I'm Ellen Smith, member of the Oak Ridge City Council. Thank you for visiting my blog and reading my views on public and private life in and around Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This website is my own; content here does not represent the official policies or views of the City of Oak Ridge. To add your own comments, click on the topic title to open a comment box. To read posts about a particular topic, scroll down to "Categories" (in the sidebar) or use the "Search" box in the sidebar. Look under "Archives" to see collections of past posts organized by date.
With school starting up for the year, everywhere I turn somebody is talking about standardized testing in schools. Oak Ridge schools are making TCAP test scores count for a fraction of kids’ grades (not the school board’s idea — it’s a state mandate!), Tennessee is requesting a waiver from the No Child Left Behind requirements, [...]
Publicity in town hasn’t exactly been overwhelming, but Thursday night the Oak Ridge High School Masquers organization takes the stage again for the first time in several years, performing “Better Football Through High School Chemistry” in the ORHS auditorium. Different sources give different schedules, but I think the show starts at 7 pm 7:30 pm [...]
At this special time of the year, I can only imagine the feelings of the family of Ashley Paine. My heart goes out to them…
Ashley’s tragic death in early November focused attention on the safety of our children when they travel back and forth to school.
City Council cannot tell the school system how to operate [...]
Over on the Oak Ridger online forums, there’s been some discussion of the City’s apparent intention to get part of the proposed funding for the Crestpointe (“Target”) shopping center from money collected for the high school rebuild project. (As I explained in an earlier post here, in discussion with Mr. Steve Jenkins of the city [...]