Buzz Thomas recommended for interim Knox Co. superintendent position

Buzz Thomas

Buzz Thomas, the head of the Great Schools Partnership, was nominated Monday night to serve as interim superintendent of Knox County Schools.

Board of Education member Terry Hill presented Thomas' name during a Knox County school board workshop.

About a half-dozen men had been identified as candidates, ranging from Thomas to several current schools administrators.

By agreement, board members are to formally vote Wednesday on Thomas' nomination.

Hill said she thought there was no better supporter of the school system than Thomas. She said he thought he could step away from his job to be the interim leader.

"Buzz is already a part of the leadership team for Knox County Schools so he has an in-depth knowledge of our system, even though he hasn't been an employee," Hill added.

Board members Gloria Deathridge, Lynne Fugate and board chair Doug Harris said they plan to support the nomination.

"He's got a great resume," Harris said. "He's got a lot of experience. He knows our school system and knows a lot of the players involved."

Hill reviewed nominated candidates in preparation for Monday's meeting.


Superintendent Jim McIntyre is leaving the school system in July.

Besides Thomas, other men who were nominated included Bob Thomas, a Knox County Schools assistant superintendent; Rodney Russell, director of human capital strategy at KCS; and Danny Trent, KCS secondary supervisor.

As part of the selection process, Hill interviewed candidates.

By agreement, Harris would have until April 17 to negotiate a contract with Thomas.

By policy, the person chosen for the interim role is not expected to be a candidate for permanent superintendent.  The search for a long-term leader could take up to a year and is expected to begin in September, after new school members are elected and seated.

Board members have said they want an interim leader who cares about children and who is familiar with the school system’s budget, schools and staff.

Last month, McIntyre proposed a general purpose budget of $453.5 million, an increase of $15.5 million or nearly 4 percent from the current fiscal year. The board will vote on the budget in April.

The system is composed of 90 schools and a 7,500 person workforce that includes about 5,000 teachers.

The Knox County BOE hired McIntyre in the spring of 2008, after a year-long process that included whittling down a list of 40 candidates to a handful of finalists.

Harris, Sanger to lead Knox Co. BOE

Doug Harris

Congratulations to Doug Harris and Tracie Sanger, the new chairman and vice chairwoman, respectively, of the Knox County Board of Education.

The two were voted in last night during the board meeting. Harris, who served as vice chair the past year, replaces Mike McMillan.

The seats are good for a year.

Harris, after the unanimous vote, said he would serve with "humility," according to Lydia's Twitter account (My Kid My School), and is looking forward to being just one of nine members (except he'll be in charge).

He also noted that he is willing to work with all board members even when they disagree.

Both Doug and Tracie are up for re-election next year. Doug has previously stated that he will not run again. Tracie does from what I understand.

SAT-10 appears dead for school year

On Sunday's Inside Tennessee (9:30 a.m. WBIR 10News), we'll talk with (new) state Sen. Richard Briggs, state Rep. Eddie Smith and school board member Tracey Sanger.

We wanted to check back in one last time with some folks who won their respective races earlier this month.

Anyhoo, as expected the whole SAT-10 thing came up in our conversation with Tracey. She said she would NOT vote to bring it back. (Remember, the school board killed testing for K-2 students - RIGHT SMACK HERE.)

However, she said the point was moot. It's not going to be get brought back any time soon.

There had been some some speculation that BOE member Doug Harris - once Tracey came on board - would try to resurrect it in December.

You see, Doug voted to kill it, but he did that because only someone on the winning side of the vote can ask to revisit a vote.

That's not going to happen. (And if it did, it doesn't look like the votes are there, even if Doug switches.)

In an email, he sent to me this morning, Doug said: "I don't have any plans to bring it back up and have sent a few emails confirming that opinion to concerned teachers/parents over the last couple of weeks."

Whether it comes back next year obviously remains to be seen. I'm guessing it will.

The school system - re: the administration and principals - have been pushing testing results and - behind the scenes - trying to get teachers to speak before the school board about how beneficial it supposedly is.

They've also released some stats that show improvements. I suspect that after one SAT-10 free year, the administration will have number that show drops.

Then it goes back to vote.

We'll see.

Board of Ed vice chair Harris says he's turned over school records to mayor; provides them to the Porch

Doug Harris

The other day Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett filed an open records request, seeking information from the school system that he says wasn’t provided. We did a story, RIGHT SMACK HERE.

