The Knox County school board will weigh this week whether to send a message to lawmakers in Nashville about the governor’s controversial school voucher expansion.
Board member Jennifer Owen, who represents neighborhoods on Knoxville’s north side, is asking her peers to support her in a resolution that would tell lawmakers to “consider the effects that Education Savings Accounts will have on local school districts and to instead seek ways to support and strengthen public schools throughout the state.”
She modeled it using language from the Tennessee School Board Association, which opposes a voucher expansion based on its stance that the program will have “detrimental impacts” on schools and communities by siphoning funding from public schools to private ones.
Five out of eight school members must vote for the resolution for it to pass. Support was mixed at the board’s Feb. 5 meeting, though not all members expressed their opinions.
Gov. Bill Lee’s bid to bring vouchers to schools statewide has received mixed reactions statewide and locally. In his State of the State held in Nashville the same night as the Knox County board debated the resolution, he branded 2024 as the year to “make school choice a reality for every Tennessee family.”