Dr. Tracy McAbee's interview transcript

 


*Writer’s Note: The following is a transcript of the interview conducted by the Board of Education in their search for a new Director of Schools. In order to stay true to Dr. Tracy McAbee's statements, the only things that have not been written are repetitive statements. Any edited words will appear in the following parenthesis: [ ], and were only made to correct verb tense, to cut out repetitive words or to provide context.

Opening Statement

Before I introduce myself, I would like to thank Mrs. Angie and Nurse Wanda. I think I’ve seen them around tonight, putting all this together. Board member Dyer and Chair Atkinson, thank you for showing us all around today, and just the Board for allowing me to interview tonight.

So I’m Tracy McAbee, I’ve been married to Amy McAbee for 28 years. We have two girls; [one] is at UT Knoxville working on her degree to be a speech teacher, and [the other] just recently moved over to UT Memphis to work on her degree to be a dentist.

Professionally, I’ve done about everything there is to do in a school. I started in 1996 and I’ve been a Middle School teacher, a High School teacher, a High School administrator, an Elementary School principal, a bus driver.

Amy, she took off a few years to be with the girls. I grew up in Polk County which borders Georgia and North Carolina.. So I worked there for a while. During that time, I’ve been a school board member, bus driver, coach and ended up in the central office. I’ve been the director of RTI, special education, attendance, just about anything.

Currently I’m in Carter County as their Director of Schools. I was asked today at the High School to share a few of my core beliefs. So I’ll those as I introduce myself. One is there is nothing bigger than the organization of Lewis County schools and there’s no one person bigger than that. This school system is here for the children and no one person is above that.

The other thing I believe is hard work. There’s no substitute for hard work and I’ve found that to be true throughout my whole life. Hard work is what successful people do.

Then when you deal with children, when you make a decision, you weigh that out. Anytime we make a decision and discuss what needs to happen in the school system, you have to weigh that in the balancing scales of student impact.

Q: What interests you the most about being Director of Lewis County Schools and what might separate you from other candidates? What strengths do you bring to this position?

So we’ll talk about the interest first. Again, I’ve got two girls now in different parts of the state and I understand this game. I’m not going to chase them around wherever they live.. However, I am looking for a place where no matter where they land, I can be around them relatively quickly and easily. If you were to throw a dart on a map between Memphis and Knoxville, Lewis County’s just about halfway there. So that does intrigue me.

Another thing about Lewis County is coming from Polk County, I lived there for 27 years. Polk County had about 2,000 kids. I don’t know if y’all have been there but we got the Ocoee whitewater river, I don’t do that, we got the Hiwassee River and it’s just a gentle flowing river and I do that. I like to kayak and stuff like that. In Lewis County, you have the Buffalo River so there are some similarities there.

Also when I see how you feed each school, so you’ve got a primary, intermediate, middle and high school all feeding one school and then a TCAT right across the street. That is very, very intriguing to me because at Carter, one thing I did there was write an innovative high school grant for $1.2 million dollars and we got it. It was all about how can you re-envision the high school experience. So we wrote in that grant that kids could be at (we have a TCAT Elizabethton there and North East State that has a satellite campus), so right now we’ve got 10 percent of our students, junior class, going to North East State from us, and they’re going to graduate high school with an associates degree. So everybody’s all about dual enrollment and that kind of thing, my students are getting their associates degree for free. Because the middle college scholarship only pays $1,250 and the grant pays for their books, pays the other $1,250 per semester and that kind of thing. So they’ll graduate with dual diplomas, still have all their lottery money to do whatever they want.

Then we did the same thing with TCAT. I’ve got kids that are [there] six hours a day... and they’ll graduate with high school diploma, TCAT diploma and they’re ready to go out and make a living. The thing about that, and I’m excited about too, is when we started that the problem was how do you make that sustainable when the grant is gone. So we engaged [their senator and state representative] and TISA passed yesterday. Now that middle college scholarship is $2,000 per semester and so now it is sustainable because we can get that for free. They said that the dual enrollment for TCATs will be set up so that they can go for free starting in 9th Grade in order to get enough hours [to graduate].

