Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen and Hamilton County Department of Education Director Bryan Johnson have announced the members of the Hamilton County Partnership Network Advisory Board.
The advisory board will review the progress of the five schools in the Partnership Network – which the state has deemed to be priority schools – and make recommendations to HCDE and Network leadership to support student growth and development.
The seven members, four of which the state named and three of which the district named, include a variety of community leaders, including those who have attended or who had family attend the schools in the Partnership Network.
The Tennessee Department of Education’s appointments to the Partnership Network Advisory Board are: Wayne Brown, Ardena Garth, Gerald Webb and Dakasha Winton. The HCDE has appointed Valoria Armstrong, Patricia McKoy and Ernest L. Reid, Jr.
The Partnership Network is a school improvement intervention that pairs the Tennessee Department of Education and the HCDE to create better conditions for success in Hamilton County’s persistently low-performing schools. It is one of several new school improvement options under the state’s plan to transition to the new federal K-12 education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Earlier this year, the HCDE voted to move forward and enter into an agreement with the state to move the district’s five priority schools – those that are in the bottom five percent of schools in the state in terms of academic achievement – into a Partnership Network starting in the 2018-19 school year.
Armstrong is president of Tennessee American Water Co. She has a Bachelor of Arts in business administration from Georgia Southern University and a Master of Science in human resource development from Villanova University.
She was the first woman and youngest president elected to lead the local chapter of NAACP, which she did from 2005-2012. She also has served as chairwoman of the Chattanooga chapter of the American Cancer Society and been involved in the Chattanooga chapter of the Society of Human Resources Management, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Chancellors’ Diversity Advisory Council and the Volkswagen Diversity Council.
Brown lives in the Woodmore community, where his granddaughters attended Woodmore Elementary School. He has been involved in youth leadership programs with the City of Chattanooga and served as a member of the Tennessee PTA.
Brown is a 30-year military veteran who retired from the United States Air Force as a chief master sergeant. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and a Bachelor of Biblical Studies from Andersonville Theological Seminary.
Garth is a Hamilton County native, a practicing attorney and president of Chattanooga Endeavors. She previously served as special child abuse prosecutor and then spent 25 years as a public defender in Chattanooga.
Garth graduated from Ooltewah High School, earned her bachelor’s degree at Middle Tennessee State University and earned her Juris Doctor at the University of Kansas before coming back to Chattanooga to practice law.
McKoy is a retired educator who spent most of her career with the HCDE. She helped to launch the Paideia model at Chattanooga School of Arts and Sciences, the school from which she retired in 2015.
McKoy earned a bachelor’s degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. In addition, she was awarded a master’s degree from Tusculum College and an education specialist degree from Tennessee Technological University.
Reid is pastor of Second Missionary Baptist Church in Chattanooga. He graduated from Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, where he earned a degree in economics.
Reid continued his education with graduate work at The Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology of Virginia Union University, earning a Master in Divinity and a doctorate. He is also a graduate of Union Presbyterian Seminary, where he earned a master’s degree in theology.
Webb is an alumnus of Woodmore Elementary School, Dalewood Middle School and Brainerd High School. He was formerly a prosecutor in the Hamilton County District Attorney’s office and is now a partner and attorney at Speek, Webb, Turner & Newkirk. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Middle Tennessee State University before earning his J.D. at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University.
Winton is the chief government relations officer at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, where she also serves as associate general counsel. She is the first vice chair of the board for the nonprofit Park Center in Nashville, which serves people who have mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders.
She graduated from Tennessee State University before earning her Juris Doctor from the University of Memphis.
After an orientation this summer, the advisory board’s first meeting will be open to the public this fall. Commissioner McQueen will appoint a chair of the board from her appointees prior to the first public meeting.
Source: Hamilton County Partnership Network Advisory Board