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Kingsport students' classroom assignments going down to the wire

Published July 28th, 2009 | 0 Comments

KINGSPORT — If your Kingsport elementary student doesn’t know his or her teacher’s name yet, the letter literally should be in the mail soon.

As the start of the city system’s 2009-10 school year looms Monday, some students are still receiving their teacher assignments that in past years have gone out two weeks before school started.

Tyler Fleming, Kingsport City Schools director of student services, said a combination of factors led the principals to vote to delay mailing classroom assignment letters this year.

Some elementary letters arrived in mailboxes late last week, and some are still to arrive.

“Normally our schools try to send out the information to the families two weeks before school starts,” Fleming said Tuesday afternoon.

However, this year marks the opening of a new elementary school, John Adams Elementary on Rock Springs Road. In addition to the new principal at that school, Washington, Kennedy, Roosevelt and Johnson elementary schools have new principals, as do Sevier Middle School and Dobyns-Bennett High School.

Fleming said individual schools send out the letters, and some have delays because of late teacher hires.

For instance, he said Jefferson Elementary hired a fifth-grade teacher Friday.

Fleming also told the Board of Education at a work session Thursday that fifth grade has been difficult this year because in the rezoning, rising fifth-graders were allowed to remain at the elementary school they were attending even if they were rezoned to another school.

He said that made placing tuition students more difficult, adding that tuition student requests received this year are up about 10 percent.

However, because of the addition of space at Adams, Fleming said it is easier to accommodate most tuition students.

As for Adams, which was designed for a capacity of about 500, Fleming said he believes it is still on track to have about 250 in the pre-K through fifth grade.

“I think we’ll have a better feel for it at the first of the week,” Fleming said. “We’re still predicting about 250.”

Adams will hold an open house for students, parents and the community from 4 to 6 p.m. this Friday.

Kingsport and neighboring Sullivan County Schools both have reported increased kindergarten pre-enrollment.

Sullivan operates Rock Springs, Miller Perry and Sullivan elementary schools in the area southwest of Kingsport.

It has a policy that allows students in areas annexed since April 2006 to stay in their old county school zone.

The city system will waive tuition for students in the Rock Springs area to be annexed by Jan. 1, 2010, and will provide free transportation to tuition students in that area if Superintendent Richard Kitzmiller deems that feasible.

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