So I say all of that to say, having that TCAT right across from your high school, and knowing what I know about what just passed, those are some huge opportunities for kids. Nothing against a four-year college, I’ve got a degree and many of y’all do, but I think we may have pushed that a bit too hard. We need to be getting some kids interested in trades because if they can weld, if they can plumb or work on a car, then we need to do that. [Crowd says a few amen’s and yes’s].

I think it’s not too far of a drive to Columbia State for that middle college. So next year, these juniors will be seniors and I’ll start with those juniors and we’ll have 20 percent of those kids graduate with dual diplomas. The last round graduated from college before they did high school.

Q: If we were to ask your coworkers, how would they describe your character and personal standards?

I think they would say, “McAbee’s a hard worker.” I try to live that daily and I have for a very long time.

I think [they would say] approachable. There’s a joke in my central office that has, coming down one hall and it’s the main door and then there’s another door that comes into my office. So I have a double door office. When I go talk to our bus drivers at the beginning of the school year, I don’t just thank them for all that they do. I do that but I also share stories of when I drove a special ed bus or a big bus. So I’ll say “guys, when you got a problem, don’t let it sit and fester in your head. Come by and see me.” So I think that would be said.

I think common sense would be said. I’ve been at this game enough to know that these big fads that come along, you’ve got to take that with a grain of salt. Stick to what you know and believe and help these kids to learn.

I think loyal would come out of their mouth.

Q: How can you better engage parents and grand parents in their child’s education?

I think about that two ways; engaging parents and students, I’ve done that as principal. For example, we had kindergarten nights where we would try to engage the parents.. so we can show them the routine of kindergarten. Recently it’s been on my mind if you meet one on one with kids to.. make sure they succeed. Having the hard conversations with parents and that student about discipline. I [usually] meet with parents along those continuums.

But if you’re talking about engaging as far as communicating, with technology today, there’s too many ways we could be communicating. Obviously social media, my teachers have got [the remind app] where they’re constantly in contact with children or their parents. Otherwise, a good phone call.

I don’t know if it’s the same case here that it was in Polk, but it’s not always parents. Sometimes its grandparents taking care of kids. So they appreciate that phone call. I’ve got a principal and one of the things that he’s just off the charts on is family involvement.

The man will get in his car if a kid is missing from school and ten minutes later he’s at that house checking on the kid. There was one time he ended up at the wrong house and it was a couple of gang members, and then we were like, “Terry, you’ve got to start taking someone with you to those houses.” So I think those types of things engage parents and grandparents and otherwise, I think we’ve got technology now for announcements.

When I was in special ed, really engaging parents in those IMP meetings, it was my experience that they would come in (especially if it was their first time), that’s a nervous time for parents and they’re concerned about their child. So we’d just put them at ease and engage in conversations about what was best for the child.

Q: Could you share an example in which personal connections to your coworkers helped you to be successful?

So when I went to Benton Elementary to be principal, my entire career had been middle and high school. So I show up at the elementary school and I realized I did not belong there. We wrote a grant there and eight of teachers went back to UT and now they’re reading specialists... So as a team, we went back and worked on obtaining our reading specialist degree. That was very beneficial in and of itself because they go back and have those conversations with their colleagues. But I still wasn’t satisfied with myself.. so over the next six years I had six grades, kindergarten through fifth. I couldn’t do this every day, but I’d pick out two weeks and I’d teach our tier two, tier three kids in reading while the teacher was evaluating me and gave me feedback on that. So as I was going through that program, I’d go back and teach and my teachers were a part of that as well.

I do think that helped me not only gain a lot of credibility, not only that if I go into a first grade classroom that I should know what I’m looking for and give good feedback, but I was able to put myself out on that limb and let them give me feedback about what I needed to do.

Q: What examples could you provide that show you are an effective communicator with your staff and parents? Would you describe yourself as a good listener?

I think if you talked to my board, they’d say that I communicate well with them. They tell me that in evaluations.. It’s just too easy to communicate. I mean today, I had a situation pop up while we were in your middle school.. a quick text, it’s just too easy not to do that. Text, email or call.

