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by Liam Bridgeman
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The Greene County Commission added themselves to a growing list of school boards in Northeast Tennessee voting on resolutions opposing the Education Freedom Scholarship Act.
A bill that as its currently written would offer publicly funded scholarships for thousands of Tennessee students to attend private schools, among other things.
Josh Arrowood is the Greene County commissioner that proposed the resolution. He's also a teacher within Greene County Schools.
The resolution was passed 19-1.
“A lot of Greene Countians were voicing their displeasure and I wanted to make sure they had a voice in this matter,” he said.
Recently the county mayors of Northeast Tennessee publicly endorsed the education freedom scholarship act, including Carter County Mayor Patty Woodby.
“It's no different than choosing a pediatrician or a medical doctor. We're going to choose the best that we can get for our children and I think that bill this bill is a stay up in the right direction for that,” Woodby said.
Woodby says part of why this bill has her support is because it would lessen the financial impacts on public schools for losing students.
“One of the reasons why I chose to support the bill is to protect carter county schools systems from loss of enrollment and losing millions of dollars that we as a county government would not be able to sustain our budget to them to offset that loss,” she said.
Carter County Schools and Elizabethton City Schools both opposed the legislation.
Arrowood says his concern is spending.
“In my situation as a county commissioner, you know I’m usually not favor of spending more than what you have and state revenues flatline and possibly even dropping so you're possibly even creating this whole new program that that's going to run a big deficits and that that will hurt public education potentially later on,” he said.
The bill, as it currently stands, does not specify how long public schools will be held harmless financially from a decrease in enrollment.
Governor Bill Lee is expected to call a special session for the Tennessee General Assembly to convene and pass the Education Freedom Act on Monday, Jan. 27.
