KCS to Hold Public Forums 

The Knox County School System will resume its schedule of public forums to solicit community comment on the World Class School System template that was presented to the Board of Education in October.

The forums were suspended during the holiday period but will continue at the pace of about one or two a month until September. The next forums will be held at Farragut High School at 6:00 p.m. on Jan. 15 and at West Valley Middle School at 6:00 p.m. on Jan. 23.

“The enactment of the ”No Child Left Behind Act” by Congress and President Bush makes our discussion of the World Class School System template increasingly important,” said Dr. Charles Lindsey, Superintendent of Knox County Schools. “ The template has some amazing parallels in the areas of accountability and reading instruction,” he said.

“Implementation of the template’s ‘Quality Learning Plan’ and C.A.R.E. programs, for example, would move us in the direction required by the federal plan, and if enacted, these programs would put Knox County on a course to meet federal requirements far ahead of mandated timelines,” Lindsey continued.

“I know this is a difficult time to talk about programs with the kind of price tag that comes with the complete World Class School System template, but this is our vision for the future of public education in Knox County, and we owe it to our children to continue this discussion,” said Lindsey.

“I encourage all community members to come and talk with us at these forums,” Lindsey urged. “While current fiscal constraints may make it difficult to see the immediate implementation of the complete template, I am convinced we will not always be so severely constrained. We must address the manner in which and means by which we fund education in Tennessee and Knox County. We must aspire to something greater than being number 49,” he continued.

Budget cuts will force the school system to curtail efforts to personally notify all community members of the forums as well as providing products to detail the plan to forum attendees. However, the school system’s website will continue to provide extensive information on the template and will be updated regularly. The site can be found at www.korrnet.org/kcschool.

Lindsey has said that the template is not a plan that can be implemented in a single year. The Superintendent feels that at least five years will be needed to emplace the entire template if accepted by the community and the Board Of Education.

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