Commissioner McQueen Discusses Plan for Low Achieving Schools in Chattanooga

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – The Hamilton County Commission now has more time to decide on the iZone school proposal.

Candice McQueen is in town sitting down with members of the community to hopefully get one step closer to plan for the low performing schools in Hamilton County.

Education officials with the state initially proposed a complete take over of school operations at 5 different Hamilton County schools … creating what they call the achievement school district or ASD.

Now the conversation is shifting to a partnership that will make county officials happy.

“We don’t want the state to take over our schools, but there is another option,” said Mayor Jim Coppinger

Karitsa Jones added, “We want to look at options where we can keep our schools here in Hamilton County, not allow them to be taken over by the ASD, but they remain Hamilton county schools, but we are able to empower the schools and the staff and administrators, and students to be the best that they can be.”

They are now discussing with Candice McQueen, the education commissioner for the state, what they call a partnership zone. This would mean each school would be paired with state officials creating a joint governance solution for those schools.

Candice McQueen stated, “We like to think about the partnership zone as a place where we can have those hard conversations that are on how do we improve collectively, holistically, as we think about the whole child, and push the conversation that’s apart of that whole child around the academics piece that we know can improve.”

Currently 2,300 students are in low performing schools. State officials say that over the last few years, 21 schools across the state have come off of this list so they hope to bring some of those changes here to Hamilton county.

Candice McQueen believes that the schools that were talked about today, are schools that we know can do better.