The Greeneville City Board of Education will meet in called session this afternoon. The only agenda item is consideration of the contract for new Director of Schools Dr. Matthew Drinnon. Drinnon was elected to the position by a 3-2 vote of the board on March 24th.
His selection following a public forum on March 10th at the NPAC and individual interviews with the Board of Education the following day.
Below are the questions and answers with Dr. Drinnon during the March 11th interview at the Central Office.
We’ve read your resume and we know something about you. Is there anything else that you would like to tell us that is not included on your resume?
I think one of the questions I want to address off the front is I’ve been asked about, what happens if you get this job and Hamblen County opens. I’ve been asked that a couple of times in the last few days. In the last 15 years since I’ve been in Hamblen County schools, I’ve only applied in one other school district in that 15 years. I’ve applied twice here in Greeneville City schools, and that’s the only other place that I’ve looked. This is a position I’m incredibly interested in. I’m 29 years in Tennessee public schools. My family’s here with me this evening, my wife Rebecca, both my teenage boys, Thomas and Isaac. I’ve got one move left in me. I think if I’m fortunate enough to be considered for this position, I do want to kind of lay that to rest. I’m not looking for a stepping stone. I’m looking for one more opportunity to grow in this profession and be a Director of Schools.
What do you consider a major strengths that you would bring to this position?
I think my work ethic. I’m also considered very level headed. I’ve had quite a bit of experience now the last 4 years as HR supervisor, and this year as an assistant superintendent and working through budgets and making tough decisions. A couple of years ago as we were looking and projecting at what we wanted to do with salary schedules to try to meet that $50,000 mandate, we noticed looking at the salary schedule, I saw that there was a large gap between a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree. I advocated as HR supervisor that we shrink that gap, understanding that teachers were going to be upset because when we looked at that there were going to be a group of educators that got more of a raise that year than everybody else did. And that’s a hard sell. It was a good budget year for us that year. Everybody wanted something that was the same. But as I look at it now and this year, we’re just a few hundred dollars away from that $50,000 mandate. And in a tough budget year, our ADM is 560 students less than what we’ve had last year. So we’re looking at having to make some significant budget considerations, but we’re going to meet that $50,000 mandate without having to make cuts, without having to do anything because of making a hard decision two years ago. And I stand by when I have to make tough decisions, when I have to try to advocate for tough decisions. And I focus on students. My focus is on my son who will come with me. I don’t know about my oldest one. He’s a sophomore in high school. My wife works in Hamblen County schools. We’re kind of up in the air about that, but Isaac will be starting high school next year. He’s a baseball player, super excited about the possibility of being a Greene Devil. I think I bring those things to the table, a very hard worker, very focused on the job. I tell everyone I’m focused on three things that’s faith, family, and work. Outside of that, I don’t know that I could even say I have a hobby other than reading and maybe gardening, mowing the yard. But those are the things I bring. I’m super focused and want to do well and want to help other people do well.
What’s the single greatest threat to continued excellence?
Complacency. I think the biggest thread is thinking we’ve made it, and we don’t have to look at our practices to see how we can improve, or if we have pockets of excellence that everybody’s doing well, but are there are there grade levels or grade bands that have got it figured out a little better than we have, and can we learn from each other? Instead of being competitors, can we collaborate across the system? That’s one of the things that we’ve had a hard time getting adjusted to in Hamblen County. We used to do testing lists. When I became a principal, we’d start the school year with, here’s where you ranked as an elementary school last year. That didn’t foster a spirit of collaboration among the elementary schools because we all wanted to make sure we moved up the list. I’m as competitive as anybody. But when it comes to kids and comes to education, we have to share what we’re doing. We have to collaborate. When you’re considered one of the best, if not the best school districts in the state of Tennessee, I think one of the fears is, do we rest on those laurels? And I don’t think we can do that. I think you have to look at where are the areas we can continue to improve. We talk a lot about pursuing perfection, and we know we’re never going to get perfection. But as long as we’re pursuing it, we’re going to continuously improve.
So, what has drawn or attracted you to our system for you to decide that you would like to be the next Director of Schools?
I think what draws me to Greeneville is the fact that you are an excellent school district, the fact that you have a history of excellence for as long as I can remember. I came over to this courthouse when I was in high school participating in mock trial competitions. Greeneville is a special place. It is a special part of this state. And I drive myself to pursue excellence and to be part of a district that constantly pursues excellence is super exciting to me. And so that’s what has drawn me over the last 15 years. I’ve applied twice. And that’s what has drawn me to this district.
Could you tell us in what ways do you foster a culture of open communication and accessibility?
I think I’ve always tried to maintain an open door. I try to communicate in a number of different ways. I talk to folks about the fact that communicating at different levels of how that works. Obviously face-to-face communication is best, and I try to practice that as much as I can. So you can see what I’m doing while I’m trying to talk. I try to email but I try to be very concise in email because I don’t feel that’s as effective a means of communicating. I share my personal cell phone number with every employee that we have in the district pretty much has my personal cell phone number, which can be annoying at times when you’re trying to do something different, but I share that with a large number of folks because they need to be able to reach me. I’m in charge of Burke Tony Stadium in addition to other things in the district. So I have a lot of folks that need to get in touch with me. I try to be very open and transparent. I’ve been described as very matter of fact. I try to be very frank in communications. I’m supportive, but at the same point in time, I think people always kind of know where we are, if we have a situation that requires that hard conversation, I try to sit down and do that in as humane and as gentle in a way as possible, but at the same point in time, we have things sometimes that have to be said, and we’re going to do that privately, and we’re going to have that conversation face to face. To promote accessibility we’re going through right now with ADA compliance, we’re having to do some things with all of our communications that come out of our district because we serve a community that’s over 50,000. And so all of our things are going to have to move into ADA compliance by the end of April, April the 26th is the date for that. So we’re going through a lot of things to make sure that our closed captioning is accurate, and we’re doing that through a number of different software programs. Now, that’s going through our IT department, so I can’t tell you what they are, but I’m well aware that we’re having to look at that. Everybody else is gonna have to have it done by April a year from now. And so it’s really making us hone in and focus on what our communication strategies as a district are and what we’re putting out there, because social media, in particular can be hard to make sure you are captioning it correctly, and that what you’re typing in is getting to the right visual size and the right font. And so we’re going through a lot of stages of trying to make that happen because we have to get it done in the next few weeks.
Can you share an example of a time when a staff member proposed an idea, an idea that you initially disagree with but later embraced after listening to their perspective.
