Shepherd to seek school board gig

Well, looks like Knox County school system rubble rouser Tamara Shepherd has announced her intentions to run for Board of Education 6^th District seat.

The spot is currently held by Thomas Deakins, a former board chairman who has said in the past that he will not run again.

Shepherd announced made the announcement over at Randy’s place. You can find it right smack here. (Damn hippie.)

I think I’ve met Tamara. I know I’ve talked to her on the phone. I know I don’t always agree with her, and I think in her research she goes down the wrong rabbit holes, albeit, always with the right intentions.

That said, she does actually research the issues, she cares about local education and she will NOT be a yes-woman for Lord McIntyre, school superintendent.

She is going to ask some serious questions in public and call him out in public. If she wins during the 2014 election. And that’s a big “if.” 

The beautiful people will no doubt field a candidate and pump a bunch of money into that person’s campaign. They do not want someone like Shepherd on the board. It’s bad enough Mike McMillan doesn’t toe the line. One more? That means it’s worse. Three more after that? Well, we all know what happens then.

District seats 1, 4, 7 and 9 also are up for re-election. School board seats by the way are not term-limited. They also are non-partisan.

Hammond plans school tour (good stuff)

Was sitting around, wondering when I'd get my next spin release. And then, like manna from heaven, baby, one magically appears in my email in box.

The county commission's top dog – Chairman Mike Hammond – didn't let me down.

Apparently, Hammond is about to tour all of the county's schools. Following in the foot steps of county Mayor Tim Burchett (Hammond swears he's not doing this as a bid for his own run at the county's top dog seat), the chairman will meet with underpaid teachers, richer-than-heck administrators and whiny, snot middle-school students who don't care about learning.

(He'll also meet with elementary kids and high school students.)

Hammond said he got the idea after meeting with schools Superintendent “Slim” Jim McIntyre and School Board Chairman Thomas “Deak” Deakins” about the “budget situation.” (The budget situation by the way kind of sucks, considering the school system is facing a $7 million shortfall next year.)

“We really need to address education in Knox County and the best way to find out what the real needs are is to get out there in the schools,” Hammond said. “My sense is that the needs in south Knoxville are different from the needs in west Knoxville and those needs are different from east Knoxville.”

He said that although the school system is looking at a long-range funding plan, he felt the county commission should, too. You know, cause that's who actually allocates the coin to the school people.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. As I said earlier in my mental patient-like ramblings, Hammond sent me a press release. It's pretty boring, so I didn't post it here. (Man, I can't wait for Big Sexy Michael Grider to get back from his junket, so I can get some fun spin releases.)

But, since Hammond is a good guy, I'll provide a link to it. You can get that by clicking right smack here.