Sullivan County BOE race: 3 seek Republican nomination for District 5

BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) — Three candidates will compete for the Republican nomination for the District 5 Sullivan County Board of Education seat in the upcoming March 5 primary election.

News Channel 11 spoke with candidates Rodney Padgett, Todd McKinley and Zack Smith. Incumbent Randall Jones is running for reelection as an independent so he will not appear on the primary ballot.

News Channel 11 asked each candidate what motivated them to run and got their perspective on education issues ranging from transportation to school safety.

Todd McKinley

Todd McKinley is a Kingsport native and Army veteran who currently serves as East Tennessee Vice Commander for the American Legion.

McKinley told News Channel 11 he’s running for the school board to ensure that local taxpayers have a voice on the board.

“A of the number of people that are on the school board right now have forgotten that they represent people, and they’ve left them out of the equation whenever it comes to making decisions,” McKinley said. “I want to see that people have a voice and a say.”

McKinley said his time working at the White House before and after his Army career makes him a great candidate for the office.

“I’ve dealt with a lot of high-level officials, and I’ve dealt with major budgets,” McKinley said. “Of course, the budget that the school board has is not going to be any different than that.’

When asked about his top priorities for the district, McKinley emphasized teacher pay.

“I think if you can retain or recruit a good teacher and you’re going to have a better product that’s going to graduate high school,” McKinley said. “I’m not trying to say a student is a product, but in a lot of ways it is, and an educated public is an employable public.”

McKinley is not supportive of efforts within the district to move from contract transportation companies to maintaining and operating its own bus system.

“With three contractors in the county, why change horses midstream?” McKinley asked.

RELATED: Sullivan County Schools to study bus changes

He doesn’t support Governor Bill Lee’s voucher plan, currently up for debate in Nashville, though he is an advocate for school choice in general.

“I think it’s going to really help people that can generally afford a private school as it is,” McKinley said. “It’s really not helping the masses if you will.”

With regards to threats against schools, McKinley said he’d like to ensure that school resource officers are focused on maintaining security rather than seeing to student discipline.

“Instead of having them just doing random things throughout the day, they should be focused on doing the duties of an SRO,” said McKinley.

Rodney Padgett

Rodney Padgett based his decision to run on his personal experiences inside and outside Sullivan County Schools.

He told News Channel 11 he pulled his kids out of the district for one year, sending them to private schools. That experience and his son’s time at the former Innovation Academy led him to be more involved in the district.

“Within about 2-3 months of him starting in the Innovation Academy, there was a newspaper article came out that they were thinking about closing that academy along with closing two other middle schools earlier than they had planned on for the consolidation process,” Padgett said.

Padgett said he began getting involved in the board and county commission as a parent, advocating for teacher pay and keeping the Innovation Academy open.

“This is the natural progression of things,” Padgett said. “I’ve tried to work from the outside looking in, and now I want to see what the inside is so that maybe I can see if there’s any difference that I can make there.”

Padgett’s top priorities include raising teacher pay, facilities improvements and improving service in the county’s bus system. Overall, however, Padgett’s main goal is to improve the district’s level of academic achievement.

“We have Science Hill in Johnson City, you have [Dobyns-Bennett] in Kingsport, we have Tennessee High over in Bristol; I mean, there’s some really good public school systems around us,” Padgett told News Channel 11. “I want our county’s kids to be able to compete with them.”

Padgett said the county’s plan to pilot running a few of its bus routes without a contractor is “worth giving a try.”

Padgett is strongly against the governor’s voucher plan and expressed concern that it could create a need to raise local taxes.

“As you lose kids from our system, each one of those kids has money that comes to us, to the public system when they’re here that will no longer be there,” Padgett said.

Padgett said looking into technology solutions for security threats, like the silent alarms used in Bristol Tennessee City Schools, is worth pursuing.

Zack Smith

Zack Smith works with the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office as a K-9 deputy and School Resource Officer.

Smith told News Channel 11 he’s running for the seat in part because of his two children’s experiences in the district.

“I think it’s really important to be involved with your local government,” Smith said. “You can really shape how things are going with your local government in your community.”

Smith said his own experience as an SRO, primarily at West Ridge High School, gives him insight and connections in the district.

“I feel like that gives me a huge advantage to be able to speak to the teachers every day, speak to the administrators,” Smith said. “I’ve already built a relationship of trust and understanding with these teachers.”

If elected, Smith said improving facility maintenance would be his top priority.

“I do feel like building maintenance is really suffering right now and that’s something we can improve upon because if our schools aren’t safe, then I think learning will suffer as well.”

Smith has a mixed view of the current board’s steps towards running its own bus routes. He is eager to see the district put miles on the buses it already owns but said the costs could be overwhelming.

“If we’re going to do it, we need to start taking it more seriously and looking into these steps,” Smith said. “But it is going to be a big financial undertaking.”

Though personally in favor of Governor Bill Lee’s voucher system, he said he wouldn’t support it as a board member because of feedback he’s heard from constituents.

As an already-serving SRO, Smith said the district does take threats seriously.

“We act quickly. We don’t wait until the next day to speak to the student,” Smith said. “We go to that student’s house that night that we hear threat before they’re even in the building again.”

Early voting ends Feb. 27.

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