One of the three Knox County School Board First District Candidates on May 1, 2018 (Early Voting April 11-26, 2018) is Andre Canty. He has a Facebook page for his campaign, here and he is on Twitter, here. He is a native Knoxville, Graduate of South Doyle High School. He said that he is the old man in the race, 32 years old. He served on the Disparity Outcome Task Force, serving as Chairman. The idea of the task force began in 2014 but did not begin until 2015. The disparity task force looked at achievement and discipline. He was the youngest person on the task force and he now co chairs the steering committee of the disparity task force. The Steering Committee is the next step and deals with implementation and monitoring. The task now is to secure buy in and funding. Restorative Justice is a key component to the disparity task force report. Many people do not understand restorative justice, it holds kids accountable for misbehavior, it keeps them in school and teaches them how to remedy past misbehavior and how to correct that misbehavior in the future. Fully Funding the restorative justice component began with a price tag of $52,000 and now the price tag is between $200,000 – $300,000. It may be necessary to bring in private partnerships or Canty’s real job is with the Highlander Center, grant writing is one of his responsibilities and tasks at the Highlander Center.
Andre Canty and I on 2/23/2018
Canty is the youngest president to serve the organization, 100 Black Men. the 100 black men mentor 25 mentee young men. One of the educational necessities in school is literacy, not only reading literacy, but financial, math skill literacy. South Knox County in the Ninth District is different than the Canty’s First District. The opioid crisis is a key issue in rural South Knox County.
In Knox County Schools there have been 75 arrests. One issue is that the last signed MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) between Knox County Schools, the City of Knoxville, Knox County and law enforcement was in 2009. A lot has changed in 9 years and another MOU needs to be addressed and signed. Treatment and Counseling should be addressed in the next MOU along with education on opioids could be included. School Resource Officers use to be used for DARE and other programs. Canty recalls a school resource officer being an Assistant Coach at South Doyle High, those officers could be utilized for educational services through the MOU.
If Canty is elected, he envisions town hall meetings. These opportunities could be every couple of months or once a quarter. One of the statistics is that most of the kids that kill or were killed were kicked out of school at some point. Canty will work to increase student participation in the democratic process, a meet and greet with students might be a pick up basketball game or MMA (Mixed Marital Arts) and then visit with the students to hear their ideas and concerns. The school board has no term limits. however, Canty pledges an exit plan, he doesn’t want to stay forever. Ultimately, he wants to work himself out of a job.
