What’s Right With Our Schools: McCallie Students at Howard

CHATTANOOGA, TN (WDEF) – When you were in high school, did you ever wonder what life was like on another campus? Students from Howard and McCallie are coming together to learn from each other. The results are an eye-opening example of what’s right with our schools.

Dr. Charles Mitchell is the Assistant Principal at The Howard School.

He explains, ” We’ve done multiple leadership exchanges. We just came from Germantown, Houston and out at Memphis, with them, but again it’s important because we let our kids know that they have to be contributing members of society. It’s just not about Howard it’s also about schools in Nashville, schools in Memphis (and) Knoxville. ”

Sawyer Hazlewood is at 10th grader at McCallie.

He says, “I think just to kind of see like how different schools are and kind of how they’re different from your own like, McCallie is kind of a unique environment.  So, I think it’s definitely good to see like other schools and kind of just see how they differ from each other, to kind of get a good perspective on it.”

Adoria Thomas is a senior at Howard.

She says, “Most of these schools we have a lot in common, and then some it’s like we don’t. So, we just get to share like all the different things that we do at school.”

McCallie Sophomore Maxim Lee chips in, “Just really want to see a different environment. I mean, I haven’t really been in many schools in the Chattanoga area, and obviously I’m from Illinois. So, I just want to see like what public schools look like, see the community right here, yeah.”

Vanessa Moss is the Schoolbase Lead Future Ready Institute atThe Howard School.

She adds, ” It’s important because it helps us better understand how we’re similar across the state. It helps us respect our differences so that we can learn from each other and grow from each other.”

Mac Dean teaches Algebra 2 at Howard.

He is also a McCallie graduate.

Dean says, “We, all across all high schools learned the same thing. I mean, it really is. I mean from the state, the federal like all maths are just set up. I mean, you pick up a book here, you pick up a book in McCallie, they’re going to have the same content in them.”

Daisi Perez Gomez is a senior at the Howard School.

She says, “Most of the schools that visit us are as well as diverse and they have different institutes and programs that one can participate just like ours, and we all we have a lot in common more than we think we do.”

Dr. Mitchell concludes, “The importance in life is always to get every student every individual to understand that we got to see them the value, and everybody when you can see the value in every person in our society. It doesn’t matter where public school, charter school, at the end of the day, everybody has value, and when we can get everybody to see that, we have a better Society. So, we’re always building future leaders of our community, our state and the United States. It’s important to make an impact on society and make a difference on each and every individual that we encounter. So, no, the work will never be done.  We want to extend this. We could start going to of course, but we’re looking to expand territory and get more schools involved with the leadership exchange. So, the work is not done.”