Kingsport school officials fight GOP backed vouchers, look forward to ‘Domecoming’ By RICK WAGNER rwagner@sixriversmedia.com Jan 21, 2025
KINGSPORT — Kingsport City Schools is going headlong into two big things in the next seven days: opposing statewide vouchers and preparing for “Domecoming” 2025. Wednesday morning, 132 anti-voucher cover letters are going out to every Tennessee lawmaker: 99 state House members and 33 state Senate members. The letters will explain the accompanying KCS Board of Education’s resolution opposing Gov. Bill Lee’s universal voucher legislation, known as the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, to be considered in a special session of the General Assembly starting Jan. 27. It would expand a program using public money for private school tuition in Shelby, Davidson and Hamilton counties to all 95 counties in Tennessee.
The other focus is the 2025 basketball “Domecoming,” which is the informal title KCS Chief Academic Ofcer for Elementary Education Holly Flora informally has dubbed the Homecoming basketball game Tuesday, Jan. 28. The game will mark the return to the renovated Buck Van Huss Dome at Dobyns-Bennett High School, where the varsity girls and boys D-B Indians will square off with Gate City High School Blue Devils from across the state line in neighboring Virginia.
VOUCHERS OPPOSITION Board of Education President Melissa Woods said she is proud of the Kingsport school board and others in the region who have gone on record against Lee’s proposal and tying it in any way, shape, form or fashion to disaster relief for schools or communities hit by the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and the tropical storm it birthed. Those school boards so far include ones in Sullivan County, Washington County, Johnson City, Elizabethton and Greeneville, with the Bristol, Tennessee, board to meet Thursday, Woods and Hampton said. The cover letters and KCS resolution also will be accompanied by a “template” for citizens, teachers and others to voice their opposition to the vouchers, Woods said.
“Remind legislators they represent us,” Woods said, adding she hopes “our voices come out loud and clear.”