See, I’ve been in that seat. I’ve been on the board and you go to the Dollar Store and somebody starts talking about something that happened in the schools that you should know about, but you don’t know about it. I’ve been there and I’ve done that. So I try not to let my Board be there. So I take advantage of text a lot, emails a lot, phone calls a lot. I think they would say that.

Teachers, I communicate, in this role, differently than I did as a principal. As a principle I had my own faculty and in this role I have 15 faculties. I still communicate with them because I have groups that I communicate with. So they meet directly with me... and the open door policy is there. I get many emails from teachers saying, “do you know this situation is happening?” So direct communication with me is always open.

Famillies, when you’re at ball games and at the Dollar Store, people are going to talk to you. I’m open to that. I try to make myself visible, I try to be at schools..

A few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, one of my principles was out so I went there.. to help. That’s really the better part of the day. So being seen at the schools also helps. I can think of one time I went to the high school to meet with a principle and he was busy, so I just walked across to the cafeteria because the cafeteria ladies get started early before the kids get in there. So in that conversation it was just brought up, “Tracy, are you privy to the fact that there was a certain situation where a lady was not getting making what she should based on the hours she had been getting.” And we were able to fix that for her.

So being seen in schools gives you opportunities for communication without having to make a phone call or sending an email.

Being a good listener... Listening is not just a passive thing. It takes some energy and some effort. So here’s what listening is not: listening is not sitting there quietly but in your mind, you’re just thinking about what you want to say next. Listening is not just the act of hearing words. It is the ability to understand the meaning of those words. So if you’re listening intently to a group of people, you can see are they anxious, are they nervous, are they mad; I think that’s a part of listening as well. Watching for the meaning of what they’re saying. I’m a big proponent of that.

I did a survey, it was just anonymous, and I said, “if I do anything well, tell me and if I don’t, leave it blank. If there’s things I do professionally, that you think I should change, add that. If there’s things I get on your nerves about like some kind of quirk I’m not privy to, let me know.”

Out of that discussion, someone said “When we’re having conversations, you have the ability and it’s not necessarily good, that when you start talking you’re able to change the path of that conversation.” So I had to take that to heart and so now, not only do I try to listen, I try to be the last to speak. And that has made a difference and I think not speaking is just as important...

So with listening, I do think I’m good but I’m not where I need to be or I’m getting better, I should say. I think just by keeping my mouth closed and letting everyone else get it out before I react. It helps as well.

Q: What role should the Board play in developing a vision and establishing long-range goals for our schools?

Well the Board needs a role in that just as well as the teachers need a role in that, and families need a role in that and district people need a role in that.

So each of you are trusted, I mean you’re here for a reason. People from your area believe you’re going to make decisions that are best for Lewis County so you have to have a part in that. You know what your community is saying... you know what your communities need.

The other thing is Lewis County, parents, businesses, board, county commissioners, you know what you value in a good education and it may not be the same as a neighboring district or one in a different state. So you need to be a part of that five year plan because you know those things. Obviously a Director needs to be a part of that too and sometimes they’re a little more privy on staffing and financing and things like that.. but the overall vision and goal setting, I think the board needs to play a big role.

Q: Lewis County has proposed and is in the beginning stage of building a new high school. Are you comfortable in managing the physical and financial responsibility of such a project?

That was asked at the high school today too. Right now we’re in the process of building a middle school in Carter. We opened bids the other day and no one bid.

This is a really strange time to be building because normally that would have been snatched up and had five or six bidders. Now because they’ve got so much work and it’s a $45 million dollar project, we extended that and we’ll open bids again Monday.

So I’ve been involved with that. I‘ve been involved with the consolidation of schools in Polk County where we had to consolidate Turtletown and Ducktown into one elementary school.. and that’s tough on the community. But you’re not in that seat, you’re just taking what you have and making it better.

Now obviously part of that is the county commission. They hold the strings to the purse. I deal with that in Carter County were I have 24 commissioners. So I don’t have a problem with that and I think I can develop good relationships because anything I do with the school is transparent.

I want them to know what I know because if you’re not transparent, then people begin to wonder or question your actions. So by laying that out there, they can see where the money is at, what we’ve got in grants, etc. I think that type of relationship with your county commission and elected officials will make that process a lot better.

Q: Safety in Schools is a top priority. How engaged have you been in a district safety program?

