Hamilton County School Superintendent Rick Smith has worked as an educator for 38 years at Soddy Daisy High School, East Ridge Middle School, Loftis Middle School, schools in Hixson and the central office of Hamilton County education. He has been on both ends of the county, met a lot of people in between, and says he is now proud to be the superintendent.
When Smith met with the central office staff this week, they all agreed that they were excited about the school year and looking forward to doing what they can to improve the school system. And although Smith was a local candidate five years ago for superintendent, he says he can honestly say that not getting the job then was a good thing. “At that time I felt like I was prepared for it. Sitting here now, I don’t believe that to be the case,” Smith says. “At this time, I believe I am much more prepared for it. … I have gained knowledge to hopefully become a successful superintendent.”
Smith has been in and out of Chattanooga his whole life. Born in Virginia, a job transfer brought his father to Chattanooga when Smith was in elementary school. Smith says he can remember traveling through the tunnels of East Ridge before the interstate was built to his father’s trucking terminal behind what is now Howard High School, and says his childhood memories are definitely of Chattanooga. Smith attended McBrian Elementary School and East Ridge Middle and High School. His senior year of high school, his father was transferred back to Virginia, and Smith ended up graduating from Northside High School there.
Smith returned to Tennes-see to attend UT for his undergraduate education, where he played a little baseball, and started out in a pre-medicine program for two years before transferring to education. Part of the reason Smith made the switch he says is because he’s always loved sports and thought that coaching might be a great thing to do. Smith started teaching biology and coaching in 1974 at Druid Hills High School in Decatur, Ga. Then it was on to Russell High School in Collegepark, Ga., for seven years, where he ended up becoming head football coach. Smith came back to Chattanooga for good 29 years ago to coach and later enter administration at Soddy Daisy High School. From there, he became principal of East Ridge Middle School and of Loftis Middle School. He then became middle school director at the central office, ran the operations of superintendent department, became the deputy superintendent, and has now reached the position of superintendent of the 76 schools in Hamilton County, overseeing 42,000 kids.
Smith says, “I think the combination of teaching the sciences and working with kids in athletics as head coach [of football, baseball and wrestling] helped me see that there were a lot of things I learned early in my career in how to work with adults and how to organize things and certainly to work with kids.” Smith says the most important thing is to not to lose sight of the most important thing in the profession: the kids. Fortunately, Smith has several forces that keep him grounded. He is married to a seventh grade teacher at Loftis Middle School named Janet. Their daughter Hilary is a guidance counselor at Howard High School, and their daughter Melanie had cerebral palsy at birth, which has allowed Smith to be parent of a special needs child for 31 years and become directly involved in the issue of special education.
Smith says another thing educators must do is to keep their energy and passion alive, and he thinks he has. “I want get up every day and do the best I can and work hard,” Smith says. “I am in this office every day between 6:30 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. It’s just something I do and I always will. It’s important to me that I show the rest of the staff that getting to work early and getting busy on what needs to be done, and I still very much enjoy what I do.” In his free time, Smith likes to read, listen to ’60s rock music, and enjoys watching live or televised football and baseball.
Smith says his past roles in education have given him a great deal of inside experience on how things are done for a school system of this size. In the operations job, Smith shared department suggestions with the superintendent and dealt with problems in schools. In the deputy’s job, he worked with behind the scene elements like legal services and being the chief negotiator of the district. “Both jobs afforded me the ability to work closely with the superintendents. … You learn from this, from your beliefs and values and experiences, what you want to do, and so you take that knowledge and try to work through it using your own personality,” Smith says.
As superintendent, Smith hopes to drive home with the principals and staff of the school system sharing the data of literacy, mathematics and leadership to focus on these areas. Smith says he also has his eye on the waiver for No Child Left Behind that the governor and commissioner are working toward. Smith says he supports the waiver, and the governor’s goal to make the standards of Tennessee rigorous, but attainable. Smith says he hopes to prepare the system to work together and gear professional development toward those areas. Smith wants to spend a lot of time with principals this year because they are key as the CEO of their building, he says, and the system needs principals who are coming to work every day to improve things at their school. He also wants to work on relationships between board members, commissioners, businesses, and others with the school system.
“I want the public to have a sense of confidence in Hamilton County schools,” Smith says. “We are a public school system and we serve this community that is very urban in some areas and rural and suburban in others. … I think for the most part, students and parents in Hamilton County see the school system through their child’s experiences in school.
“I think that we do a really good job to provide a quality environment for our kids as well as provide them with educational opportunities, and we want to improve that. There will always be room for improvement, and that’s something we will strive to do. As long as I’m superintendent, we will try our best in some of the really important areas to continue to do that.”