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Go behind the scenes of Cleveland City Schools with Dr. Jeff Elliott and Brandi King. Each episode of "Inside the Shield" highlights leadership insights, student stories, and the heart of what makes CCS a champion for students and families.
Today with us, Karen Hall, our assistant principal for our ninth grade. So I wanna say welcome to them today. That's right. We're glad that mister Pritchard's here, a state finalist, principal of the year this year. So we're really proud of mister Pritchard and all the great things happening.
Speaker 1:And so we're just gonna kick it off to mister Pritchard and then mister Hawk can chime in. I know and share a lot of great things. So tell us a little bit about what's going on here at Cleveland High School and what we should be excited about. Well, first
Speaker 2:of all, doctor Elliot,
Speaker 1:thank you so much for
Speaker 2:having us, Brandy. Appreciate you having us here. We are really excited about the choices that we have at Cleveland High School. You can come here, you can learn to be a mechanic, you can learn to be a chef, you can learn to be a pilot if you want to. We've got a teacher currently who is getting his certification by the end of the year, he'll be certified to actually award students with hours that go toward their pilot's license.
Speaker 2:That's a huge deal for us here at Cleveland High School. We got schedule options coming up here very very soon. And so so with that, you know, I want kids and students and our kids and parents and teachers, everybody to be informed of kind of, you
Speaker 3:know, what the offerings are that
Speaker 2:we have because we have a a plethora of options. We also have I'm gonna have miss Hall, the great one over here, talk to us in just a minute. But she she's gonna talk to us about our mini club offerings that we have here at Koole High School, and we have a brand new club. We always talk about school culture and how important school culture is, and so we have a brand new club that a student has brought to our attention and wanted to start that Ms. Hall's gonna talk about a little bit.
Speaker 2:And it's really cool whenever you have such a positive culture in the school building that your kids wanna make the place even better. And so we're I'm excited to be here. I'm proud to be the principal here, but thank you for having us on the show today.
Speaker 1:We're so glad you're here. Yeah. You know, when you get the students invested and and their surroundings and the programs, that's what it's all about and so I'm I'm glad to hear that. Can't wait to hear more about the clubs going on. So, miss Hall, do you want to tell us a little bit about
Speaker 4:We always have group meetings with all of our classes, and we tell them this is a ginormous place. Raider Drive is huge. What can you do to make it be small? Get involved. Get in in plugged in somewhere.
Speaker 4:There is something for every single person on Raider Drive. No better than one of our brand
Speaker 1:new students. She came to
Speaker 4:us from another system. She's involved in a club called Best Buddies. And it will partner up one of our exceptional ed students with a regular ed student, and they become best buddies. And this is her heart and her passion. And she brought us to me.
Speaker 4:She found a couple of sponsors. And so starting next week, we're gonna have an interest meeting. And we just love that here's a student who wants to make Raider Drive even more special than it is, and she knows that that relationship that she will make with one or two students, with the impact that will have on her life and what it's gonna make on the other. We have clubs, we have sports, we have fine arts, we have choirs, guitar class, we have a jazz club. There's so many different ways that all of our students can get involved, and here was yet another one that she brought us to get involved.
Speaker 1:I know that's incredible. And I think about the special education department here and all the great things happening. And United Bowling is one of those things also, I believe, or Unified Bowling.
Speaker 4:Unified Bowling. They'll make it rolling to
Speaker 1:the state. Rolling on the line. And it's the first year and and we make the state. Amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And can you tell me a little bit about Unified Bowling and just a little bit on on as we're talking about special education and how all that ties together?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So it's a support team where you have to have two exceptional ed students with a bowler that's on the team already. And so they take their turns bowling. And so the Ed students not by themselves, and it's not been on the back of the regular team member. It is a it is a group together.
Speaker 4:We've only been to a couple of of the matches because there's it's brand new. Yeah. But coach Lemagna and Archie Crossman, again, another partnership, are gonna be we're taking these kids on. We're gonna have to send off for them when they head off the state. It's just really heartwarming just to watch that happen
Speaker 2:at the at the bowling alley for sure.
