Monday, August 25, 2008

Knox County Schools Treat Students Differently

This morning the students and faculty at Karns High School were evacuated to the football stadium due to a gas leak. They were held outside in the rain for 2 hours.

Austin East High School has a loss of power (electricity) and they close the school. Students and faculty go home early.

That is not fair and consistent to all the students and faculty. Some are expected to endure adverse weather conditions. While other student and faculty get a early dismissal. All on the same day by the same school administration.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brian,
Different issues with different solutions, perhaps.
The Gas leak: Perhaps they knew where the leak was and it was only a matter of getting KUB to fix it. KUB is very prompt at fixing those. Then it was just a matter of letting everything air out. A two hour solution.
Electrical problem(s): These can be tricky. Usually in order to fix these the electricity has to be turned off before repairs can be made. This might require the whole school to be shut down. Then the electrician(s) has to go in. Perhaps the problem was such that it would take longer than 2 hours.
Electrical problems, depending on their seriousnes and the nature of the problem can lead to other problems like fire, smoke and so on. Perhaps in order to make sure they wouldn't become an issue it was necessary to take enough time that canceling school was the only practical solution.
Your report doesn't contain enough reporting (facts) to really tell the what and whys of the decesion making process. Perhaps, two different people made these two decesions and, for whatever reason(s) came to two differnt conclusions on what to do.
And, there's the real possibilty that you're on to something and that there is either a policy in need of revision, updating, whatever or, perhaps, even, that someone screwed up.
You don't have enough facts in your posting to really tell what was going on. All you have is four facts: (1)Gas leakand; (2)some stood in the rain; (3) Electrical problem; (4) some went home.
That's all and I'm sorry but that's not enough to start editorializing on and on about unfair policies.
You might be right. Perhaps. But you really need to do more work and establish what exactly happened and why.

SteveMule

Brian Hornback said...

SteveMule,

I disagree that I do not have enough facts. It is the dame organization (KUB) that fixes gas at Karns and electricity at A-E. For your information, A-E was hit with a community wide outage. Meaning that Knox County Schools sent all of these students home to houses, apartments without electricity.

Your position that KUB fixing gas leaks quickly and electricity not so quickly is comical. After all a gas explosion was more likely than an electrical fire.

How is that for more info?

Anonymous said...

Brian,
That was my point - gas leaks are more likely to cause explosions than an electrical problem is a fire. That's why KUB is johnny on the spot when it comes to gas leaks.
Electrical problems are different matter. KUB's repsonsibilty for electrical issues depends on what side of the main breaker box the problem is on. If it was community wide than it was KUB's and there's no telling how long it would take to fix. A community wide outage implies more than a blown fuse or tripped breaker but something rather serious and, perhaps, time consuming to fix.
In the case of Karns, it seems they did right: Evacuate, wait for KUB, wait for all the leaked gas to disapate and resume class.
In the A-E situation, well, who knew how long it would take to fix?
So why not go home? Besides who says they stayed home in the dark? I would have gone someplace with power, like the library, the Mall, or somewhere.
I guess what I was trying to say was that it sounded like you went off very half-cocked. All this happened and right away you up decided the school administration was incompently letting some schools, and not others, out all willy-nilly.
Including the fact that the power outage at A-E would have been a nice touch. I thought (from your posting) that it was a problem at the school only and not the entire community.

SteveMule

Brian Hornback said...

have you been to the community of A-E? Where is the nearest mall, library etc.?

Anonymous said...

Brian,
"Mall, Library ..." I just thru those out as generic examples. I seriously doubt the kids stayed home in the dark and so would go ... someplace. That's all I meant to say with that.
Has there been more info that has come out since yesterday?
An update with links would be nice (and handy).
It's possible that the policy does need work - consistent implentation, but it's impossible to say from what I've read.

SteveMule