I think one of the hard sells that we’ve had is this concept in Hamblen County of taking our two high schools and putting them together into one school. My immediate reaction to that was I don’t want to be on the stage in that Town Hall when we start sharing that idea. Since that time, I understand some of the motivation behind that as we’ve had further conversations and what we’re trying to do. We’re facing a teacher shortage like everyone else is. How are we able to maximize the talent that we have? Are we able to shore that up? I understand the purpose of looking at that as our population is shrinking in Hamblen County schools. Fairly drastically, if I look at our kindergarten numbers, if those hold up over the next few years, it will be difficult to maintain as many school operations as we’re maintaining in Hamblen County. If I look back 5 years ago we’ve lost possibly almost a 1000 students since that time. It’s some drastic things for us to look at. And so I’ve come around to, I’m not going to say I wholly support the idea yet, but I’ve come around to the idea that yes, we need to look at it. We need to make sure it’s a concept that have we looked at every angle and at the end of the day, what I’ve said all along is if it’s a decision that’s best for students I’ll support it to the hilt.
What steps do you take to have open lines of communication with staff and community, especially in times of crisis or rapid change?
I think in times of rapid change, we’ve used school messenger. We’ve had a number of school threats. How do you get that message out quickly and how do you make sure that is promoted so that everybody is signed up to receive that. That’s a service that we have, and I’ll use an example. One of the few days that I’ve taken off this year, I had to take my dad to a doctor’s appointment over in Hancock County. And that was the day that we had a bomb thread at one of our middle schools. And if you’ve ever tried to get cell phone or service in Hancock County, you know it’s spotty at best, but was trying to communicate with the principal during that time of how we would operate and do that and get those messages out so that parents are aware of what’s happening while we’re at the school. We ended up evacuating that school to school buses that were on a access lot near the school, and we had to bring in a bomb dog from a neighboring county to search the school, sweep the school because of the nature of the threat. We communicated with parents consistently through Messenger which sends out text messages and phone calls. It’ll do it in the language that the parents select. In doing that, we didn’t have a parent who came to the school because we were open and upfront to start with what was happening, what we were doing, and that the kids were safe during that crisis. And so it was a real concise messaging of what we were doing and what was going on at the school. And so that’s one of the programs that we’ve used. I think you have to be open. I think you have to be transparent. I think you have to communicate with community agencies, all your emergency service agencies that you have to have a good line of communication with who’s involved if you have that type of situation.
Dr. Drinnon, I did not get to ask this question yesterday. I was beat out by a very articulate young lady from Tusculum View. But based on your administrative experience, what do you hear are some of the biggest challenges and frustrations that are facing today’s classroom teachers in your system?
In our system some of the biggest frustrations I think are constantly changing initiatives. In previous years we’ve gone through a number of different programming. We’ve gone through a number of different areas of focus, and I’ll give you an example is our benchmark testing software that we use. When I was a principal, we went through a series of benchmark testing software platforms and reached one point of where we switched each year for three straight years. It’s really hard as a teacher to create materials, get used to using a platform, and then it changes. And so for me a lot of our teacher frustration stems from that. Are we as a district providing initiatives and areas of focus that are constantly shifting and changing, or are we hyper focused on what matters in school? And are we hyper focused on that? Making sure we’re improving instruction, making sure we’re trying to remove some of those extraneous things that sometimes can frustrate teachers. And so we’ve started a campaign in our district of what can we remove? What can we take care of? And what you find with that is people don’t add a lot of things to that list because somebody added it at some point because they really wanted to do that and so then they don’t come forward, say, yeah, we would like to remove this. We’re moving away from Mastery Connect, which is our benchmark testing software. I know a lot of districts within CER are moving away and moving to another platform. And I know that some of our teachers are going to be frustrated with it , because I’ve just now really mastered using this platform and we’re moving into another platform that I have to start over. And I think sometimes that’s frustrating.
How do you balance sharing the successes of the school district while also highlighting areas where improvement is needed? And If you can give an example of maybe when you’ve done this.
I think it’s very important to focus on the successes that you have. And I’ll go back to when I was a principal just kind of as an example of that. I wanted to search for areas of success to promote the success of the school. At the same point in time, when we would begin a school year, we did a data review that was a full data review for the school with everybody. As a small school it was hard to hide if you had three grade levels that were being tested and you had grade levels that were up in the upper ranges of the state performance and you had a grade level that was not. And if you were that grade level that was not, we have to own that. Now, I wasn’t singling out individual teachers, but at the same point in time, I think you have to be really clear about what the data shows. And the data just is what it is. And so when you put that number up and let’s talk about where that number is and where that number came from, it really buys ownership from the entire group. I taught high school for a long time, and at the high school level a whole lot of your teachers aren’t personally responsible for testing data. But everybody is responsible for the culture of the school and what those expectations are. It’s really hard. I’ve taught in schools in the past where you could have high academic expectations, but if the class next door to you was wrapping up about 50 minutes into class in the next 30 minutes not much was happening. It made it really hard for you to tow that line and I’ve got to get through this. And so I think you have to share that data. You have to be able to communicate that and you’re talking, you know, if you look at communicating it with the outside, I think you have to be transparent. The data is going to be out there. There’s nothing you can hide. And so you just have to accept that and here’s where we are and here’s what we want to work toward improving. But I do think it’s very important that you’re transparent and honest and open in those communications.
Tell us about the time when you concluded that a significant change was necessary in the district. What indicators or evidence lead you to that conclusion?
I’ll talk a little bit about my time in HR, and so one of the things that we changed, or in the process of changing, is how we provide coverage for insurance premiums for our employees. We pay a lump sum toward that. When I started that lump sum that we paid for each employee, every employee is covered at 100% for an individual policy. And then regardless of whether you have a policy where you’re only covering a child or a policy if you’re only covering a spouse or a family policy, if you’re covering a spouse and children, you got the same lump sum amount. We moved away from a percentage amount a long time ago. What you find with that is, so if I’ve got coverage, that is a parent and child, It’s really eating into that employee’s personal budget. And so when we do comparison charts with districts that are set up on a percentage, an equal percentage is paid from that amount. And so we’re in the process of looking at in this budget cycle, is that something we need to look at doing so that it’s rather than a person who has a policy that, you know, if I have a limited policy, a limited PPO policy, and I’m covering kids, I may pay $0 because the district’s paying $12,582 toward my policy. But if I have a limited PPO policy with kids and my spouse on it, I’m paying a significant chunk of money and the percentages are not the same. And so working with HCEA, that’s one of the things that we’re working through as we do our collaborative conferencing, they would like for us to look at moving back toward a percentage model. We’re running that through the budget numbers to see kind of what that would look like. so that it’s more evenly distributed for all of our employees.
I think last night to they asked you what you would do in your first 30 days. I’m gonna ask you what would you focus on the first ninety days? What would you intentionally not change?
