First Day Bad...Is this what the whole year is going to be?

[Valarie]

It is sad that the first day can't go smooth. With all the rezoning and things we had to adjust to whether we like it or not and then when they get to school to find out they changed all class that we pre-register for before school was out (why pre-register if they are not going accept any class you sign up for), we weren’t late we actually turned ours in before other kids because when you went to the meetings they held the gave us a date 3 days prior to others that hadn’t been at the meetings and even got the packet to fill them out… and gave son classes he didn't request. You know it’s bad enough that we can't do anything to keep kids in there community school and then the one we are required to go to do what they want and don't worry about what the parents and child signed up for. Oh yeah and one more thing...they rezoning and saving money; the Karns bus ran the length of Meredith Road, Emory Road and Beaver Creek passing 12-17 subdivision's to pick up only 8 kids for the morning and afternoon...while the Powell bus ran 2 minutes after the Karns the EXACT same route...how is it saving money? The Powell bus wasn't full! Doesn't make sense.

[Vic Spencer]

Valarie!!! Don't you diss my buddies in Farragut! Or Da Bear in my picture will come and scare you. It scared the hell out of me! And I had no extra undies...and he made a paw gesture like "you people! You should not do that in MY bath water!". Well, there goes my image...
There should be no overcrowding. Planning did identify the demographics and student population growth for 5 years ahead or more. Buildings come under a different budget. It was simply not very good planning that should never happen, with some recourse on those who do not pay enough attention to it. As a result, probably without any intent, some schools in the West were screwed royally.
The only other immediate solution when you screw up like that is "build another school" and rezone. Not ideal, but it beats standing room only, and huge classes where a teacher cannot be expected to perform.
I am hopeful that Dr. MacIntyre will be a really solid, high performance manager of the system. Will he be? Realistically we don't know until a year or two passed. And then I will focus only about the ACT scores, because that is the fair measure of educational achievement - which he better raise big time with us being 25th-34th in the world, and Tennessee being 38th (from 41st last year) in the USA. A dismal performance by our Education Departments from Washington DC on down. We used to be among the best in high school performance.
But...on the county level, Dr. MacIntyre, if he is really good, could make Knox County the highest performing county in the US, and say 10th in the world, in some years like 3. THAT would be great performance and all our high school students would benefit enormously. I hope that he will do exactly that, and hope that I can have an in depth conversation with him in the near future.

Vic

[Pamela Treacy]

I started a discussion on overcrowding since many of the comments on this post are related to that subject. I also pasted Karen Carson's numbers she gave us on high school enrollment.

[Karen Carson]

Roxy Hodge,
You state, "PHS , I was told by someone at PHS, now has the biggest freshman class of Knox Co Schools". Actually, the numbers for Freshman class do not indicate that Powell High has the biggest class. Numbers for 9th graders last week were: Hardin Valley 504, Bearden 493, Farragut 399, Powell 355, Karns 351, Halls 342, South Doyle 329, West 316, Central 268, Gibbs 243, Carter 235, Fulton 207 and Austin East 155.

[Vic Spencer]

Karen, do you have all this HS data per school on a Web site somewhere? Could you supply a URL? I have also been looking for "ADA dollars per student per Knox County HS per year" for the past 3-5 years. Is that available somewhere?

Thanks and best regards,

Vic

[Heather]

Hardin Valley pulled from many locations to fill that school up and they did just that.
Numbers for 9th graders last week were: Hardin Valley 504, Bearden 493, Farragut 399, Powell 355, Karns 351, Halls 342, South Doyle 329, West 316, Central 268, Gibbs 243, Carter 235, Fulton 207 and Austin East 155.


The parent meetings I attended many folks were not happy about their kids not being able to go to the HS that they went to them selves. Many transfers were denied to fill HVA and we are promised and told a small classroom community.

I have no idea what the ideal classroom size is for HS but I have talked to several parents whose children are still going to Karns and they are happy because it seems their class sizes are at 20-25 while in my son's English class at HVA they are pushing 38.

My son wants to ride the bus and half the time he does not get home until 4:30-4:45 due to busing issues. Mind you we live about 6 miles from the school and it gets out at 3:30pm.

I may have to convince him its cooler for him to be picked up than ride the bus.