Thank your school board members!
Tennessee School Board Appreciation Week – January 25-29

January 25-29 is Tennessee School Board Appreciation Week, and we want to take this opportunity to show our appreciation for our school board members. Currently serving the children of this community on the Haywood County School Board are Harold Garrett, chairman; Robbie Jarrett-King, vice-chairman; Pearlie Hess; Allen Currie; and Daniel Thornton.

It is widely believed that the current system of electing school board members continues to be the most representative form of local government for our local schools. School board members are local citizens elected by their community to control and manage their public school systems. They may be doctors, farmers, business people, retired citizens, homemakers, lawyers, nurses, accountants or from any occupation. The point is that the school board is like a microcosm of the community, elected to work as a team, to make decisions that are in the best interest of the students, staff and community where the public schools are concerned.

School board members volunteer hundreds of hours of personal time and an immeasurable amount of energy to assure that our schools are providing the best education possible for the children of our community. Here are some reasons we are taking this opportunity to show them our appreciation during School Board Appreciation Week:

• School board members are citizens whose decisions affect our children. They make decisions about the direction the school system is heading. They must also make the hard decisions about budgetary matters that also affect the community.
   
• These men and women set the vision for the school system and set policy that provides the framework for operations. They represent – as a board – the total community. They must attend numerous, often lengthy meetings that are sometimes fulfilling and sometimes contentious. They also must, by law, attend annual training sessions so that they are informed board members.
   
• Our school board is one of 124 in Tennessee. Because each community elects its own board members, each board represents the community’s unique needs with respect to its school system.
   
• Too often we forget that these men and women are our neighbors and community members. Most school board members have full time jobs outside of being a school board member. We need to take a moment during this week to say, “Thank you” to our school board members.

“I’d like to publicly commend our local board members for their dedication to the children enrolled in our school system and to the community as a whole,” Superintendent Marlon King said.