In the first 90 days, I would have no intention of coming in and intentionally changing, and the young lady from Tusculum View asked that question. I’m not planning to walk in and change what’s happening from 7:30 to 2:30, 3 o’clock in that school. You all are having great success. I’m not walking in the door saying well, this is what’s worked for me, where I’ve been. This is my playbook and we’re going to do that. I was a coach, as a basketball coach you learn that you may have a style of play that you want, but if that is what you’ve been used to, and that’s not where you are anymore, you’re going with the athletes you have. And so in this case, you’ve got high flyers. I’m not going to come in and change that to a, for a basketball analogy, we’re not going to a 4 corner strategy. And so we’re going to continue to do the things that have gone really well. In the first 90 days, there’s a lot of work that has to be done, depending on when this position starts. You’re still probably going to be in budget cycle. And so all of us are facing tough budgets. And so in the first 30 days, you’re going to have to see where the budget is, what the plans are, working with Mr. Starnes and working with the board to see what your goals are with that budget for 2026-2027 because that’s really going to set what you’re trying to do in that new school year. I think I talked about that being within the first 30 days. In the first 90 days, I need to get to know all of this leadership team and as many of your staff members as I possibly can. I think one of the things that’s a strength of mine in Hamblen County, we have almost 1600 employees. Now, I can’t name all the substitute teachers and I can’t name all of the after school tutors. I ought to be able to walk into a building and know those teachers and know those staff members and know who those folks are. I ought to be in schools enough to know who’s working with me as we try to reach those goals. I think the other thing kind of looking at your strategic planning, where you are with the current strategic plan, where we are and working toward a new strategic plan, where we are with facilities work. I know from some of the questions I got earlier yesterday. You all are a lot like all of us, our facilities are aging and we’ve got a lot of facilities challenges that we have to try to look at. I think it’s important for me, coming from outside, I’ve got to get to know who the members of town council are, who the members of your local law enforcement are. Because that’s been crucial in the job that I’m in currently in Hamblen County is creating those partnerships and working with those folks to try to make sure we’re all working together to ensure students are safe and to ensure that we continue the work that Greeneville City schools has done.
As as you kind of mentioned, we have a good tradition, strong tradition. So how do you balance that tradition and legacy with forward thinking change?
I was a history major, and so I know the importance of maintaining history and maintaining traditions. At the same point in time, sometimes we do things because we’ve always done them that way. I’ve always worked toward, can I see things where a change would be an improvement? And if it changes an improvement then we need to have conversations about that potential change. We can have discussions about it. We can have conversations about it. I always when I led the school at John Hay, I said we’re going to have open conversations about the possibility of looking to move something in a different direction. At the end of the day, if a decision has to be made, I’ll make it. And you can tell me later if I’m wrong, yet you told me so. And we had examples of where that happened. At the same point in time, I think you have to constantly be shifting and looking toward the future. We’ll take AI as an example. I started teaching in the last century, and so it was very much different from what we’re doing now. What are we going to do with AI? How are we going to make sure that students are not using it as a replacement of doing the actual work and learning? And instead are using it as a tool. How are we going to look at how are we going to educate our teachers? How are you using that to do things for you, for an example, in our district, we’re working through that with our AI task force now. How do you use that as a tool to create benchmark, testing, to measure certain objectives? But at the same point in time, we know it’s not going to be a replacement for a good teacher. And so we’re trying to be innovative and at the same time maintain that tradition that the teacher’s in charge of what that material is and that you’re looking over it. I think you have to balance both. And I think if you come in with, oh, I’ve got this great innovative idea and we’re going to change this. You have to have a lot of input about what are the possible impacts of that? I hate to keep going back to the idea of putting those two high schools together, but that’s kind of dominated this year’s conversation. It’s a big deal for our community. It’s innovative idea. There are very few schools that have a consolidated high school that’s not in one building because our plan is not that it’s going to, going to build a new high school. We’re going to use what we’ve got, but are you going to put ninth, 10th grade in one, 11th and 12th grade in another? How does that work? Utilizing the buildings that we have and does it make sense? And at the end of the day, if it doesn’t make sense, then we’ve got to abandon it. And so we’re having lots of conversations and input about moving toward that. But East High School has been there since 1923. And so that’s a hard sale for a community that, well, it’s not going to be East High School anymore and what’s the mascot going to be and all those types of things. And so I think you have to balance that and you have to have open, honest communication. You have to get input from all your stakeholders. But I do think that you have to look at, we can’t, going back to earlier, you can’t rest on, we’ve made it. I got to John Hay and we were a national blue ribbon school. But that wasn’t the end. We weren’t perfect. We still had a large number of students that weren’t proficient. We had a large number of students that weren’t reading on grade level. We had a large number of students that we wanted to make sure one of our goals, if a student came as an ESL student, they are going to not be in ESL when they leave John Hay to go to middle school. And until we got that number where we didn’t have any, we didn’t feel like we were being successful. And so I think that’s how you have to balance that.
Would you share a time that you let a change initiative that faced strong resistance, how you proceeded, and what the outcome was.
I think the initiative to alter our teacher’s salary scale, as HR supervisor, is probably the most opposition I received, because what got out in the rumor mill, and I don’t know about your school district, but our school district has a very strong rumor mill, I’ve said it may be the strongest one I’ve ever seen, but by the time we started having budget conversations, it came to I was advocating that we take money away from people with masters and above, and we were going to take that money away and give it to new teachers, and that our new teachers were going to make more than our veteran teachers. And it got heated in some conversations. I still stand by that that salary schedule that you still ended up with almost a $2000 a year difference from the bachelor’s to the master’s degree because we had just over time that had extended into into a significant gap. And we were not going to be able to make it to 50,000 by just doing percentage increases without significant cuts. I had opposition from other supervisors within central office on the budget committee and had a lot of folks pushing back on that. Then you had to advocate that idea to the board. And so I ended up talking to board members about why that was important and what we were trying to do and where we were going to try to get to. I think on the other side of it now, I think everybody looks at that now this year in which we’re looking at, we’re going to have to have cuts anyway. But we’re going to make it to $50,000 rather painlessly, even though our budget is tough. And so I think that’s something I’m proud of that I was a part of at the point at that point in time, I think a lot of people weren’t happy with the HR supervisor. But I think we’re at a situation now where people see that at the end of the day, it was the interest of the district was what I was looking at. It wasn’t about trying to recruit new folks. It wasn’t about paying new folks more, and nobody nobody knew was making more than a veteran teacher. That was just not the case. But it took a lot of educating and a lot of sending information out and a lot of talking with people to try to make them understand what we were trying to do.
How will you ensure that the community stays informed about both successes and challenges of the school system in a timely and transparent manner.
I think one of the things that one of my former directors did, that I thought was a very strong communication piece, was he produced a monthly newsletter that he sent out that had information that here’s what’s happening at recent board events, here’s what policies have changed, here’s what we were looking at, budget wise. He partnered with the local newspaper and actually put an article in the paper on a rather regular basis that tried to share that information, to make sure that information was getting out. We’ve used social media. I’m not a huge social media fan. We have to now be careful with that with the new ADA guidelines that are going into effect to make sure that we are meeting federal law at the same point in time that we’re trying to communicate, which makes that a little more challenging. But I think I would want to make sure that I am preparing information to be shared in a number of different ways, whether it be through local media, whether it be through a newsletter that is put on our website that’s, you know, from the director’s corner. I know you all do several reports and other things I’ve read through several of those. You’ve got annual reports that you put out and other things that we would want to continue the traditions that you have, and can you add to that to be more communicative with the public to make sure that they’re aware of what’s happening within your district?