Speaker 1:And and and that's exactly what I was thinking, Brady. We talked about a heart of a raider in a lot of raiders. And so this is just one aspect of the heart of a Raider right now. Absolutely. When these clubs and the heart for that and also for some of top bowlers, extremely And proud we also talk about our academics.
Speaker 1:Academics, we're excellent in academics, I must say, and AP reflects that on a global level. Tell us about that. Yeah. We're super proud
Speaker 2:of our AP offerings. Super proud of everything we do is getting kids ready for the next level, getting kids ready for college, getting kids ready for the workplace, industry certifications, those kind of things. But one of the things that we're most proud of is some of our most rigorous classes, our AP classes, which is overseen by College Board, and put these rigorous practices in place, out of our 19 course offerings, 11 of them are not just above the average, not just above the state average, but above the national average of our number of students passing those AP tests. That is huge, and that speaks volumes to the amazing teachers and also to the work ethic of our students, and again,
Speaker 1:the heart of a reader.
Speaker 2:So speaking to that, and so we're super proud of
Speaker 1:our
Speaker 2:academics, I just can't say enough about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so many great things happening in academics from your core academics that you have to offer, but beyond that into CTE and and post secondary opportunities, so many programs happening there. We're proud of that. Earlier, we mentioned about aviation. That's just one aspect of that.
Speaker 2:So he's at the limit.
Speaker 1:God is the limit. Literally. Literally. That's right. Well, other areas, though, I know is we at Cleveland High School, I see so many people excel in athletics and in the arts areas.
Speaker 1:Do you want to share a little bit of some of the exciting things about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, the GMEA All East Honor Band in in Eastern Part of The United States or Eastern Part Tennessee, sorry. 11 of our students, that's over 10% of our entire ensemble, has made it to the All East Honor Band. And two of those students are going to the All State Honor Bands, Cleveland High School at the state level. So we're super proud of that.
Speaker 2:We're super proud of them. Super proud of the work that Jim Burton and Eric Simpson does to get those kids competing at the local and the state level. So we're super proud of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's incredible and one of the areas I know is coming over the holidays, saw River Fox, the show choir this holiday. Oh, man. And y'all y'all still doing amazing amazing things. I'm super proud to see them out on the stage and out in our community performing at one of them
Speaker 2:when I was there. It makes you makes you hard when I'm done. One
Speaker 4:of the last days before school Christmas break started, we had a jazz band in our arena no. I'm sorry. In the front lobby. And it was just a cool way for our kids to come into school with the Christmas carols from the jazz band. It's like
Speaker 2:We had cookies and coffee that
Speaker 4:day too. The same day as well. Yeah. So Renaissance may have been everywhere. Our jazz band was was everywhere as well.
Speaker 4:That's right.
Speaker 2:So proud of you.
Speaker 1:That's great. Is there anything that we haven't asked you? I know there's so so much happening at CHS. How much time do you have? How time do Well, much you one thing I did wanna say is you you were mentioning something about bowling earlier.
Speaker 1:There's no new ball fans. We have so many offerings for athletics. I think that's what's so important is get the students involved, and we encourage our students to be involved and and connect with something. So That's right. Athletics is
Speaker 2:a great way to do
Speaker 1:that. I'm
Speaker 4:sure. And I'm sporting event that it recently added was our girls flag football team, and so they'll be in their second season coming up. And coach Reynolds has such a good time with those girls. So that's another latest, you know, addition.
Speaker 2:And I'll end with this. Karen Hall, she coined it best, and she's always said this, but and she she started this conversation with it. But Cleveland High School is so big, and so any way that these students can make Cleveland High School small for them and find a way to plug in somewhere, we encourage them to do that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And and so many great things. We spend all day talking and hopefully you have another opportunity in the future to share more about what's happening at Cleveland High School. But I really want to say thank you for joining us today, Mr. Pitcher.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much. On our first episode, I just want to see another one.
