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The Hamblen County School Board held its first meeting following the kickoff of the 2023-2024 School year Tuesday evening.

As the board celebrated the new school year, it also highlighted several accomplishments made by students and staff.

Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Buddy Smith began the acknowledgements by announcing the county scholars’ bowl winners and runner-ups.

“It is my honor to recognize the scholar bowl champions of the 2022-2023 school year,” Smith announced. “This is a very competitive district and no one works harder than the scholars’ bowl coaches and the students who represent their schools proudly.”

The runner ups for the elementary division was the Russellville Elementary School team and for the middle school division the runner ups was the Lincoln Heights Middle School team.

The scholars bowl champions for the elementary division was the Manley Elementary School Team and for the middle school division the champions was the Westview Middle School Team.

The Morristown-Hamblen Air Force Junior ROTC Program was next to be recognized as it received the Silver Star Community Service with Excellence Award for a second year in a row.

“It is less than 5% of Air Force Junior ROTC Programs across the nation can receive this award and for them to garner this recognition two years in a row, it’s a testament of the quality of cadets and the faulty of their leadership of the JRTOC program, so very well done,” Superintendent Arnie Bunch said.

Cadet Corp Commander, Annabeth Workman commended her fellow cadets’ hard work and thanked the school board for its continued support.

“I am very proud of my cadets and all the hard work they have put in,” Workman said. “We have amassed over 3,700 community service hours and because of that we are able to receives this award and wear this award as a ribbon.

“I would like to give an enormous thanks to our school board, this would not be possible with you. You have supported our program from the beginning and I am so thankful for you all. On behalf of the Morristown-Hamblen Air Force Junior ROTC Program I would like to say thank you.”

Hamblen County Schools Human Resource Supervisor Matt Drinnon celebrated staff who completed the Grow You Own Program.

“A little over two years ago our board had the vision and insight to create a partnership between Walters State Community College and Western Governors University to address an ongoing teacher shortage in the state and across the nation.” Drinnon said.

“We currently have 22 students who are working through Western Governors University and we have five who finished up within those first two years and have started working for us in Hamblen County schools and we would love to recognize them.”

The five teachers who completed the program were Chelsea Atkins, Isaiah Crawford, Madison Greene, Mason Hance and Danny Pinedo.

“I would like to compliment these individuals, they were all working as teaching assistants while they were completing those last two years. They all began working for the district the day after graduation and they are doing a tremendous job.”

Bunch began his Director’s Report by discussing new staff members and unfilled positions.

“We have 166 new staff to the Hamblen County District,” he said. “That is a way bigger number than we ever had that are brand new employees to the district.

“Right now we only have four certified positions that are not filled, one is at West Elementary and we are working to fill that and the other three are district wide positions. We have a total of 16 openings beyond those 4. We have two crossing guard positions we have not filled, 6 teacher assistants and 4 bus drivers.”

A 200 student increase in enrollment was seen compared to last year, with a total of 10,190 students enrolled in the district Bunch explained.

“We are looking at all the schools and the number of students we have in each grade but those numbers will continue to come,” he said. “That number had increased by 93 just today so we are continuing to get that stabilized.”

Bunch then disused the terroristic threat that a student allegedly made that resulted in them being charged last week.

“We didn’t even make it through the first week and that disappointing but I have to give my gratitude to a few,” Bunch said.

“I want to give a sincere thank you to a student who saw something and said something. They brought it to an adult’s attention and we were able to get law enforcement involved and handle the issue.

“I have thank you to our law enforcement officials because they quickly reacted and handled the situation before we ever got back into school so that threat, were it to be there are real, would be eliminated.”

As the board concluded its meeting, an appeal hearing was held as a teacher hoped the board would reconsider her 3 month suspension.

However after hearing both arguments the board voted unanimously to uphold the suspension.