Describe a time when you highlighted the school or district success to build community pride and support, and how did you communicate that success to the community?
The year that I was principal at John Hay Elementary School, and we were named a National Blue Ribbon School, I probably said the word blue ribbon a million times. We had a community wide celebration where I bought a sheet cake that had the blue ribbon seal put on the top of it that was so big, we had to take the door divider out of the middle and roll it in so that everybody in the community that wanted a piece of cake to come celebrate that we were blue ribbon school could do it. And every time a teacher got frustrated, I’d say we’re a blue ribbon schoo, don’t you ever forget it? I bought signs and put up in the lobby. I bought signs and put up down at the street. We bought a flag and framed it and put it up at the central office. When you have a great success, you have to make sure everybody knows it. That was a time where I really wanted to make sure that we highlighted the fact we’ve had three national blue ribbon schools in Hamblen County. John Hay was the third. And so the other two were the two high schools. And so I wanted to make sure that, you know, we have people in Hamblen County that you tell them John Hay Elementary School, they don’t know where that is. and it’s right in the heart of Morristown. It’s right near the Coca-Cola plant, but it’s hidden in a little neighborhood, a tiny little school. A lot of people don’t know it. I wanted to make sure everybody knew where that was. And when I would go to a conference or go somewhere else, then people would start talking about school. We were a national blue ribbon school, and I said that for 10 years. And when I have the chance now, I’ll say, you know, John Hay Elementary, I’m saying it here tonight. John Hay Elementary School is a National Blue Ribbon School. We celebrated that. We invited the entire community in. Phil Roe was the congressman then. He was our guest speaker. I had reached out to him and scheduled it well enough in advance. And that was probably the most people that were ever in that school building in the history of John Hay. I don’t know if we could have squeezed another person into the cafeteria. But we wanted to make sure that everybody knew how big of a deal that was, and he actually gave us, its framed and in the school now. I went by the other day to make sure the principal still has that up there. He actually had a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol in honor of us being named a blue ribbon school and it’s hanging up with a plaque on it now. I work for Dr. Dale Lynch. A lot of you know Dr. Lynch, when you got ready to celebrate a success, you went big or you went home. And so I believe in going big or going home when you’re celebrating success.
Tell us about a time you created, strengthened any opportunities for parents, students, community member to participate in decision making. What steps did you take, what impact did that have?
I’m going to go back to when I was a principal, and our PTO, and we had a kind of an anemic PTO with John Hay when I first got there. And I worked really hard to bring parents in. We served food, we had students perform because parents will come to school if their child is performing. And we sold the idea of a PTO, and we selected parents who we knew were engaged and were willing to do that, and we made a council that I met with every month as principal. They made decisions about what types of fundraisers we would do. They made decisions about what our goals were to do with that fundraising, and we sat out and established a five-year plan of these are the things that need to be accomplished at John Hay Elementary, whether it was playground equipment, whether it was painting, whether it was new furniture in certain areas that the district wasn’t providing, and we established that out and how much it was going to cost. Over the course of that time that I was there, we went through several cycles of that and several iterations. And our parents didn’t want to sell stuff. They didn’t want to have sales. That was the first thing that said, I don’t want to sell these candy bars. Everybody was selling the world’s finest chocolate. They didn’t want to sell the world’s finest chocolate. Can we do something else? And so we did a charity auction and actually Richie Royals from Royals Auction Company would come. And after our fall festival where we had all the fun and games for several hours, we would then auction off donated items and we got to a point parents were running that on their own. The first year teachers were involved and I was involved. By the second, parents were doing that on their own for the school because they didn’t want to sell candy bars. And we were able to accomplish the first five-year plan in 4 years. We were able to purchase new playground equipment. We were able to do new landscaping at the school. We bought a new sign, a new display sign for the down near the road. They took ownership of that and did that on their own with my guidance and my support. And I’m proud to say that when I left John Hay, the principal who came in had twice as much money in that fundraising account to achieve her goals is what it was when I came in there. And so I believe in empowering parents and giving them opportunities. It is at the end of the day. It is their school. It’s their children who are going to that school, and at the end of the day, they need to have a voice in what we’re doing and need to be empowered to assist and have having that voice and sitting down having conversations with you as a leader. I envision that as a director. We have a parent council that meets. I got to meet with them last week and talk about facilities in Hamblen County and talk about where we are and what we’re wanting to do. And we get ideas from them of things that they feel like need to be addressed. And we got some. We’re doing some renovations in a couple of our schools right now, and we cut a couple of things out because we said we really don’t want to try to add that into the budget. At the same point in time parents are saying, well, I go in, it looks like a brand new school, and I walk to that bathroom, you all didn’t redo that bathroom. It’s the same bathroom we’ve had since 1967. Let’s add that to the list. Maybe that’s something that we do something to address that and make sure it’s functioning properly and looks a little better. And so I think that’s an area parents have to have a voice. You have to communicate with them, have to give them an opportunity to share their vision of what they want to see happen to. We never sold the world’s finest chocolate in 10 years at John Hay Elementary School. No offense to anybody selling the world’s finest chocolate, I buy it whenever the kids come to my house.
Could you share a time when you were faced with a complex problem that required you to gather and put for multiple sources before you made a decision? What kind of information did you see? And how did you feel like you were able to ensure that the decision was fair and partial?
I’ll talk about the decision process I’m in right now of dealing with our budget and looking at our capital projects for next year. The system that we use is principles and supervisors make requests, and these are the things that they’re requesting for the next year. And as I generate that request of items, I think I’ve come up to a capital budget that’s a little over four million dollars for next year. That’s in addition to what the district wants to do with capital funds for next year. And so as we look at that, we then have to start sifting through. And so what are the data points of what are we going to use to make decisions of what do we do and what do we not do? And so I had lunch today with Trane currently working on a project with us to change out our lighting throughout the district. We used an EESI loan to do that through TVA, which is at one and a half percent interest. Our funding body has approved us to do that. It has guaranteed savings that in 15 years time should have well more than paid for the investment to do it. Trane has now done an industrial grade audit for us, in which they’ve outlined, here’s how old your HVAC equipment is. Here’s which stuff we think you need to replace immediately. I think that’s 8.6 million dollars, so that’s not happening. So then out of that, I had to reach out to our maintenance office and maintenance has to come in and let’s look at this list Trane as provided. Now, which of these items are 20 years old or older? And they sorted down to that, which of those items can we not buy parts for if they break down? If you have a single point failure, and then you can’t heat or cool an entire section of the building, you’ve got some significant issues. That’s some of the data points that I’m working through right now to try to determine what are the areas of these are the things we have to do from a maintenance and capital standpoint. And these are the things we want to do. And trying to sift out and make that difference and do it in an equable fashion so that one school’s not getting all of the attention. We had an elementary school that turned 75 years old this year. It’s been a while since it’s had a little love. And so, yes, it looks like it got more capital money than some of the other schools. It needed more capital money than some of the other schools. And so that’s kind of how I try to balance that is I try to get as many data points as I can to try to make that decision.
