Mayor Coppinger pitches joint school board meeting

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – After the Hamilton County Commission meeting today, Mayor Jim Coppinger once again emphasized the importance of the upcoming meeting with the school board.

Funding schools is by far the biggest budget item for the county each year.

With over 1 billion dollars in deferred maintenance to buildings, dozens of teachers leaving the county and hundreds of other teachers voicing their displeasure with the lack of salary increases and other issues, Mayor Coppinger sees this meeting as crucial to getting the two governing bodies on the same page.

The School Board and the County Commission haven’t met together since before the budget impasse in which the board’s request for a 34 cent tax increase was voted down 5-4.

Kendra Young is the teacher who organized the recent teacher town hall.

“What we are really hoping will come out of this next meeting is actionable steps, and that’s the same thing we called for at the Teacher Town Hall, which is, we understand there’s disagreement, we understand that the growth on this is going to be painful. We get that. But our schools have been underfunded for generations. This is not a problem that grew up out of nowhere.”

The joint meeting will be December 9th at 6 pm, at the Red Bank Middle library. It will also be live streamed.