CommunityLink

Oak Ridge, TN

Education

Audie Embestro searched the country for the schools he wanted his three elementary-age children to attend. The owner of a business in Las Vegas that could be located anywhere, Embestro and his wife Maria chose Oak Ridge.

“Our number-one priority is education,” Embestro says. “Overall, with its quality of life, Oak Ridge has a lot more to offer than any other city. It was the whole city of Oak Ridge that made our decision to move here.”

Embestro says the planned new high school didn’t play a role in his decision to come here, but the community support for the project did make a strong impression. “The fact that the city, the community, would get involved in the venture of spending $55 million; the fact that the community would take on the endeavor of building a high school that is an investment for the future of the community — that interested me.”

The new Oak Ridge High School is projected to open in early 2008, blending new buildings with renovated sections of the 54-year-old school in a 383,000-square-foot complex. In matching the facilities to the quality of learning going on within its walls, the plans incorporate the latest in technology, recognize the range of student learning styles, and make the school “green” in ways that not only conserve energy but help students learn.

Support in the form of both momentum and money has flowed from the community. UT-Battelle, which manages the internationally renowned Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), provided both when it offered $100,000 for a study of the high school facility and educational program and provided an ORNL executive to work with the school system.

“As UT-Battelle began expanding the laboratory mission and hiring new people for the Spallation Neutron Source and the new major computer facilities being built, we needed to attract the best and brightest scientists to the lab,” explains Tim Myrick, director of strategic facilities planning for ORNL before retiring in 2004 and a loaned executive to the school district. “Having a new high school, with the academics already here, gives us a real draw.”

The community rallied around the new high school, voting overwhelmingly in 2004 to approve a half-cent sales tax increase proposed by the City of Oak Ridge to fund a portion of the high school. The Oak Ridge Public Schools Education Foundation pledged to raise $8 million in private-sector contributions, and federal bonds distributed by the state are also supporting the project.

An intensive planning process involving the entire community, from scientists to students, went on for six months, defining what they wanted the new high school to be. Planning continued, with students, teachers and citizens joining school district and high school administrators and architects on the School Design Input Team. The architects listened intently, particularly to details from students and teachers.

“The architects would ask, ‘What do you think, Evan?’” says Nita Ganguly, chair of the ORHS science department, referring to Evan Chasan, sophomore class president and one of three students on the team. “It is their building, after all, and that is what they kept emphasizing. The student perspective is very important.”

Teachers in each department met with the architects, providing details that were incorporated into the design. For example, teachers want a school whose design encourages collaboration between subjects, like science and math. They want to provide for different learning styles and have
technological tools that aid learning, among other improvements, according to Ganguly.

Both Evan and Ganguly are excited about many of the new features planned for the high school: science classrooms with modern labs, a new gymnasium that will allow ORHS to host tournaments, a small amphitheater, a food court-style cafeteria, wireless capability, great improvements for band and orchestra areas, more space for flexibility in sports programs, and more user-friendly public spaces for the community at large.

Oak Ridge Superintendent Tom Bailey says, “The thing that attracted Susan [his wife] and me, first and foremost, was the quality of the school system and, quite frankly, what we saw as a community that valued education.” The superintendent is committed to spreading the success story of Oak Ridge schools, making every effort to inform parents of prospective students when they call or visit.

Audie Embestro says Bailey and others he met during his visit here — from school principals, to the director of Girls Inc., to a local developer — all made him feel at home.
“I was really surprised when Tom Bailey said, ‘You got a minute? I’ll take you for a ride,’” Embestro says. “He gave me an orientation, took me all around the city. For an out-of-towner, that was a lot of help.”

Other Pre-K Through 12 Educational Options

Oak Ridge offers a range of educational options, including preschools, private schools and post-secondary institutions.

St. Mary’s School

St. Mary’s School in Oak Ridge offers a private school option for students from pre-K through eighth grade. Established in 1950 by St. Mary’s Catholic Church, the school serves 222 students, beginning with 4-year-olds in its full-day prekindergarten program. A renovation of the school, including a new gym, was completed in 2000.

St. Mary’s School welcomes children of all faiths. With 22 lay faculty members and four full-time Dominican Sisters of St. Cecelia Convent, Nashville, the school has full accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the Diocese of Knoxville, and the State of Tennessee. Average class size is 19 students.

