Oak Ridge Today

ORHS pantry provides food, clothing, toiletries, cleaning products to students in need

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A pantry started about a year ago at Oak Ridge High School provides food, clothing, toiletries, and cleaning products to students in need. The Oak Ridge Board of Education toured the pantry with ORHS administrators and teachers on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2017. From left to right are Laura McLean, Angi Agle, Allen Etheridge, Beth Estep, Leslie Shelton, Bruce Lay, Bob Eby, Bruce Borchers, and Keys Fillauer. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

Note: This story was updated at 1:25 p.m. Jan. 26.

A pantry started about a year ago at Oak Ridge High School provides food, clothing, toiletries, and cleaning products to students in need.

It’s known as the RISE Pantry. RISE stands for Raising Individual Students to Excellence.

The pantry started with a cabinet. It’s now housed in a former classroom on the third floor of the high school.

Items stored there include, among other essentials, backpacks and notebooks, pants and shirts, shoes and boots, and soup and beans.

“You can’t learn if your basic needs aren’t met,” said English teacher and coach Allen Etheridge, one of those who started the pantry. “(If) a kid asks, we will bring them down here.” [Read more…]

Oak Ridge Schools working on completing Phase 2 of convertible laptop purchases for students

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Convertible laptops were provided to 9th-grade and 10th-grade students at Oak Ridge High School in October 2016 as part of Oak Ridge Schools’ digital initiative, which is known as Access Oak Ridge. (Submitted photo)

Convertible laptops were provided to 9th-grade and 10th-grade students at Oak Ridge High School in October 2016 as part of Oak Ridge Schools’ digital initiative, which is known as Access Oak Ridge. (Submitted photo)

 

Oak Ridge Schools is working on completing the second phase of a program that, among other things, provides convertible laptops to students. The program is known as Access Oak Ridge.

Phase Two brings the technology, which is also known as one-to-one technology, into all high school classrooms.

Due to funding, Oak Ridge Schools started the second phase by purchasing devices for two grade levels, ninth and tenth grades.

To complete Phase Two, about 750 additional machines are required at an estimated cost of $530,000. [Read more…]

Navy Junior ROTC program to start at ORHS in 2017-2018

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Navy Junior ROTC

Oak Ridge High School will begin offering a Navy Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, or ROTC, program in the 2017-2018 school year.

ORHS has been trying to start a Junior ROTC program since 2014. It’s expected to lead to more students attaining the seventh key in the school system’s Seven Keys to College and Career Reediness. (The seventh key says all students will participate in dual enrollment, advanced placement coursework, industry certification, or military preparation by graduation.)

The Oak Ridge Public Schools Education Foundation and CNS—the contractor that operates and manages the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge and Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas—have donated $15,000 to help with start-up costs of the Navy JROTC. An announcement of that $15,000 donation called the Navy Junior ROTC program the Naval National Defense Cadet Corp program. [Read more…]

City Council, BOE to discuss preschool, Blankenship, budget, energy savings

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The Oak Ridge City Council and Oak Ridge Board of Education will have a joint work session on Thursday, January 26, to discuss site selection for the preschool, the revitalization of Blankenship Field, an energy savings project, and the budget and capital improvements.

The preschool site selection could include Elm Grove Park in east Oak Ridge and Scarboro Center.

The joint work session is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, January 26, in the Multi-Purpose Room at the Central Services Complex on Woodbury Lane. See the agenda here.

Gooch re-appointed mayor, Chinn replaces Smith as mayor pro tem

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Warren Gooch

Warren Gooch (File photo by Savanna Schubert)

 

Oak Ridge Mayor Warren Gooch has been elected by City Council to a second two-year term as mayor, and City Council member Rick Chinn was appointed mayor pro tem, replacing Ellen Smith.

No other City Council member sought to be appointed mayor, and Gooch, who was first appointed after he was elected in 2014, was unanimously elected by the new City Council.

Smith and Chinn both sought to be appointed mayor pro tem. The mayor pro tem serves as mayor when the mayor is temporarily unavailable. [Read more…]

New Council members to be sworn in Monday

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Two new members of the Oak Ridge City Council and one incumbent will be sworn in Monday. Two incumbents re-elected to the Oak Ridge Board of Education will also be sworn in.

The two new City Council members are Jim Dodson and Hans Vogel. The incumbent is Chuck Hope.