So I was assistant principle at Polk County High School.. we were able to work with the city police to put at least one SRO in each high school. During that process, those guys and I, we went to Orlando and did training to really build up that SRO program.

Since then there’s been a Safe Schools Grant that gives quite a bit of money, it’s not enough to cover many salaries, but in Polk County, that was a part of my role too. I was the Director of Schools in Carter County.. [he and each school’s SRO officer] went around each school and looked for all the places that may be dangerous and then developed ways to strategically reduce those. And we did that..I’ve always been pretty hands on with school safety.

Q: (Part 1 of 4 Part Question) Have you any experience with presenting and passing a budget through a funding body? (Part 2) How familiar are you with the BEP and new TISA formula? (Part Three) In Lewis County, we struggle to keep our teachers because of pay and insurance pay. How would you address these issues? (Part Four) How could we engage in and seek more grant dollars?

I’ve been Director of Schools for two years so I’ve been through that process [of passing a budget through the funding body]. I’m knee-deep in it right now, and as of today at 3:30 we finally got our April estimates and that’s the latest we’ve ever got it. It’s not looking as good as we wanted it to because I just met with the County Commission to go through our school budget... Everything that we had with inflation, diesel and those kinds of things came in good. However, we still didn’t have that April estimate until today so that’s causing a little bit of heartburn tonight because it wasn’t as high as it needed to be.

So now what we’ll do is call another meeting with the board and I’ll show them exactly what the BEP is looking like. In the past we have offered, when we were in a little bit of a budget crunch, a retirement bonus. The first year I was there, about 25 teachers took advantage of that. It costs you money up front but if you ever need those teachers then you don’t just replace them. That way you don’t have to dismiss anyone, you just absorb the retirements and that helped a lot. So you can do that kind of thing to try to get that budget passed.

But my Commission is good. They’ll look at that 20 page budget and they go straight for the back to look at what’s there that’s been added. If it’s just not exorbitant and crazy, I get questions but they’re.. again, the whole time I’ve asked my auditor of financing to add line items in that budget with a section to the side that’s got a place for a narrative. So if we have [moved] money there’s a narrative as to why. So board members, commissioners, they can look there and can tell exactly why we moved money and what it was used for. It’s very transparent. They don’t have to wonder if I’m using that money to go buy a condo.. They know exactly where that money is.

So I’ve have very little confrontation or any kind of issue passing a budget [through the commission].

Sorry, that was only number one so number two! I’ve worked with BEP forever and [that many] components are really a nightmare to try to figure out. TISA, that passed yesterday and I do like it. [The Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement passed Thursday, April 28, and it’s a new funding formula for Tennessee schools]. I read through the amendments today.. I think the Senate kinda shot down the House’s version where they were [going to mandate] that you hire several people with part of that money. Now it’s a recommendation which I like a lot better.

TISA has three components; you’ve got your base [which is] $6,860 and I think that’s a good starting point, then you’ve got your weights. What I really like about the weights a place like Lewis, Carter and Polk County, rural communities that may have some poverty, those kids get weighted extra so you’re looking at extra funding for that. The other part of that too is now they’ve got unique needs listed. So you all know you don’t get enough from your federal budget to help with your special education needs and never have. Now, with the state funding, they’ll [give more funding] depending on the needs of the child. I think your representative Hensley had some consternation about that. I read where, and I agreed with him, that if we’re not careful that could entice some school districts to over label kids to get extra funding. And we’ve got to make sure we don’t do that, but otherwise it’s legit and those children need that money. The state now is going to give you part of that where the federal funding doesn’t.

Then the third part is the direct funding and I’m really excited about that for two reasons. One, people can quickly see what you value by how much money you throw at it; good or bad, right or wrong. If you’re willing to fund something, that shows that you value it. So every K3 [Kindergarten] student gets more funding. So they’re saying, ‘We value the importance of K3 education and we’re going to fund that with more money.’

[The North East Superintendents] met, we wrote up our own thoughts about the tutoring. I think it went through fine because it’s been added to TISA. They started out wanting to give you money for Fourth Grade tutoring for kids scoring below basic, but listen we’ve got tons of kids that are at basic. We need to be tutoring those kids that are just right there that we can get through in tutoring/Summer School. So that was added so that it’s not just below basic and now it’s also approaching [the kids at the basic level]. That’s a win for us.