Keep in mind, school officials did send over some stuff. before the request was submitted. Actually, it was the Board of Education’s vice chairman, Doug Harris, who turn over the information because the mayor and Superintendent Jim McIntyre don’t get along.

So, credit to Doug for stepping in.

Anyhoo, I talked to Doug the other day and he said school officials will give the mayor whatever information he wants. He said he was surprised that Burchett had to file a request, and he was under the impression that he had honored the county’s request.(As of today, I believe he has, but more on that - read on!)

As I recall, Burchett asked for information connected to a K-3 reading program that he’s funded to the tune of about $8.4 million during the past three years. He wanted to look at scores (were there improvements or not?), what schools participated in the program (it was supposed to be a pilot program), and details that show exactly where the money was spent (did it all go to the reading program?).

Doug said Dean “The Emperor” Rice, also known as the mayor’s chief of staff, called him about three weeks ago and asked for some of the information.

“I said ‘I’ll do everything you need,’” Doug told me. “(The superintendent) is open to giving him what he needs, but the mayor won’t talk to him. It took about 10 days to get the spread sheets
together. It’s a lot of data."

Doug said he provided all SAT-10 scores, TCAP scores, etc. He also gave them breakdowns for every grade and some budgetary numbers.

“I sent them the information in PDF form. They said they wanted it in Excel. I said that’s fine,” he told me. “They’ve never given us a detailed explanation of exactly what they’ve wanted.”

Until the open records request. Heh.

(Find it, RIGHT SMACK HERE.)

So, Doug sent me a bunch of emails that detail his correspondence with the county administration and the files he provided.

Here’s kind of the breakdown:

OCTOBER 14

Emperor Dean sends Doug an email:

Doug – Thank you for the additional information. I will review with the Mayor.

I also look forward to getting the past two years of K-3 reading scores for ALL Knox

County elementary schools.

Can you please get me a listing of the 20 schools that received the additional Voyager small group funding of $440,000, as well as, which were the five additional schools that received the 1st grade intervention. ($390,000)

Doug tells him that he’s “on it.”

Dean Rice

Doug then sends a letter to Kelly, who works in the mayor’s office and whom I’ve since renamed “Boots.”

It reads:

I just returned to my office and received your text and wanted to double check the information that Dean is requesting. Here is what I am going to ask from KCS:

1.  Referring to the literacy budget attachment, it looks like we budgeted hiring 25 additional instructional coaches for the literacy program. Confirm the schools that we actually employed coaches.
2.  Additionally, I will ask that for each of these 25 schools we will provide corresponding scores and data on 3 year grant impact.
3. Can you confirm that this will be the information that we are looking for?

OCTOBER 16

This is sent out:

School Board Members,

We have had a number of questions about the Early Literacy initiative, and I thought it would be helpful to share the responses with everyone. You may remember that his initiative, which supports literacy K-5 with a particular emphasis on developing reading skills in K-2, is funded largely through a $3 million annual commitment of Knox County funds that was recommended by Mayor Burchett.

This initiative is examined thoroughly in the annual Return on Investment (ROI) Report that we published during the FY15 Budget planning process. Information is found specifically on pages 21 and 40-49. (You can access the full ROI report on our website at (RIGHT SMACK HERE) click on “April 2014 – Return on Investment Report”)

McIntyre, Burchett

All elementary schools in the district were impacted in some way by the early literacy initiative. The resources were allocated primarily for personnel (25 literacy coaches, 5 early literacy coaches and 20 instructional assistants), with some funds for materials and professional development. (Pages 45-46 of the 2014 Return on Investment Report delineate the schools for the early literacy coaches and instructional assistants.) A specific reading intervention program, Voyager, was purchased for district-wide use from these funds. The decision to purchase Voyager was made by the elementary school and elementary reading departments with input from principals and coaches. Voyager was one of several intervention programs considered, and it was already being used in many of our schools.

Attached, please find two other relevant documents:

1. A spreadsheet that details the FY14 expenditures with regard to the County’s $3 million commitment to early literacy.
2.  An analysis of performance by school and grade level. It is notable that in all three early grades (Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2) in 2013-14 Knox County Schools students overall made gains in the percentile rank against the national norms on the Stanford-10.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Thanks,

(Slim) Jim

 OCTOBER 21

Dean asks Doug: "Do you have the list of the 20 schools primarily targeted by the grant funds?