Dr. Drinnon, when you make decisions, that you have students here and staff in the community, how do you ensure the names of all groups are considered fairly?
I think, depending on the decision, obviously, if this is a decision where you get time to deliberate before you make a decision, and it’s something that, as a director, you’re having to spend time on making a plan for. I think you have to get input from all of those groups. You know, in our district, now we have a student advisory group. We have a parent advisory group. We have a teacher advisory group that the school selects a teacher from each school that meets with the director once per month. And you get to have all of those folks input. At the same point in time, we try to send out surveys. We don’t get as great a response as what we would like. And sometimes I feel in surveying data, sometimes the only people that send them back are the people that are really unhappy with you. And so you have to really kind of weigh that out at the same point in time. What’s my response rate? Am I just getting the response rate from the folks who don’t like the new electronics policy? And so they’re telling me up front that, no, you need to change cell phone policy back to where my kid’s not getting in trouble for having their cell phone out during school day. And so that was a policy just as an example, I didn’t do it. I was in HR and I didn’t even realize we’d gone away from the policy where you couldn’t have your cell phone out at school because when I was a principal, you couldn’t have your cell phone out at school. And we made a move and changed our board policy where you can have your cell phone out, and we made a decision that we’re going to go back to the old policy. And we had a lot of uproar over that, obviously, because we did it before the state passed the legislation, said you had to have a policy about it, didn’t tell you what calls he had to be. We have a policy about it. And we had a lot of input in those same groups. We talked about it with student advisory groups. We talked about it with teacher advisory groups. We talked about it at schools. We talked about it with parents. And the response overall was overwhelmingly positive. But I do think you have to give everybody a voice in that conversation and listen to really what their concerns are and what their needs are to make sure that you’re hearing what they’re telling you is an issue or a problem or what may be a potential problem if you recommend a change in policy.
Just a few short years ago, we had to deal with a worldwide pandemic. There were no handbooks or policy guidelines on how to manage that. If faced with a similar crisis, what was be the process for leading the system through it?
I hope we never have to address something like that again. Obviously we were told to go home on March 20th until the end of the year. We kept saying, in our district we’ll be back in a week. And so we ended up not really addressing from March the 20th until the end of the year because we all kept saying, well, we’ll be out for a few days and we’ll go back. Looking back in hindsight, that was very short sighted of us. We didn’t have a great plan for what are we doing to ensure that learning is continuing from that March 20th until the end of that school year. I think the next year we did a much better job of doing what we needed to do. We started virtual learning. You all are well ahead of that at this point now because you have an online school that’s being successful., and has increasing enrollment and is as you know, a successful school in its own right, doing a great job. We had gone to one to one. Thankfully, we were able to get devices to folks, we had teachers out delivering packets of work to students. We had a lot of things that were going well, but I think looking back, we weren’t prepared for the option of what happens if we cannot be in person. I think we’re in a much better place for that now. I think we are staffed in a much better place for that now. I was not a Google certified educator when that ended on March the 20th. We all went through and worked through and became Google certified educators so that we could use that platform to communicate. We did a great job. Our school nutrition program did a great job with feeding kids, even though they were out. We took buses and delivered food to kids and so that’s a success that we have. I think we could continue that type of success if faced with such a challenge again. I think the other thing is you have to try to sift through the noise that’s coming from both directions politically. And how are we making decisions that are best for kids in that case?
How do you attract and retain exceptional principals and teachers?
I think you have a couple of things that you look at with attracting entertaining talent. One of them is, what are the working conditions? What’s the culture? Dr. Horne eloquently talked about the culture of Greeneville City schools yesterday. You have a culture that attracts people, people want to be a part of your school district, just like I’m sitting here today wanting to be a part of your school district. That means a lot. Salary and benefits mean a lot. How do we look at and how do we address shortfalls and benefits? We talked a little bit yesterday. I will freely say, as an HR supervisor, Greeneville City schools was one of our benchmark school districts that we looked at. And we looked at your salaries, and we looked at your benefits. We looked at all the other neighboring lakeway area schools to try to do a comparison. How are we stacking up against other folks in the area? And I think that’s important to continue to do and monitor whatever school district you’re in. How am I stacking up against the competition? Because you’re right, I can go anywhere. What are the working conditions? Are you empowered as a principle to make decisions at your school and to work with your staff with support from a district office rather than operating on a directive directly from district office? I think that matters that you have some voice in that. I think those committees having a principal group that gets to meet and share ideas, and trying to foster a culture where as a principal you feel honest communicating to me, Dr. Drinnon I’m not really sure about what you’re telling me. I’m not really sure about that idea. I’ll give you an example, and this has nothing to do with principles, but I came up with an idea at John Hay, that we would have a Christmas program, a holiday program, a musical, and have every grade perform K through five. I quit counting after about 800 people showed up for that event because we didn’t have a lot of people show up, nobody’s going to show up. We didn’t have enough chairs. Every teacher who told me, I don’t know that we can do that, got to come up to me later and say, I told you we couldn’t do that. We did it one time, we never did it again. But I think you have to foster that relationship. I’m going to make mistakes. That’s going to happen. I’m a human being. Can we work together to go through that and foster that connection? The other thing that we have to address, I think, in every community is childcare. For a lot of our young professionals, we’re in a childcare desert in Hamblen County. It’s an official designation for our district, and so we’re having to have conversations about how many teachers we’ve lost, because when they have child, they can’t find adequate childcare. And so that’s something that we’re considering too.
I heard you say earlier collaborative conferencing, and so, you know, when you think about fostering a culture of open dialogue and collaboration, like the staff, and administrators, I just wanted to ask what your view is about collaborating conferencing .
It’s been a positive for us up to this point. We’ve been able to share ideas. I’ll give you an example of something that came up last year. I’ve been on the team for several years. I’ve led the team this past year. We have a looming issue in Hamblen County with our MOU with our staff, because we agree if you’ve worked for us at least 10 years, the last 7 being consecutive before you reach full retirement, we will pay 100% of your insurance premium until you turn 65. If you started teaching after July 1st, 2014, you’re not eligible for the state health insurance policy as a retired educator. So we’re going to have teachers who are going to start retiring, we’ve said we’re going to pay for your insurance that aren’t eligible to be on the state insurance. And so I broached that topic with our collaborative conferencing group in this last session, we were not up for language. I wanted to be on the transparency other side of that issue of guys, this is a problem that we have looming. We have it in the MOU that we’re going to pay for insurance. We’re not looking at not paying for insurance. But how are we going to do that when we can’t make direct payments to TCRS for your insurance deduction? Because we don’t want a system of where everybody brings in a receipt for, here’s my health insurance receipt for the month. Will you write me a check to reimburse that? And so how are we going to process that so that it’s feasible for the district? I think it’s an important piece because it gives you an opportunity to work together with people in your district, with staff, and teachers get a voice, real voice, and what your agreement is between the district and your employees. Mr. Hugh Clement who I replaced, I have a tremendous amount of respect for him, did 26 years and he always said, teachers need somebody who’s representing them. They need somebody to represent their interest. And I think that happens through collaborative conferencing. And I think it’s been a positive relationship for us.
