What’s Right With Our Schools: Chatt Excellence Middle
Teachers and Staff at Chattanooga Charter School of Excellence go above and beyond in the classroom to help their students be successful.
The school has been a premier charter school in Chattanooga since 2011.
Tonight, we take a look at the specialized, content-rich curriculum in What’s Right With Our Schools.
“Welcome to Chattanooga Charter School of Excellence Middle. We are so happy to have you here.”
“I love this school. And the difference that we have from other schools is that it’s very a small, family style, community; uh community Based. This is my fifth year here,” said Chattanooga Charter School of Excellence Principal, Arianna Gladney.
“On behalf of Food City and News 12 Now, I’d like to present you with this week’s Golden Apple Teacher Award! Thank you so much.”
” I was at Brainerd for 5 years. I wanted the opportunity to grow my own career for my personal goals, and move into an instructional uh leadership position. So I came over here. That was 2020. And I’ve just moved up, I’ve done every step. And then now I’m the full-time principal,” said Gladney.
” 3 * 8 is… 24. 24.”
“We have 255… scholars now. And sixth grade, we are busting at the seams. We have 100 so we cap at 100 for each grade level. So that our class sizes stay at 25. Yeah it’s growing,” said Gladney.
“X goes what? Y go’s what? Up and down, simple.”
“As that we have some amazing teachers. There is a core content teacher for each grade level. So we have a math, science, english and history teacher for each grade level,” said Gladney.
“Our Scholars sometimes are not on the levels that you know the curriculum from the public school need them to be. So here at the charter school our admin give us um autonomy in our rooms to make it to what the scholars need; make it relevant to them. Because sometimes there’s things in the public school curriculum that they have no idea about,” Said Natalee Buchanan, 7th grade Math teacher at Chattanooga Charter School of Excellence.
“Tt’s scholar centered. We use the word scholar instead of students. Um so every decision we make is with them at the forefront and in the center of that. So that’s one difference we have, is it’s not just it’s not isolated. Everything is one big picture to make sure that our students thrive and that they’re successful,” said Gladney.
“The difference between a regular public school and here would probably be, you have to take a test to get in. So it’s really… it’s not any, I’m not going to say dumb. But like it’s not any uneducated people here. It’s full of people that are smart. So the school is able to challenge you; let you like push your limits on what you do and don’t know,” said Justin Lawrence Davis, an 8th grader at Chattanooga Charter School of Excellence.
“Last year I entered um the young Southern’s poetry like contest and I won an award for that.”
“We’re starting what we call our principal Advisory Board and I’m starting with the eighth graders. And I’m going to uh funnel it down to seventh grade next. Um, but they’re going to help make changes and make decisions within the school. I really want student voice to be something that’s important. And I want them to know that I value their opinion and their um… their input. Our slogan for this year is better together. Um and we’re excited about that because, everybody plays a part in the success of our kids. As I said we want to um help shape and mold the whole child. So that’s every piece and every capacity for them. And we need everybody in this building to do that. It’s really important to us is really just growing our kids and to who they want and need to be to be. And giving them the skills to be that person,” said Gladney.