And then finally, I think you see my heart is CTE [Career and Technical Education]. So if you get $6,860 for Mr. Qualls here, and he’s now a CTE student. That ranges from $4,500 up to $8,000. So now it’s $6,800 plus, let’s say another $6,000, and so now they’re going to fund me $12,000 for him because he’s involved in CTE. Again, I think you can see why I get a little nerdy and excited about TCAT being right across the street.

They’re showing that they value these things by giving us money to help with them.

Finally the outcomes, I think they settled on three outcomes. Reading proficiency, they’ll give you extra money for that. They’ll give you, I think 20 percent for non-economically disadvantaged. I think they’ll give you 40 percent for the economically disadvantaged. ACT score of 21 for the same ratio and then if the kids tier two or tier three credential through CTE, they give you extra funding for that. So it’s really CTE heavy which I don’t think is perfect, and we’ve talked about some of the issues, but it’s better than what we’ve got.

I’ve talked to mine and other districts, and it’s been about a 10 percent increase from the BEP. My budget from the BEP was about $35 million so with TISA it’s about another $3.5 million. My hunch is that you guys probably have a $15 million budget so you’re probably looking at receiving an additional $1.5 million with TISA.

So that’s number two, on to number three. Well a starting point would be, if you’re going to be getting TISA funds, the discussion should be had about raises. Now, that’s a discussion. But with that type of money, I think it’s logical to have those kinds of conversations. The other thing with insurance, when I was at Polk and then went to Carter, most of us are on a state plan. Polk had a better rate if you were an individual than Carter County, but Carter County had a great rate for if you were needing family coverage. It’s just where you put your money. I mean you still have to fund it, but you’re funding different pieces at a higher level. I think a good place to start is to survey the people you’ve got. You have a lot of people who need family coverage and you have people that need single coverage. I think that’s a conversation worth having.

Otherwise with funding, unless your county commission is just in a real good mood to give y’all a million dollars for teacher raises, there’s not a lot you can do. But what you can do is look at insurance, you can look at businesses or churches and that kind of thing that you could partner with that could offer child care and that kind of thing. Again, I’m on the board in North East Bright Start and they’re partnered with Ballad Health [an organization that seeks to improve children’s health. They are partnering with school districts to do that very thing. [Ballad Health] is having trouble retaining nurses. So nurses are saying, ‘We need someone to watch our children for us.’ Well, they don’t have places to put them, but the school district is saying, ‘well we think we might have the place to house that if you’ll also include our teachers’ children.’ So those types of partnerships are happening as well where you can offer a low cost child care. That may be important to factor in.

In my experience, a lot of people don’t leave their job because of their job. They leave because of how they were treated. So if you have a culture where it’s positive and it’s a tight-knit group, it’s a family atmosphere, people are happy, they believe in what they do then they tend to stay. If they don’t, they tend to go. It’s not the dollar bill that pulls them. It’s how they’re treated. So making sure to keep that positive culture as much as you can.

I read the other day that 45 percent of principals in America are already accelerating their plans to retire. So not only are your teachers burned out, we’re about to have a principal shortage as well. So any kind of thing you can do there will help you keep teachers.

And then number four, I’ve been involved with [engaging grant money] a lot. Like I said, I was fortunate enough to get that Focus Schools grant in Polk, and the Innovative High School Grant. The other thing that I’m privy to now because of the relationships that I built with TCAT and Northeast State, there are some grants that they can write that we can’t... So I think if we can partner with TCAT and Columbia State, then that will open up a lot of avenues.

Another thing that is in the Governor’s Budget is $500,000,000 worth of grants for CTE.. They’ve already listed 402 schools are going to get $1,000,000; 265 are going to get $500,000; and so on until $2,000. So out of the $500,000,000 they’re already kind of looking at sizes of high schools. Those big blocks of grants are coming your way.

So that’s the thing, I know how to write grants. When I wrote the Innovative High School grant I had one of the largest employers in East Tennessee with [numerous partners writing letters of recommendation like Northeast State, TCAT, elected officials and more]. Good relationships with elected officials always helps as well to get those.