In a high performing district facing revenue shortfalls, how would you approach budget reductions on protecting academic, excellence, and staff morale?
It’s a hard balancing act to kind of look at where our areas that we have to make economic cuts in. We’re going through that right now. Our high schools have been kind of immune to that for a while. Their staffing has gotten larger. I don’t know if there’s a way that you can say that we’re losing positions that doesn’t impact at some level. At the same point in time, we’ve been able if we’ve had position impacts, we’re doing it through attrition. We’re not doing it through a reduction in force. As positions vacate we don’t fill those. I think that’s a little more positive approach to that aspect of it than coming into the high school and saying you’ve got to give up five people who are the five people going to be, or are we going to run metrics and determine who the five people are? I think you have to, you really have to balance that. What are the programs that maybe are some redundant programs? I talked a little bit yesterday about in Hamblen County. And that’s something I intend to do, however long this takes, but we’re running two technology programs. We’re paying for Microsoft Enterprise and Google Classroom. We’re the only district I can find. I’ll say Tennessee, but I dare say America, that’s paying for both of those. It may not be America, but I can’t find one that does. How am I gonna justify cutting positions when I’m paying for Microsoft Enterprise and Google Classroom? And so we have to really go through that with a fine tooth comb and make sure we’re looking at that. At the same point in time, we’re sitting on a fund balance that’s projected to be at about $24 million. And so, technically we can argue about what percentage you need to be at with fund balance, but twenty four million dollars is well over 10%. We’re having conversations about it, what point do we say in order to kind of bridge this gap in order to finish some of these construction projects? Can we look at using some of that fund balance money to do that in a responsible way that doesn’t impact programming? Hamblen County had more reward schools last year than we’ve ever had. And now we’re facing a tough budget challenge. And how are we going to address that without impacting how people feel? And I think that’s a really difficult thing to do. We’re looking at shifting into what we call non-recurring costs. And so things that we’ve had it were recurring costs all this time, can we shift it to a non-recurring cost? So we say we’re going to fund it year to year and we’re going to fund that out of some of our sales tax contributions. And we’re hopeful that our funding body will go along with that.
How do you ensure the school board is regularly and adequately informed about key issues or decisions? Can you give us an example of how your communication is strengthened or decision making?
We do a weekly update that’s sent to individual board members, and so my contribution to that’s a weekly update on what’s happening with construction projects, what’s happening with discipline issue, because I’m chair of the student discipline here and authority also. And so we do weekly updates of what’s occurred within the school district. When we have incidents, we had an incident today that did require a text message that was sent to all board members. That was sent by either Mr. Bunch or Mr. Bunch’s secretary, but two assistant superintendents have the option to send that as well, because we’re looped into that into that group. And so if Mr. Bunch is out and something occurs, which happened recently with a conference, I’m the person who then sends those messages out if we had an ambulance that had to come to one of our schools. And so just to make sure that everybody knew what had occurred at that school we notified the board.
How would the Director of Schools handle disagreement with the board?
I think in that case when you look at disagreements with the board, at the end of the day, the board is making decisions about policy, the board is making decisions about funding. I can share my viewpoints. I can share what I feel needs to happen. When the board votes and makes a policy decision, I’ve got to support that policy 100% whether I was in agreement with it on the front end or not. I think that’s important to know. We’re a unified team and so we can have conversations and can have differences. And once those are all laid out, I think you’re in a position where you’re in the same position that I was as a principal, let’s have a conversation and get input about this, but at the end of the day when the board votes, that’s the decision. And the expectation is I’m going to support that decision 100%, which I’m going to do. I would hope that any board that I’m working for, I have a good, open, honest, transparent relationship. Here’s what I think about this. Here’s a policy that I don’t think we should add. I’ll give you an example. Last year, the legislature, debated, did not pass, but debated a law in which they were going to give the board the decision, and whether the board was going to allow undocumented students to enroll or not. Now the US Supreme Court’s already weighed in on that. So state law is not going to trump federal law. But if I’m going to tell the board, if I’m a Director, as our Director told our board, I’m going to tell the board I would advise against that because the first district that does that if that becomes law. We’re going to have some significant legal expenses and we’re going to be fighting that challenge for a while. At same point in time, if a board votes that in, we’re that’s our policy. And I learned a long time ago that it’s a lot easier to stand on decisions that are made based on policy than it is to stand on decisions you’ve made on your own. And so I think that’s how I handle disagreements. I’m generally agreeable. I’m agreeable even when I disagree. And so we may have to have the statement of, you know, we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this matter. But at the end of the day, if this is what you, as a board, feel needs to happen, and you have voted to touch what needs to happen, that’s what I’m going to go out and support 100%.
How do you partner currently with your board to strengthen its effectiveness, support high quality decisions, and enhance the board’s credibility with the community?
So we do a public board retreat in the fall where both assistant superintendents, the superintendent, and our board members, and we did that in our board office for a weekend this fall where we reviewed data that we had from the previous year. We were able to review information from our facilities and construction projects and updates. We have strategic planning retreats, and those are conducted in our central office. We use to go away, and for budgetary reasons, we decided that that wasn’t a good look, and I support that, and so we have that in our regular board meeting room, people are invited, media is invited and we’re going to discuss those things and make sure that everybody’s informed and make sure that we’re all part of that strategic planning process. I’ve worked to try to make sure I’ve informed the board of where we are with construction, where we are with capital projects, what some of the challenges are, just so that they are aware , and I include those in the weekly update so that the board is aware of the challenges that we’re facing and what some of the things may come up. We’ve got a lot of sinkholes in Hamblen County. I’ve got one right now at our transportation department, which is the worst place in the county to have one because it’s right near the parking lot where the buses are. We got a bid that we got approved for but I wanted the board to know since the time that we had environmental engineers look at that and get this bid priced, let me be honest with you, two more areas have opened up in that retention pond. It’s going to be a significantly more expensive change order. At the same point in time, here are the things I didn’t spend out of capital that I have reserved this money because I was afraid we might have something else happen that we’ve got to address. There’s money in there, I’m not asking you for more money, I’m just moving money from one project to this project. That’s how I’ve worked with the board. I make sure I try to include those updates in our weekly update that goes out to the board just so that they are aware of what’s happening across the district.
I have two questions. Can you describe your experience in developing and administering a comprehensive school budget? And then, what steps do you take to ensure the budget aligns with the district’s goals and priorities?