St. Mary’s students have scored above grade level in all areas on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills for the last five years. Students have won the grand championship in the Junior Division of the Southern Appalachian Science and Engineering Fair at UT for five of the past six years. Students participate in a number of extracurricular and service projects throughout the year. For more information, call 865-483-9700.

Montessori School of Oak Ridge

Montessori School of Oak Ridge is a preschool and kindergarten that has provided quality Montessori education to the children of Oak Ridge and surrounding areas since 1976. The school serves ­children ages 2 and a half to 5 and has a kindergarten program that is state-certified.
Based on an attitude of respect for each child’s uniqueness, the school strives to meet the individual needs of each child and to provide an environment enriched with materials appropriate to the development of each child. These materials — in the areas of language, math, sensorial refinement, geography, history, science, art and
music — awaken the child’s interest and aid in the development of the child’s physical, social, emotional and intellectual being.

The Montessori environment fosters independence, self-confidence, a cooperative spirit, self-discipline, respect for others and respect for the environment, as well as a love for learning. The school offers an after-school program until 6 p.m. For more information, call 865-482-5036.

Higher Education

Roane State Community College
Oak Ridge, home to the largest branch campus of Roane State Community College, is truly a college town. Students at Roane State’s Oak Ridge campus may earn certificates or associate’s degrees and go into the workforce or complete their first two years of study before transferring to a four-year institution. A new Roane State-Tennessee Tech University agreement allows students to complete a bachelor’s degree in elementary education at Roane State’s Oak Ridge or Cumberland County campuses.

Roane State’s career-preparation programs train students
in business management, health science, office administration, police science and other fields leading to associate’s degrees or certificates. Roane State offers nursing and 13 health science programs.

Continuing-education opportunities are provided through a variety of non-credit courses that do not require admission to the college. These courses are offered for personal enrichment, for compliance with business and industrial requirements, for specific technological information, and for general cultural benefits, according to the college’s Web site (www.rscc.cc.tn.us).

The Roane State Oak Ridge campus, opened in 1999, continues to serve not only degree-seeking students, but the entire community. The Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning (ORICL) offers an array of courses and field trips to retired adults and others looking for enriching experiences.

Roane State, with seven locations throughout East Tennessee, serves more than 5,000 students, with 2,112 coming from Anderson County.

Pellissippi State Technical Community College
Pellissippi State Technical Community College is an accredited two-year public college offering students college experience for career advancement, for obtaining gainful employment, for transferring to a four-year institution or for continuing education, according to the college’s Web site (www.pstcc.edu). One of its four campuses is located in west Knox County just a short distance from Oak Ridge.
Pellissippi State serves about 7,500 full-time and part-time students, with more than one-third of those being non-traditional students outside the 18–24 age range. Founded in 1974, the college moved to a new 144-acre campus on the Pellissippi Parkway near Oak Ridge in 1986.

Pellissippi State provides college courses and programs through the associate’s degree level and meets a broad spectrum of community needs, including training and workforce development, educational support, life enrichment, and civic and cultural advancement.
Specific offerings listed on the Web site include:

• Associate’s degree and certificate programs that lead to employment in engineering technologies and business
• Programs and courses that prepare
students for transfer to colleges and universities
• Remedial and developmental education and other
educational support programs and services
• Training to meet specific needs of businesses,
industries and individuals
• Continuing education programs, seminars and workshops
University of Tennessee (UT)

The University of Tennessee, in nearby Knoxville, has a strong presence in Oak Ridge through its relationship to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), its graduate classes offered here, and the relocation to Oak Ridge of UT’s agency providing training and technical support to Tennessee’s 348 cities.

UT formed a partnership with Battelle that was chosen to
manage Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2000, but the
university and the laboratory have collaborated for more than 50 years. UT and ORNL share joint faculty appointments; joint institutes, including the Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences included in Gov. Phil Bredesen’s current budget; and other research partnerships and initiatives.

UT Evening School offers graduate courses in Oak Ridge that lead to master’s degrees in several engineering and related technical areas. UT President John Petersen, speaking at an Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce annual meeting, said UT’s presence in Oak Ridge will become more visible with the relocation of the Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS), a unit of UT’s Institute for Public Service. The 33-member MTAS staff located in Oak Ridge in 2005.

UT, a state land grant institution founded in 1794, has an
enrollment of 27,500, including more than 6,000 graduate students in master’s and doctoral programs. UT’s Web site (www.utk.edu) notes that eight UT programs and departments are listed in a recent U.S. News & World Report ranking of top graduate programs.