Q: (Part 1 of 4 Part Question) Describe your experience with developing, implementing and evaluating an instructional program that has improved achievement. (Part Two) What is your comfort level on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the greatest, as an instructional leader? (Part Three) Critical Race Theory in education has been a focus as of late. What are your thoughts regarding CRT? (Part Four) With your experience, how do you think you’d be able to help our District set and achieve new academic goals?

So I can talk about the bookends with that. When those eight teachers and I went through our second EDS at UT Knoxville, [UT Knoxville] really appreciated it and so they partnered with us to implement a Pre-K program.. And that wasn’t me, all these things I talk about involves a team of people holding my hand. So this is a really good example of a group of teachers with an administrator working with a flagship university to come in and implement a solid Pre-K program.

But to evaluate that.. Before we implemented [the UT Knoxville program] we looked and we tested the kids that went to Pre-K. About half the kids went to Pre-K and the other half didn’t. Before we started our partnership with UT Knoxville, the median was the same, the average was almost the same and the mode was almost the same. Statistically almost the same and that caused me heartburn because why are my kids that are going to Pre-K not doing better than the kids that stay at home? So after that program it was night and day. We really set goals and set expectations, and we evaluated that constantly.

So that’s one bookend. The other is like what we did with middle college at Carter. I mean it’s a game changer, and here’s the reason; everybody does dual enrollment. Everybody does a lot of these things but not many get 60 hours in, especially when you’re poor. So the Bible talks about that and it’s called the “Matthew Effect” in education where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That happens all the time and that’s why I’m proud of this because it didn’t matter if you were a bazillionaire or you were living as far back in the mountains as you could be without anything, you were going to get your associates degree. And that’s a big deal to graduate high school with an associates degree.

I would say [my comfort level as an instructional leader] would be a 5. I wake up every morning with a beginner’s mindset. There is always something I can learn and do. I’m a life-long learner.. and I think that’s very important.

I take my career very seriously and I appreciate every opportunity I had because when I was a coach that was a special way to develop a relationship with a kid that nobody else can. When I was a bus driver that was the first line of defense, and you want to talk about social and emotional learning, guess who the first person is to see the kids? The bus driver. So I’ve always taken those things very seriously and I do think success matters.

When I went to Benton [Elementary as their principal] they were one of the lowest performing schools, and this is team celebration not a Tracy celebration, after we went to UT Knoxville, we went from a focus school to a rewards school. That’s going form the bottom 10 percent to the top 10 percent. And that’s growth, not necessarily an achievement but that’s headed in the right direction. But I do think as far as seeing results, I’ve been able to demonstrate that where I’ve been willing to go back [to school], and through the process of letting teachers observe me, it really got me focused on researching the why. So I don’t know that there’s much peer review research that’s come out that I haven’t been a part of in my district. I do think I have a very solid foundation of what’s being written recently about what moves kids forward, and I’ve pockets full of evidence to back that statement up.

Critical Race Theory, no matter where I’ve been I think I did a very good job of trying to make sure that no matter who you were, I educated you just as well as anybody else. I treated you as good as anybody else. I provided an equitable education for all of my students and I did that then, and I’ll do that tomorrow. That is what is very needed, is that no matter what school kids go to or what teacher they have, they’re all getting the same equitable education. My second thought on that is that if you were to ask a teacher walking down the hallway if they had enough time in the day to teach all of their standards the way they wanted to, my hunch is that they would say no.

We don’t have enough time to be doing that right now. There’s a time and a place for everything and so what we need to be doing in school is teaching our kids their standards. And we need to be using the Tennessee vetted curriculum to teach those. We don’t have time for everything that comes along in society, and again there’s a time and place for everything, school is the time and place to teach the state standards, and we don’t even have enough time to do that. So that would be my response to CRT.

[Setting and achieving new academic goals] Making sure we high expectations, I think that needs to be had in every profession. This has been my experience too, if we didn’t get where we needed to be as a faculty or if I set goals and I don’t get there, it is generally not because I set the goals too high and missed. It’s because I set them too low.