Doug sends him an email with two reports

1. According to the full-time literacy report there were 15 schools.  RIGHT SMACK HERE.

2. The second report details the entire literacy initiative. RIGHT SMACK HERE.

I should also note (This is the Porch talking) that Doug at some point also gave the administration a report about "early learning expenditures." I can't remember when, but here is that report, RIGHT SMACK HERE.

OCTOBER 27

The mayor files and open records request. In addition, Communications Manager Michael "Big Sexy" Grider sends Doug the following:

Hope all is well.  I understand that you recently sent some district-level reading scores to Dean Rice. Is there any chance that you have the actual spreadsheed/Excel file from which those pages were generated? If not, might you be able to see if you can get it? 

As you know, the ability to sort data is helpful.

Thank you,

Michael Grider

Doug responds that he will get it, and today he sent it over.

You can find that request RIGHT SMACK HERE (It's actually the same as the PDF but in Excel form.)

By the way, here's a few more records that Doug Turned over:

FY 2013 Investment proposal: RIGHT SMACK HERE

2010-2014 Elementary School Reading Trends: RIGHT SMACK HERE  (Now that I've reviewed this post, I noticed that this is the PDF of the Excel file.)

In the meantime, there's a chance that none of this would have happened if the superintendent knew how to speak in sentences, rather than paragraphs. Heh. 

Or if the mayor would pick up the phone.

Either way, this was a looooong post. Hope you enjoyed.

BOE picks McMillan to serve as chair

McMillan, left, Harris, right

As my colleague Jim Matheny noted in his story last night: “What a difference less than a year makes when it comes to the direction of the Knox County school board.”

School board member Mike McMillan went from odd man out to BMIC.

On Wednesday, the board (5-4) voted him in to serve as its chairman for the next year.

All this despite the PR stunts, the media manipulation attempts, the intimidation emails and whatever else I missed.

McMillan last December was the lone dissenting vote (8-1) to extend Superintendent Jim McIntyre’s contract. Now, he’s in what appears to be a 5-member majority voting bloc that doesn’t like the direction the school system is headed.

Folks, change this dramatic doesn’t happen because the community is happy.

That said, both sides should tread cautiously.

The majority, which has opposed the ways teachers are currently evaluated and students are tested, is precarious, at best, in power right now as another election nears. They certainly should continue to ask question, but also work with the other four.

(Just because the administration comes up with an idea, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad one.)

The same goes to the folks on Wednesday’s losing side of the vote. Look what happened when you didn’t work with the odd man out.

In the meantime, congratulations to McMillan and newly-elected vice chairman, Doug Harris.

Here’s Matheny’s story from last night, RIGHT SMACK HERE.

Some commissioners suggest 'forensic' audit into school system's business

A Knox County commissioner sharply criticized the business practices of the school system, including its handling of a secretary who has now been on paid administrative leave for more than two years.

During Monday's work session of the Knox County Commission, commissioner Tony Norman said he wants a forensic audit to ensure business is done the right way at the central office of Knox County Schools.

"It is an emotional response that we're negligent if we don't check," said Norman. "Those are things like this latest situation with Ms. Needham and the two year administrative leave, or course."

Norman was referring to 51-year-old Tina Needham, the secretary with the Knox County Schools central office who has been on paid administrative leave since July 2012. Knox County Schools says it cannot provide details on why Norman is on paid leave due to the HIPAA medical privacy laws.

The Knox County Law Department sent Needham a letter last November that referred to some type of "disturbance" in April 2012. The letter also offered Needham $10,000 to resign and agree not to sue the county. Needham did not take the deal and remains on paid leave with an annual salary of $27,555.

Whatever the reason for Needham initially being placed on leave, the big question is why the matter has been unresolved after more than two years and a month.

"This is a personnel matter that's very complex," said Doug Harris, a member of the Knox County Board of Education. "I operate a large business and I can tell you, sometimes personnel matters take a long time to rectify and come to a conclusion. I think that's the case in this situation. I'm hoping we can wrap it up as soon as possible for the taxpayers' sake and the employee's sake."

Check out the entire story RIGHT SMACK HERE.