CSLA’s sad situation: Who’s to blame?

Update, Wed. 3/26: As expected the Hamilton County Commission approved the plan proposed by Mayor Coppinger in a unanimous vote.  CSLA remains on the waiting list.

Back in 1999, I attended a Hamilton County School Board meeting of the Facilities Committee.  Dr. Jesse Register was superintendent.  Board members included Debra Matthews, Charles Love, Joe Conner, Janice Boydston, Bill Eldridge and Everett Fairchild, among others.  All have since retired, resigned, or moved out of town, and in Ms. Matthews’ case, passed away.  Their Facilities Committee was made up of community leaders who spent months visiting every single school building in the county.  This committee listed each school’s physical condition, wiring infrastructure, student capacity, classroom space and enrollment.  From those visits, they created a massive report listing the pros and cons of each building, particularly the ones that needed to be replaced or renovated in the first 5-10 years of the new century.

Near the top of the list was the Chattanooga School for Liberal Arts (CSLA).  By 2004, so the experts said, it needed to be replaced.  It was a crumbling building, hopelessly out of date.  In addition to all the academic needs, it lacked basic human conveniences.  Not enough bathrooms, no elevators.  If a student, teacher or parent breaks a leg, and the classroom is on the 3rd floor, you’d better learn to crawl up a staircase or two.  Then, enjoy the trip back down too.

To top it off, the K-8 school has been winning national awards, has a waiting list a mile long of families who want to get in, and has the potential to be a powerhouse high school.  The county long ago acquired land on an adjacent  property, just waiting for the go-ahead to build.  So here we are, fifteen years later, and nothing has changed.  Absolutely nothing.  New schools have been constructed in every corner of the county since 1999.  On the mountains, in the valleys, in the suburbs, in the inner city.  All of them, I should point out, were sorely needed.

Prior to the unification of Chattanooga and Hamilton County schools in 1997, the old city schools had been shamefully neglected.  Now, almost all of them have been replaced or renovated, thank goodness.  Signal Mountain and East Hamilton Middle/High Schools were obviously needed, as proven by their enrollment and growth.  Soddy, Ooltewah, East Ridge and East Brainerd (to open soon) all desperately needed new elementary buildings.  A new Hixson Middle was a necessity.  The new Red Bank Middle, just opened, was on that 1999 list too, and was long overdue.  On my first visit there last August, a teacher friend of mine smiled and said, “Hey, our school doesn’t smell like a bathroom any more!”  That statement was so true.   Add a couple of downtown magnet schools and several extensive renovation projects since 1999, and the elephant in the room remains CSLA.  Untouched, and it would seem, unloved by county officials.

On Wednesday, barring unforeseen circumstances, commissioners are set to approve a new school for Ganns Middle Valley/Falling Water, and additions to Wolftever Creek, Nolan Elementary and Sale Creek Middle.  All are worthy projects, due to aging buildings and growing communities.

So who’s to blame for CSLA (and East Hamilton Middle) being left off the list?  I’ve gotten phone calls and e-mails blasting A) County Mayor Jim Coppinger for not including CSLA in his $48 million dollar school improvement program, B) District 1 Commissioner Fred Skillern for insisting on closed-door meetings between Coppinger and the nine commissioners to sort it all out, C) Superintendent Rick Smith, his predecessors and the School Board for not placing CSLA higher on its priority lists over the years, and D) the entire County Commission for its apparent unwillingness to approve a property tax increase that would conceivably pay for all six needed projects.

Commissioners say they have approximately $48 million dollars to spend on new school construction, and a tax increase is “out of the question.”  If CSLA, or East Hamilton topped their list, either would pretty much drain the money supply.  One school would get built, with maybe $5 million in scraps to spread around to the others.  They’d be making one community ecstatic, and the other five very angry.  Understandably, they would rather make four communities happy.  Such is the nature of elected officials.  Sadly, it leaves out the fast-growing East Hamilton area, and CSLA, whose expansion to a high school would ease overcrowding all over the place.

The overriding question is then, how does a school like CSLA stay at, or near the top of a priority replacement list for fifteen years while so many other projects get the green light? Here are my theories.

1) While CSLA has been successful in attracting students and achieving academic excellence, it has done so rather quietly.  CSLA parents are not as vocal as those as some other schools.  That old saying about the “squeaky wheel” has some merit.  CSLA parents have patiently been rejected a few times, and have always politely stood by and said, “Oh well, it’ll be our turn next time.”  That hasn’t worked out.  Plus, since it’s a countywide magnet school, there’s no neighborhood to draw from.  Parents and students are from every district in the county, which makes for a diverse student population, but lessens their collective clout.  Unlike say, Soddy-Daisy and Sale Creek, where Commissioner Skillern wields a lot of power, or Signal Mountain, where Commissioner Jim Fields and his predecessor Richard Casavant watch over their district schools like a hawk, CSLA doesn’t have a “Daddy.”  It never has.  (The same could be said for Central High, which includes students from three different districts.  As I reported in this story, Central was promised an auditorium when it was built in 1968.  They’re still waiting.  It isn’t on anybody’s priority list.  There are portable classroom trailers on the auditorium site.)

2) It’s easy to criticize commissioners for their anti-tax stance, but to be fair, look around your own community, especially at your neighbors who vote.  Most of the ones who go to the polls are older, aren’t they?  Ask any poll worker, they’ll confirm that fact.  They don’t have children who attend school, and they haven’t had in decades.  In many cases, their grandchildren are outside the county, even out of state.  Ask these folks if they want a tax increase.  Ask if they would vote for a candidate who supports a tax increase.  You can even ask your neighbors who do have kids in school.  Many of them don’t want higher taxes either.  Believe me, the commissioners know who elected them.

3)  Same goes for this county’s private school parents, and there are a ton of them.  They’re already paying a pretty penny for tuition, often for several kids.  Most of them don’t support a tax increase either.

Ever noticed that some of the commissioners have never voted for a tax increase?  It should be noted, they’ve never lost an election either.

Yes, it’s a shame that CSLA’s building is in the shape it’s in, with no apparent relief in sight.  You can rest assured that if the same conditions existed at the courthouse, or the school system central office, they would have been addressed by now.  But within that word called “politics” resides smaller words like “clout,” “power,” and “turf.”  Ever since that Facilities Committee recommended a new school for CSLA in 1999, our elected leaders have used their clout and power to shore up their own turf.  They’ve heard that squeaky wheel, and applied the grease.  This is how politics has worked, since the very first election.

CSLA parents are now protesting at the courthouse, making noise in the community and the media, and will make their voices heard at this week’s Commission meeting, when the actual vote takes place.  I admire them for speaking out, though it may be too little, too late.  Parents from some of the other schools on the list say they’ll be there too, to make sure their schools aren’t suddenly left out.  It’s too bad that it is playing out this way, pitting crumbling schools against each other in a battle over money.

But before you place all the blame on politicians, remember this: they’re on the ballot every four years, and most of them are re-elected quite handily.  It’s their job to represent the wishes of their constituents.  Until those residents are convinced that they should pay more for school construction, the commissioners’ votes are unlikely to change.  Especially if they want to be re-elected.

None of this makes the medicine go down any easier for the very deserving students, parents and teachers of CSLA.  In their view, the county made a promise fifteen years ago, and hasn’t kept its word.  And no amount of speculation, finger-pointing or excuse-making can change that.