I’ll talk about, I think, in this case I want to talk about the capital budget, because that’s more closely aligned with what the district’s goals are. Our district has 3 open concepts, open area schools. One of our areas of focus when Mr. Bunch came into office was for he and the board. And it’s listed in our strategic plan. It’s on our website, it’s out there, is that we are going to close all of our open space schools. And so I was given a budget. Our county commission issued a bond for that. In exchange for that bond issuance, we pay back $500,000 a year out of our budget back to the county over the next 15 years on this to offset the cost of what the county’s having to pay top pay back the bond. So I’m the manager of that fund. So we have a goal to do. We had bids that were opened. We are in phase 2 of 2 of those middle schools currently. And yes, it would be great to address those bathrooms. Yes, it would be great to go down to the hallway that we didn’t impact because it already has enclosed classrooms and put in new flooring. But I’m not going to add that $100,000 into that budget to do that out of that bond money. Because the district’s goal is we’re going to enclose all 3 schools. And so we’re going to have two finished. They’re going to get done in April. We had a construction meeting on that yesterday. In fact, that was the last thing I did before I left my office was go tour those buildings with the construction crew. We’re going to get that done under budget and under time. We had 2 years for the project, it’s going to get done in 9 months. I should have enough dollars left from that bond and the county commission has agreed to allow us to use it. We’re opening bids on John Hay Elementary School on March the 31st, and our expectation is that we will have enough money remaining out of that bond because we didn’t do the extras. There should be enough remaining to go address that goal and finish John Hay Elementary and plan to finish that in one year next school year and those projects would be completed.
How do you stay informed about federal state and local funding changes that can impact the school district? And give us an example of where you have to deal with that.
I get the commissioner’s update. I get a couple of other email things that our federal program supervisor forwards, all of the information that she gets from her organizations about what’s happening with federal funding. We had to deal with that last summer. As you all know, federal funding was held up in July. We didn’t get it. And so we sat down and had conversations at the district office about we have a healthy fund balance and this is why we do. It’s if you have a rainy day fund, sometimes on a rainy day, you have to touch the rainy day fund. And so what our plan for that one year, we would cover that shortfall because we felt like by the time we knew there was going to be a shortfall, it was too late to make changes into what our plans were for the year. And so at that point, we said we have enough in the rainy day fund. We want to cover that, and we want to try to make sure we communicate that as quickly as possible because you don’t want people to panic and say you’re telling me I don’t have money in the budget. I’m going to go get a job somewhere else. And we were having that conversation in my own house. So I was going back to work the next day and we were meeting with the leadership team and I was saying, I’m having this conversation in my house so I know other people are having it. What decision are we going to reach on how we’re going to cover that for people?
How would you build, maintain, a productive relationship with the city council?
I think you do that through honest, transparent communication of what your goals are as a school district. Here’s what we’re trying to achieve and here’s why. Here’s what we want to do. Now, that’s not always going to work. I’m going to be honest. I had this conversation with the folks from Trane and I may get in trouble for saying this, but not everyone is on board with that. We sometimes have folks who are not on board with spending. And I’m very conservative myself. But can we have common ground of what we want to achieve? Can we have common ground and recognize that Greeneville City School is a fantastic school district? What are we going to do to continue to support that and make sure it continues to be successful and continues to move forward? And so one of those things, and I know you all have some of the same issues we do, is how do we approach that with facilities? We approach that by saying if you grant us a ten million dollar bond here’s how much we can pay back that. And we are into paying back somewhere around nine million over a 15 year period which costs the county. It costs Hamblen County money to do that, but it doesn’t cost them a full $10 million. They’re going to reap some of that money back. And so I think trying to find creative ways to build that relationship and say, I’m not just coming asking for money. Yes, we need money. Here’s why we need money. Here’s what we need the money for. And here’s what we’re doing with the money. If you want to come see it, you can come see it because it is public trust. You know, we are using the publics money. But at the same point in time, I think trying to work within that to show that you are a true partner. We’re not just coming to you asking for you to bail us out because it’s a tough budget here. We recognize the challenges that you have in every department you’re having to fund. And I think it just takes time to build that trust in the relationship.
So how has your experience in the classroom shaped your understanding of what makes a curriculum better?
And you can buy an example of when you go into it or you find a comedian. I taught elementary school is probably the longest period, and so I’ll talk more, I guess, about the elementary school curriculum. As a 5th grade teacher, I worked through implementing a new reading curriculum where you hired a reading specialist and we worked through implementing RTI. And that went through a wide variety of iterations, some that were unsuccessful and some that were successful. And so what I know about that and what I learned from that process is how much time you have to spend in professional development, how much time you have to spend really steeped into that new curriculum to make sure it works. And so what I learned from that, I transferred into as the time that I was the principal of John Hay, because I felt like we were an incredibly effective model of RTI for our district. In fact, the programs that we used became the programs the district adopted. But I have learned as a classroom teacher the importance of if I purchase a curriculum, I have to try to implement that with fidelity of what the curriculum is. I’m not a curriculum writer. I’m a consumer of the curriculum, and I am a distributor of the curriculum. And so how I then approach that is how can I look at that curriculum that I’ve purchased and make sure that I’m utilizing the parts that work? I’m using the data to make sure that it’s working, and then I’m tweaking that to make sure it fits what I need to happen. And I feel like I translated into my time as principal with RTI standards. And we were very successful with that. We moved students out of those lower tiers and reading very well. As a matter of fact, one of my proudest moments had to do with RTI and reading. I had a young lady that in kindergarten, we really kind of felt like she might CDC, she might be extended resource. And we did some testing and it was borderline. When she was retested at the beginning of third grade, a psychologist who had tested her in kindergarten said, she has so far surpassed what I as a psychologist had identified as the goals in kindergarten. And it was what I did, because I was principal, but it was the RTI program that we implemented at school and the people who did that every day that pushed her to that excellence.
How would you ensure that the instructional practices and curriculum in the district need the diversity needs of students and along with educational standards?
I’m going to rely a lot on the leadership team that’s involved in doing that work now. At the same point in time, curriculum is important to me. I know I’ve been out of it for several years. We will probably be discussing my answer to this question in the car on the ride home today because my wife is really steeped in the curriculum. But I think you have to ensure that the data supports that what you’re doing as a team is working. And I’m relying on leadership within the district that’s involved in curriculum, that’s an area that I’m going to delegate somewhat, but at the same point in time, when we’re sitting and having data meetings as a leadership team, how is the curriculum working? Are we hitting our marks if what we’ve said in strategic planning of where we want to be? As we look at our benchmark testing data just this week, our 3rd grade reading scores are significantly higher than they’ve been. So we’re we’re cautiously optimistic that what we’ve done is working, that the plan we’ve put in place is working, that the curriculum now that we’re fine, that we finally got past that hurdle of how we balance phonics instruction and how we balance the curriculum that we have purchased, that we’re making great strides and making great progress and continuing to push that needle. And so I think that’s what you do as a director is you just continue to learn what are we doing? What are the data points that we’re hitting? Is this curriculum doing the work that we need it to do?
