Who Paid for School Board Trip to Nashville?

With the possibility of cuts of more than 200 positions in the Hamilton County school system, and up to 11 schools being shut down, NewsChannel 9 is crunching the numbers of the weekend trip to Nashville where board members and top-ranking administrators received the word of fallout from the $20 million budget crisis.

As many viewers, parents and concerned citizens of Hamilton County learned of the news of the potentially drastic consequences of the school system's $20 million deficit, people began questioning why the school board would attend a conference at a swanky hotel in Nashville.

Every year, the school board has a retreat which is held at the Opryland hotel. A spokesperson for the school system says the retreat coincides with state-organized meetings already scheduled at that hotel: of the coalition of large school systems, and with the Tennessee School Boards Association conference, which is attended by nearly every district in the state.

That conference, according to a registration form on-line, cost an additional 200 dollars a person.

NewsChannel 9 investigated and learned that the cost of Opryland hotel that weekend was discounted: $159 dollars a night. According to the Tennessee School Boards Association website, conference-goers paid a discounted rate and received complimentary parking.

We learned that the Hamilton County school board schedules their yearly retreat around the dates and location of that conference for several reasons: 1) both the retreat and the conference can be used toward state mandated training hours all board members are required to receive every year. 2) longtime board member Janice Boydston says they've combined the two trips for years as a way to save money, and receive valuable enrichment.

"This was good for me because I got so much information about what we're going to have to do in Hamilton County and what we are doing," Boydston says. "And it counts as my training so I don't have to go somewhere else at a cost."

Board member Rhonda Thurman says she was against the trip from the start. Thurman, who didn't attend the retreat due to a doctor's appointment, says in light of the budget problems, it sends the wrong message.

"The arrogance of all government agencies is unbelievable to me," Thurman says. "The arrogance that we can do these things, but yet you're going to have to cut? Tell teachers that you have to buy paper, but we're gonna go up to Nashville and enjoy Opryland hotel? I just don't think it looks good, and I personally think it's wrong."

But NewsChannel 9 has learned that the school system won't foot much of the bill. In years past, the cost of the hotel, travel and retreat has been funded by the Public Education Foundation, which calls itself a local foundation dedicated to improving student achievement in Hamilton County schools. A spokesperson for that foundation confirms that the organization plans to pay for that retreat again this year. The PEF does not typically cover expenses associated with the conference. That cost is likely to fall on the shoulders of the taxpayers.

Boydston says the conference is well worth the $200 cost. "Laws change every year," she says. "I don't care how long you've been on the board, you've got to know these things if you're going to make the right decision. And the only way you're going to learn these things is at a meeting like this."

Board members agree that regardless of whether the benefits outweighed the cost of the trip, the weight of the cost of a 20 million dollar deficit is far greater. The Chief Financial Officer says the board may have to eliminate more than 200 positions and close up to 11 smaller, under capacity schools. The final decision rests in the hands of school board members, who plan to sit down with the superintendent and the CFO in the upcoming days.

"It's going to be painful," Boydston says. "It won't be easy and it's something none of us are looking forward to."

Thurman says the time has come to "pay the piper" for decisions they've made for years: decisions like building new schools like Signal Mountain Middle and High schools (which, she points out, are not close to capacity) rather than improve existing schools.

"It's like one of those balloon notes at the bank: payday comes and somebody has to pay for that. That day for us is now," Thurman says. "A lot of these decisions, if we'd have had a few more board members vote 'no' on some of these things, we wouldn't be in the shape we're in now."