Tonight at the Knox County School Board Work session, Board Member Mike McMillan raised the issue of how the decision is made at each high school to provide or not provide Drivers Education.
As a student I took drivers education in a high school in Knox County many many moons ago. Much of the information that I retained from Mr. Acuff and Coach Hill still remain with me today. Two of three of my children have taken drivers education at Farragut High School. I have witnessed how it has been helpful to them.
Board Member McMillan is concerned that in his district, Gibbs High School has drivers education and Carter High School does not. It is really sad that Carter does not have the program. For many years, Larry Acuff, the drivers education teacher at Carter held many state championship and national awards for drivers education. McMillan also revealed that the L&N STEM Academy offers divers education, that is bizarre offering for a school that is supposed to attract and educate students with a narrow specialized focus on STEM.
For the most part, drivers education is no longer important to securing reduced rates on automobile insurance policies, as seldom, if ever, is it taught in the public school systems and it is one of the first things to get tossed in budget processes, given the perceived lack of academic merit to such a class. However, it is important to develop younger driving minds into the laws, best practices, suggested safety measures, and general skill set necessary for the safe and practical operation of a motor vehicle on the streets and roads of our community.
What is galling is the fact that while most high schools in Knox County have had to shed their drivers education programs given the lack of budgeting from the School Board, the STEM academy is allowed free rein to offer a such a course, given their smaller enrollment and much more narrow course offerings. Equally as concerning to parents of high school children in Knox County is the fact that this STEM academy is no open to students in other counties, which the rank and file high schools and middle schools on the west side of Knox County are busting at the seams, with overcrowded classrooms, lunch rooms, labs, and other specialized academic programs. You won’t find the adjacent counties welcoming Knox County students to enroll in their school systems unless you happen to play a skilled position in football and you would be more than welcome at Maryville or Alcoa, but not necessarily at William Blount or Heritage High Schools.
For far too long Superintendent McIntyre has focus on the pretty shiny objects like STEM academies that are certainly nice to have, but not anywhere near have to haves, while the basic tents, skill sets, and the blocking and tackeling of the public school system in Knox County go ignored, un/under funded and generally neglected.
McIntyre needs to quit catering to the peculiar or the odd idiosycracies of public education and start giving a damn about the block of solid students and families of Knox County who pay his salary with their tax dollars, who don’t take medicine before coming to school, don’t have a problem getting to school, don’t have a problem getting tossed by the resource officers at school and who don’t need a one track curriculum looking for a broad and challenging high school experience.
In public education in Knox County, if you are normal student and looking to learn, you are the forgotten and ignored student, a non priority for McIntyre and the baffoons ceremoniously elected and elevated to the Knox County School Board.