How does your understanding of classroom management and instructional time influence your approach to district policies that impact teaching and learning on a day to day thing?
I have very strong opinions about classroom management. As a principal I felt like that if you can’t manage a classroom it doesn’t matter how great an instructor you are. Because if the kids aren’t with you, they’re not getting it no matter how well you’re doing. It instructs me on the level of where I am now because we really attempt to write policies to protect instructional time, to make sure that we are attempting to make students participate, to make students follow what we’re trying to do and be participants in that. I manage the SDHA hearings and I have several a week, whether that be about being remanded to our alternative school or in some cases, depending on what the offense is if we’re looking at expulsions. And we try to weigh that out to make sure that something actually occurred, that a rule’s actually been broken, and that the student has an opportunity to make sure they have due process. They share their side of the story. And then the 3rd component of that is what school board policy followed and how we disciplined the student. When our student taught in Middlesborough, I worked with a principal at Middlesborough Middle School, Larry Tom Davis, who many times said, “punishment is something that you do to a child, Discipline is something that you do for a child.” And that’s the approach I’ve taken since then. Discipline at the school level is designed to teach a student self-discipline. And so that’s the mindset that I take into enforcing that policy. I recognize there are shades of gray and there are differences there, but I try to write policies and modify policies. to try to make it as clear as possible for principles and for teachers, but this is what the expectation of the district is, because we want to make sure that learning is taking place in the classroom, and want to protect that at all costs. I feel very passionately about that. Those are hard conversations sometimes with parents, either whether you’re a teacher, whether you’re a principal, or whether you’re a director. I had a hard one today over a cell phone. And the policy’s really clear. It should not be turned on between 8 and 3 o’clock. And it will not be turned on between 8 and 3 o’clock because there’s a reason why we ask for that.
I would like to hear more about your AI Task Force
Our AI task force is our assistant superintendent for instruction. We have one of our instructional coaches Donica Knight who has taken on that role. We have a number of teachers across all of the great bands. They’ve been investigating a variety of different AI programs because we’re we’re adamant that the program that students are going to use or that teachers are going to use has to be a closed system. Part of that’s because of our interpretation of the age appropriate act. And so making sure the students only have access to materials that are age appropriate and how we’re going to use that. So we’ve got a series of PD this summer and how teachers can use AI and how that can enhance instruction, how that can enhance their instructional practices. So that’s something that is going to be new for us as we look forward to the 2026-2027 school year.
We’ve been recognized at the state level, what do you think would take to get us recognized international in this district, what’s holding us back?
I’m gonna be honest, I’m gonna have to do a little digging into how the national level recognizes districts. That’s not something that I’ve looked into. I don’t know how you’ve been able to fly under the radar and haven’t gotten that national recognition because I’ve seen what your state recognition has been for, let’s say, the last 10 years, because I’ve looked at you all as a district that we’ve used as benchmark district for us. I know for us John Hay being recognized as a national blue ribbon school, part of that was working through the state. We were a title one school working through that title one designation of have you looked at this school and what this school’s being able to achieve and perform and actually reaching out to those parties that are responsible for looking at that because I don’t know that they’re always looking at everything. So I would have to look at what are the agencies that are identifying districts for that recognition?
Have to CT and workplace learning are huge in today’s society. We’ve made a push in that direction. What is your plan? What are your thoughts on CT and moving forward and continuing to bring that to the mainstream?
So in Hamblen County, our CTE supervisor and I have met to kind of review what our programs look like. We’ve got a strengthening and gaining work-based learning program. It requires partnering with local industry. It requires studying what the local industry needs are so that we’re trying to make sure we align CTE programs with that. One of the things we’re looking at is we have declining enrollment in some areas, and we have greatly increasing enrollment in other areas and within our two programs. And in our two programs, it’s a little complicated because we have some programs that are only at East High. Some programs that are only at West High and trying to make sure we can balance that and get everybody into it. I think you have to partner with local industry, partner with your Chamber of Commerce. You have to look at those labor statistics of what are the growing jobs that are within your community that you’re looking at, and do we have CTE programs that match that. Then at the school level, you have to really promote those programs. And I think that’s sometimes where we’ve kind of fallen short a little bit on our end with what we’re doing, is how have we promoted those programs and what those careers can do and what that looks like. And I think that’s something that we’re talking about, how do we improve that to try to make sure that we’re getting more students involved, more students interested. Chuck Carter, who was our CTE Director at one point, who’s now in Sullivan County, did a great job of advertising and promoting our CTE programs. We’re focused on getting back to that level of, here are the programs that we have, here’s what you can do with that, here’s where that can lead to, here’s a profession that can lead to, and really kind of promoting that programming. I like to do construction. I’ve renovated multiple houses. I like to do the work. I like to do carpentry. I’m not saying I’m probably not going to ever make a living at it. But when you try to find folks who can come and do that for you, it’s a rapidly shrinking group of trades people. And so it is a need that we is a need that we definitely have and trying to promote that. We added construction back into our CTE program because we saw it as a need in Hamblen County. That program, based on who we got to teach it, based on the industry partners we’ve had that came in based on board support for that program, has really grown and taken off and is a really successful program that we have at West High. And I think that’s what it takes to kind of promote and push that program.
Last question. Why do you want this job?
Like I said before when I started. This is a school district that is on the cusp of being recognized as a national school district should be. You’ve been one of the best in the state, if not the best in the state for years. I’m committed to excellence. I think across my career, I’ve demonstrated that. I think that’s something that I’ve been focused on, to be a part of that culture and to be a part of that experience, is something that has enticed me. I applied two years ago as an assistant superintendent. I’m applying now as Director. I feel like the skill set that I have is a skill set that will translate well into this job. It’s a great community. I’m a history teacher. I don’t know that we have a community that I’ve been to in East Tennessee that’s more steeped in history than this one. We’re going to drive out and drive around and drive through because the boys haven’t been up here in a while before we leave and talk about some things on our way home. That’s what drove me to apply here. There are a wide number of directors jobs that are open. I only applied for this one. And there are a wide number of assistant superintendent jobs that were open years ago. I only applied here and in Hamblen County. So the only two places I’ve been interested in working the last 15 years.
Do you have anything else you want to say before we leave?
I do just want to thank everybody for being out. I know it’s a late night and you’ve now listened to me for several hours. My kids would tell you that’s not a pleasant task to listen to me for that length of time. I do want to thank them for being here. I made them go to the Hamblen County School Board meeting last night when I left. So they’re getting to really see this side of it. But I think that’s important. I do think it’s important that kids see how local government works because that’s the way state government work, it’s the way national government works, just on a bigger scale. And so I think it’s important to do that.
But I just want to thank you all for being here. Thank you for the opportunity. I have felt incredibly welcomed. You’re going to do, you’ve got a tough decision. You’ve got a tough job to do. But I wish you all the best regardless of what happens. I wish nothing but the best for Greeneville City schools. I am here to offer my services and have that conversation. But just deeply grateful to have the opportunity.