The two school board members who were re-elected in the November 8 municipal election are Angi Agle and Keys Fillauer. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge school board to consider opposing use of public funds for private schools

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The Oak Ridge school board on Monday will consider opposing the use of public funds for private schools.

A resolution to be considered by the Oak Ridge Board of Education “strongly opposes” taking funds from public education in any community in the state without agreement from a local school board, without a legal guarantee that the schools receiving the funds will comply with the same curriculum and testing standards required of public schools, and until the state’s Basic Education Program, or BEP, is fully funded by the Tennessee General Assembly.

The resolution says the Tennessee General Assembly, the state’s legislature, will consider legislation in 2017 that would use public funds to pay tuition costs for students to attend private, religious, and non-religious schools.

The General Assembly and Tennessee State Board of Education have adopted high standards for student and teacher performance in public schools, but private schools are not held to the same accountability standards as public schools with regard to academic performance or student access, the resolution says. [Read more…]

Agle, Fillauer re-elected to Oak Ridge Board of Education

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Angi Agle

 

Angi Agle and Keys Fillauer, the two incumbents on the Oak Ridge Board of Education, have been re-elected to four year-terms, according to unofficial election results in Anderson and Roane counties.

Agle received the most votes, a total of 7,830 in the two counties. She earned 6,643 in Anderson County and 1,187 in Roane County.

Fillauer, the current school board chair, collected 7,196 between the two counties. He had 6,049 votes in Anderson County and 1,147 in Roane County.

A third candidate, Myra Mansfield, finished with about 1,800 votes fewer than Fillauer, or 5,686. She received 4,657 in Anderson County and 729 in Roane County. [Read more…]

Agle, Fillauer lead in early voting for school board

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Angi Agle

 

Note: This story was updated at 11 p.m.

Angi Agle and Keys Fillauer, the two incumbents for Oak Ridge Board of Education, lead in early voting in Anderson County, according to unofficial results posted on the Anderson County Election Commission website on Tuesday evening.

Agle had 4,591 early votes, and Fillauer, the current board chair, had 4,195.

A third candidate, challenger Myra Mansfield, had 2,992.

Agle and Fillauer also have leads in early voting in Roane County, according to unofficial results posted at 8:33 p.m. Tuesday. Agle leads with 973 early votes, and Fillauer had 960.

[Read more…]

Early voting update: More than 16,000 have cast ballots in Anderson County

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Information from WYSH Radio

There are now just over three days left in the early voting period in Tennessee for next Tuesday’s presidential and county general elections. Turnout at the polls has been impressive, and that string of robust participation continued on Monday.

In Anderson County on Monday, another 1,356 people voted, bringing the 11-day total, including paper ballots, to 16,370. Anderson County residents can cast ballots at the Clinton Community Center, the Midtown Community Center in Oak Ridge, and at the North Anderson Government Office in the Anderson Crossing Shopping Center from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today (Tuesday, November 1) through Thursday, November 3. For more, visit www.acelect.com or call (865) 457-6238. [Read more…]

Survey: Do you support or oppose term limits, a smaller county commission, electing law director?

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Note: This story was updated at 3:55 p.m.

Among the issues in the campaign for Anderson County Charter Commission are whether term limits should be implemented for Anderson County commissioners and the Anderson County mayor, whether the County Commission should be reduced in size, and whether the law director should be elected.

We are curious what Oak Ridge Today readers think so we set up some poll questions to ask you. They are below.

Nothing can officially be proposed, debated, or recommended to voters in the November 2018 election until after the Charter Commission is elected this November 8.

There have been proposals this campaign season to enact a two-term limit for commissioners and the mayor and reduce the County Commission from its current 16 to a minimum of nine. There have been other proposals as well, including making the mayor’s position part-time, making the law director’s position part-time, and appointing a mayor rather than electing the mayor. [Read more…]

Hope responds to PAC endorsements

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Chuck Hope

Chuck Hope

Oak Ridge City Council member Chuck Hope, the one incumbent running for re-election in the November 8 election, has responded to the endorsements by the Progress PAC political action committee.

The Progress PAC endorsed Jim Dodson, Joe Lee, and Hans Vogel, who are all making their first runs for seats on the seven-member City Council. The endorsements were announced last week.

Hope was not endorsed. You can see his response here.

The PAC was established two years ago by the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Directors, and it operates autonomously from the Chamber’s Board.

All six of the candidates endorsed by the Progress PAC two years ago were elected, although one candidate who wasn’t endorsed, Rick Chinn, was also elected. [Read more…]