There’s a reason why they keep bald headed guys around; we’ve been around a while. We know a few things, made a lot of mistakes, listened to a lot of teachers, listened to a lot of concerned and worried parents, we’ve done all those things.

So I think there are bad experiences I guess, but years of experience and years of taking my career seriously.

Again, other than ministry, education is the best hope we have for society and in our communities. And knowing that, I’ve made mistakes, Dear Lord, how I have to apologize for the first two or three years to those kids I had. I didn’t know what I was doing. I see some of them from time to time and I still apologize to them. But it was a calling.

If we don’t do it, then who is going to? Who’s going to step up and bridge the gap? That kind of thing, I think I could help because I have learned that sometimes I just need to keep my mouth shut no matter where I’m at, whether I’m a teacher, principal or Director of Schools. There’s a time to be quiet and let other people try to enlighten you on what’s going on instead of going ahead and doing what you’ve already made up your mind to do. So I think I bring that type of learning..

I went to school of hard knocks, and my grandmother helped me and man was she full of wisdom. She always said, “you learn your lesson the hard way and you’ll never forget it.” So I’ve learned some lessons the hard way in education and I think because of that I’ve learned what not to do. It is important to know what to do, but I think it’s just as important to know what not to do.

Q: In our public forum, the subject of offering additional sports was a focus. Today more scholarships are available, particularly in rural areas, for alternative sports. How would you propose Lewis County give consideration to other sports options?

I think a good place would be just getting down the TSSAA sanctioned sports, going through them and doing them all. And really just looking at what you’re offering and what’s sponsored by the TSSAA.

The problem with adding sports sometimes is the financial cost, and sometimes that’s not a barrier at all. Sometimes you can add sports that duplicate places and that kind of thing. Get kids involved and make them feel [like they’re] a part of something, and it really doesn’t cost the district very much.

Start with the TSSAA sanctioned sports and let that guide you, but then obviously, survey some people. Talk to kids, see what they’re interested in. If it’s something that you’ve got a big group of, especially middle schoolers, it will really get them turned onto this theatre program, you’ve got to know how many kids are really interested.

I think you can survey people and get that information pretty quickly.

This was crazy to me, may not be to you, but I read the other day that the University of Kentucky was offering thousands of dollars worth of scholarships for e-sports. It went on to tell about all the teamwork, the strategies and all these things that are incorporated. I think that’s another avenue to look into.

I want to say too, I’m going to take a little bit of a detour off of what the exact question was and say this. We do know that we have got to have kids feeling plugged in. That is sports and that’s very important, but there are other academic things and clubs that we need to offer so that 100 percent of our kids are feeling plugged in. Because if they don’t feel plugged in then they get isolated and some bad things can repeat. So not only sports, but other things I think can be implemented as well.

Q: How would you develop positive partnerships with businesses, higher education and the county commission to improve opportunities for our students?

So there’s an old saying that the difference between an interaction and a relationship is frequency. If that’s true, and I tend to believe it is, you have to have frequent interactions and develop a relationship.

For example, you said the county commission. I’ve got a commission of 24 and the many committees that they have. So I attend the financial committee meetings, some of the budget meetings because they can go to midnight sometimes, the educational committee meetings and the full commission meetings. To go ahead and be a part of that, you have to go out there and do that. So involving those guys and inviting them to board meetings. Now, a lot of times they never come but inviting them to be a part of what we do too.

As far as businesses, unfortunately I see this.. but if we’re not careful, the school systems are bad to go knock on a bunch of business doors asking, “sponsor this, sponsor this, give me money.. give me, give me, give me,” and don’t do a great job of giving back in return. That’s a two way street.

So when I was at Benton, every year we got a different colored t-shirt and the kids voted on what they wanted on the t-shirt. We made sure to the local t-shirt shop. Could I have gotten it cheaper somewhere else? Maybe, but she was good to support our school and sports and we needed to support her. So I think that type of relationship really gets businesses to buy into knowing that you appreciate them.

Higher education, I’ve got a great relationship there. I’m sure it would be the same here. Northeast State and I meet a lot; ETSU, I’m on there advisory board for their ESL program; TCAT, I meet with them monthly because they’re at our back door so we’re constantly having conversations.

