effective. I encourage you to read it on-line and share your thoughts with me. Budget Our final budget for the 09-10 school year is $375.25m, a 1% increase over the previous year. Our student enrollment grew by 1000 students this year, so the net effect is less money available per student. Couple that with various cost increases and you can see why it was a challenging budget year. On numerous occasions throughout the Spring we met with the Mayor and Commission to explain our budget circumstances and priorities. As a result of that good communication the Board approved a budget request on April 15th and Commission approved our budget unchanged by the end of May. In the past we have needed more time to reconcile our budget request with the amount actually appropriated, and sometimes haven’t passed a final budget until after the start of school. Getting it done sooner facilitates staffing decisions and preparations for the coming school year. While it’s disheartening to have to cut some positions, including some teachers, our budget is fiscally responsible and continues to make progress towards improved academic achievement. You can read a budget narrative and view all the spreadsheets here. New SW Elementary School Last night the Board unanimously approved the purchase of land to build a new elementary school in the Southwest part of the county. While I am reluctant to approve any new building projects at this time of severe fiscal constraints, we cannot ignore over-crowding and projected population increases. It’s also a very favorable time to buy land. Our options were to build additions to 4 existing schools or build one new school. The costs for both options were about the same, so it seemed more prudent to invest in a new school, especially since additions would make the existing schools quite large, over 1000 students. Going Digital The School Board is moving to paperless meetings. Starting in August we will conduct our meetings via electronic agendas. This should streamline the process, reduce our paper and printing costs, and make the entire agenda more accessible to the public. I’m sure we’ll have a few kinks to work out initially, but I’m glad to be heading in this direction. Project GRAD Summer Institutes One of the most effective components of Project GRAD is the summer institutes at Pellissippi and UT. It’s a rigorous program that starts at 7am and lasts all day. Students are immersed in college level classes and get first hand experience of what life is like on a college campus. There was a good article about it in the News Sentinel recently. I visited Pellissippi a few weeks ago and was really impressed with the students’ focus. It’s a great partnership with higher education and a vital experience for students, many of whom will be the first in their families to attend college. New Leadership at Area Schools I want to welcome several new principals to our area. Melissa Johnson will be Christenberry’s new principal. Ms. Johnson has been an able Assistant Principal at Christenberry for several years, so should be a smooth transition. Central High will be led by Danny Trent, who most recently served as principal of Karns Middle School. Dr. Jill Hobby takes the helm of Whittle Springs Middle School after serving as an assistant principal at Northwest Middle School. Tom Watson will be the new leader of Richard Yoakley Alternative School. He also comes to us from Northwest Middle School. I look forward to working with these new principals and am confident that they will provide energetic and effective leadership at their respective schools. I also note that Ms Reba Lane is leaving Shannondale to become the principal at Powell Elementary. Ms. Lane has done a great job at Shannondale and will be missed. Applications are being accepted for that position through July 3rd, and a new principal will be assigned shortly thereafter. Thanks for your on-going interest and support of our schools. Have a great summer. Very Truly Yours, Indya Indya Kincannon, Chair Knox County Board of Education