Speaker 3:Was the arena. The arena. Right. Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 3:We had to demolish the dome. We had some structural issues. They came back and built the arena. And that's actually in March. It'll be ten years ago that we opened the arena.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It really has. That's that's amazing. And I know George Town Road has a new elementary school out on that way, Caney Creek Cherokee. That's one of our elementary schools, and you were right there involved in that
Speaker 3:as well. Right. Project manager on that as well. And, yeah, we've done numerous other projects, renovations and all through the years. So it's been a lot of fun, as well as updating the transportation department, bringing in technology to our transportation department so that we have routing systems and GPS.
Speaker 3:So it's been fun time.
Speaker 1:So the world operations, what's kind of on your radar right now?
Speaker 3:We're updating the technology in the transportation department. We finally have enough bus drivers. That's been a struggle for a decade. Able sure make we're that So we're happy about to having that. Now we're trying to get it perfected and get it even better.
Speaker 3:On the building side, we're growing, we have more needs than we've ever had for our students. So, you know, keeping the present buildings in shape and keeping them up to date while at the same time expanding and and making better opportunities in our facilities so that we can support our teachers programs.
Speaker 1:And you and your team cover a lot of ground. So tell us exactly how many well, I guess you could tell us in square feet. How how much terrain does your team cover?
Speaker 3:Well, we're, like, 10 different locations with even more buildings than that even, and we have 1,300,000 square feet. Wow. So and so we have about, you know, one person for every 100 more than 100,000 square feet in the maintenance department, and that also counts mechanics who are taking care of about ten ten or so vehicles, but about 40 school buses. So
Speaker 1:yeah. Well, that's what I was thinking about was you were mentioning about communication with our bus buses and their students. Right. Right. So you said they receive a notification a a family can receive a notification if the bus not be delayed or something of that nature.
Speaker 1:Is that right?
Speaker 3:Right. If a if a bus breaks down and it's gonna be more than ten minutes late, then it's a operating procedure that we send out a notification. The nice thing is we don't have to send it to everybody. We can send it to just that bus and just that route. So we can notify those parents being affected that, hey, the bus has had a breakdown.
Speaker 3:And and while you like to think that that never happens, we're talking about about real life here, and and mechanical equipment does break down. You know? So so we're able to notify the parents or if there's a a road closure we weren't aware of and we're gonna be late. Or even on days where we have inclement weather, it's gonna delay a bus. You know?
Speaker 3:We've had that happen where we've had to hold buses due to tornado warnings and stuff. We can actually notify the parents that that that route you know, that bus may be late or there may be an issue.
Speaker 1:I think that's amazing because that's a peace of mind for our parents to know that where your kid is is your child is gonna
Speaker 2:be late, they're still there at
Speaker 1:the bus. We've got them in a safe spot, but they'll be home soon. Right. Right. That communication again inside the shield, Brandy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that's one of those four components of communication. So this is just one example of how we're trying to
Speaker 2:improve our communication. Yes.
Speaker 1:We want we want everybody to know all these things that are happening and all across our 10 plus facilities. And one of those being Barbers Market, we launched Barbers Market. That's why it's been a a big accomplishment. And and thank you to to these two gentlemen who were really behind this this whole program and and building it itself. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We're excited about Barbers Market here in Cleveland City Schools and it is downtown at the Denning Center and we're able to provide services for our families in a lot of different ways. And so we just got it up and going about a year ago and we continue to a vision to see that program grow and other resources there to support our families and students. Okay. And how is there anything we haven't talked to you about that you think is important for our families or community to know about?
Speaker 3:No. I think just know that we are we we take safety. That's our number one priority in our department is safety. And and so that's always what we strive for is to provide a safe environment, whether it's mobile or on the buses or whether it's it's where your students are trying to learn. It's it's safety is what we what we try to really provide in our environment.
Speaker 1:Alright, mister Nortaker. We thank you for joining us today at.