What I’ve found is that they’re excited about it too. You’d think higher education is maybe like, “ehh, you’re in elementary school and high school.” No, they are extremely excited to engage and when you bring them ideas. They see the vision of what we’re doing. So that’s how you can engage higher education, businesses and the commission.

Q: Could you tell me something about yourself that we might not discover by looking at your resume?

Obviously, on your resume, you’re not going to have something like if you’re a person of faith or not. So that would not be there, and I don’t mind sharing that at all. I am a person of faith.

I’m not one of these people that like to hijack Jesus and scream that from the housetops so that people will like you. I don’t think that’s how you do that. I think that you have measure your faith by how you treat everybody. But especially how do you treat people who can do nothing for you in return?

How serious I take education [would not be there]. Public education has given me opportunities that I would not have had otherwise. It gave my brother opportunities that he did not have otherwise. I take that very seriously because I do see those instances, and there’s many, where it really changed the trajectory for a kid. I’m very passionate about that.

I’m an outdoors man. I like to sit in a tree stand, I like to do a little deer hunting. But still, even at that, even in [my] quiet time, my career is my hobby. I’m thinking about how we can take stress off of teachers, how can we manipulate the schedule to help this situation. So it’s probably not on my resume that this is more than a position. It’s been my life for well over two decades.

Q: Should you be chosen as our new director, are you serious about accepting a long-term commitment and do you have an entry plan?

I’m definitely interested. I see that your life looks different when you’re an empty nester and my girls are in college. I’ve looked for a place where we can be different places quickly, and this is a great area. The locality from Nashville to Memphis to Knoxville.. it’s a great spot. The Buffalo River, different things like that. It fits good, it feels good. So I’m definitely interested in the long-term.

As far as an entry plan, I had to have a 90 day entry plan at Carter and so I know how to do that. The bad part of that one was, think about this, you’re a brand new guy and you take over during Covid. That was a bit of a struggle for a 90 day entry plan when people weren’t even in school.

But I do know how make an entry plan, and a lot of that is listening. Getting with the board and listening to how you want me to communicate with you, how do we want to work on this budget, how do we want to set strategic plans, listening to the county commission, getting some of the churches together to introduce yourself. Going slow for a long term entry plan.

[With] the 90 day entry plan, it’s not like you’re saying at 90 days we’re coming in and kicking your table over. It’s saying that in 90 days, I’ve got to have a strategic plan of how I can meet with all these people and keep my mouth shut to listen to what they need, and see if I can help out. The entry plan will be a whole lot of listening.

Q: Do you have any closing statements you would like to make?

I do. I’d like to thank all those who got this night together. I know things are never as easy as they seem so this was a lot of work. Thank you to the board for allowing me to share this table with three other distinguished ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate that.

And I know this too, Mr. Pace has been here for a generation and he’s appreciated and he’s loved. So what you see is what you get [from me], good or bad. So let’s call out the big elephant in the room, people are nervous. Those are some big shoes to fill. I know he’s well loved. But I do believe that one of these candidates would be a big help to Lewis County.

I often say, and I may have already said it, but I really do believe that other than ministry, public education is the best hope you have for our next generation. It’s needed and it needs everybody going in the same direction.

I think we’ve talked about communication. My main goal as a Director of Schools is clear communication. You need to know what I know. There doesn’t need to be any Wizard of Oz, hiding behind a curtain. That only not serves me well, but serves your community well.

I do think I have a unique skill set to bring some thoughts in. Not that anybody, I don’t care who you’re hiring, nobody’s coming in to save Lewis County. Lewis County has done a lot of good things and those things need to be looked at, appreciated and celebrated. I do think I maybe have a different lens for some of that.

And then, I’ve spent my career trying to help others. Not that that’s special from the ways other people helped, but I do believe that, and teachers and administrators understand this, every day of our job we go out and we help people. Cafeteria ladies help people, bus drivers help people. So I have spent my career doing that, and my pledge would be to you that if chosen as director, I would work tirelessly to try to provide the opportunities that the kids of Lewis County could become who and what they want to be. And I think that’s very doable here.

Hopefully I’ve answered all your questions and thank you for allowing me to be here tonight.

 

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