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BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) — The Sullivan County Board of Education (BOE) unanimously passed a resolution Wednesday opposing Governor Bill Lee’s newest version of his school voucher bill.
Officially named the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, the bill would provide public tax dollars through school vouchers to families and can used for a private scholarship. Earlier Wednesday, Governor Lee announced a special session to take place earlier this month. One of the issues that will be presented in that session is his proposal on vouchers.
The resolution of opposition comes days after all seven Northeast Tennessee mayors signed a joint letter voicing support for Lee’s school voucher bill. According to the letter, the voucher program would also include disaster relief funding for the area following Hurricane Helene’s destruction. The hurricane damaged multiple schools, most notably Hampton High School in Carter County.
Sullivan County’s BOE made its decision in accordance with Kingsport City Schools and Washington County, Tennessee Schools, which also officially announced their opposition to the re-vamped bill. Some Kingsport City School Board members criticized the relief funding being tied into the school voucher bill as alleged “political posturing” and “extortion.”
News Channel 11 sat in on Wednesday’s BOE meeting to hear why Sullivan County opposes the bill.
“The voucher system does not serve students that may actually be in need of that,” said Chuck Carter, Carter County Director of Schools. “With the average cost of private school education being triple or quadruple what that amount of the ESA voucher offer is.”
Board members discussed the lack of standards at private schools and the possibility of students being accepted. Carter said the opportunities available to private school students will not be the same.
“They’re not going to get the career and technical education exposure that’s going to get them on a pathway that was brought out tonight,” he said. “They’re not going to have the special services, so students will not be accepted if they have speech, hearing, other special needs. They would not be eligible for this because public education provides those services.”
Carter also said performance levels are usually lower in counties where vouchers are already being used.
“I think I’ve heard one statistic recently of 33% average for public education as opposed to 11% proficient advanced for students in the ESA programs,” he said.
Carter added that he and the BOE do not think Hurricane Helene recovery funding should be included or tied into the school voucher bill.
“We do not believe, and it’s in our resolution, that hurricane relief should in any way, form or fashion be connected to the Education Savings (sic.) Act.”
Sullivan County Mayor Richard Venable provided News Channel 11 with the following statement:
I respect the individual members of the school board and their decision to do what they think is in the best interest of their students. That’s the way things work in a representative democracy. I’m anxious to see the final bill and trust it will reflect the wishes of the majority of all informed Tennesseans.
Richard Venable, Sullivan County mayor
Carter believes the bill should perhaps go up for a referendum, which the public would vote on.
“I think you would find pretty quickly that the majority of people would be against this,” Carter said. “With that many school systems opposed to it. That’s a very strong statement in itself. “
Carter said that although the bill now states that public schools will not be harmed financially due to low enrollment, public education funding will still be impacted.
“They may say that we’re going to be held harmless for the the loss of the student at a certain point of $7,075, that doesn’t take into consideration all that other funding that will be gone because the student’s no longer in our building,” Carter said. “So we can’t have them enrolled in the CTE courses, we can’t provide them the extra outcomes funding or the fact that they were proficient, advanced on their TCAPs test which would earn incentive funding for the district so that that money is gone. So you can about, say, close to half of the potential revenue for each student is going to be gone.”
Carter said if funding goes down, staffing will be impacted and school building maintenance needs won’t be addressed.
The Sullivan County BOE plans on sending their resolution to Mayor Venable’s office, representatives and senators for their district, the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents (TOSS), and the Tennessee School Boards Association (TSBA).
The Sullivan County BOE’s full meeting opposing the vouchers can be found here.