Tuesday, September 1

Times free press gives us this update- A 59-year-old truck driver died after his semi-truck smashed into a guardrail on Interstate 75 early Monday. As we reported yesterday morning about the crash ,today the man, identified as Kenneth Mills, was the lone fatality in the crash that jammed roads for most of the morning and shut down parts of the interstate until the early afternoon. The driver of a Chevrolet Equinox SUV suffered nonlife-threatening injuries after striking debris that landed in the road after the truck crashed. No injuries were reported by the driver of an RV that also struck debris in the road. According to police, Mills was traveling southbound on the interstate when he almost ran head-first into the guardrail near exit 7, the Bonny Oaks Drive exit, around 5:51 a.m. After striking the guardrail, Mills’ rig and hopper trailer jack-knifed and reportedly sent debris flying onto the interstate. Police did not say why Mills crashed. Information about Mills, including his hometown and employer, was not available Monday. The wreck was still under investigation Monday evening. I-75 southbound was closed until 8:30 a.m., when two lanes reopened. All lanes were reopened at 12:30 p.m., but the wreck wasn’t cleared until mid-afternoon. According to Tennessee Department of Transportation traffic data, around 70,000 motorists pass through the stretch of road on a daily basis. The fatal collision occurred only eight miles from the site where Kentucky truck driver Ben Brewer crashed his tractor-trailer into stopped traffic on the northbound side of I-75, killing six people on June 25. According to TDOT data, there were 961 traffic fatalities in Tennessee last year, and 103 — just over 10 percent — involved a large truck, though the data doesn’t say whether a large truck was at fault in the incidents. Chattanooga police said additional information about Monday morning’s crash will be released when it’s available. The Chattanoogan reports- The assistant prosecutor handling Benjamin Brewer’s case for the Commonwealth Attorney in Fayette County, Ky., has informed District Attorney Neal Pinkston that the Kentucky charges against Brewer have been dropped. Officials said this means Brewer is available to be extradited from the Fayette County, Ky., Detention Center to Hamilton County, where he faces six voluntary manslaughter charges. Brewer is charged in the June 16 incident in which the tractor-trailer he was driving plowed into a line of vehicles slowed or stopped for a construction project.. Brewer had been facing charges in Kentucky after three grams of crystal meth were found in his pocket. Arrangements for Brewer’s return to Hamilton County will be handled by Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office Fugitive Division. Times Free Press- CLEVELAND, Tenn. — Cleveland Utilities officials want to know what it will take to provide fiber-based Internet and phone services to its customers through a phased approach. In a recent meeting, the utility board voted 5-0 to approve a $12,500 consulting contact, excluding travel expenses, with Uptown Services LLC to discover those answers. In May, Uptown Services concluded a comprehensive study that weighed options for systemwide fiber service strategies that Cleveland Utilities President/CEO Ken Webb has described as “not overly optimistic.” An important step is to reduce required working capital to $1 million, as opposed to the $3 million to $4 million recommended for adopting a systemwide strategy,was reported. The new study calls for limiting the total number of premises in the initial launch area to no more than 3,000 households, David Stockton of Uptown Services stated in the proposal letter to Cleveland Utilities. The initial launch areas also should be representative of the full Cleveland Utilities service area, he said. Cleveland Utilities officials credit the utility-based fiber services initiative in Erwin, Tenn., as an inspiration for their desire to consider their own phased model. In July, the utility board voted 5-0 in favor of determining whether Cleveland Utilities should give further consideration to the feasibility of offering fiber-related Internet and phone services through a limited platform. Although a phased strategy would entail what could be described as a pilot project, a big commitment will still be required to purchase equipment and secure vendors, even if the cost is less than tackling a systemwide buildout. The initial fiber study projected that it would take Cleveland Utilities up to 15 years to break even if it included video as part of its fiber services. Fiber-based video is not part of the current study. Times Free Press- Phase one of Food City’s takeover of 29 Bi-Lo supermarkets has started in the Chattanooga area as the Abingdon, Va.-based grocer adds employees, cuts prices and looks to renovate stores. The report states Sept. 20 and 21are the target dates,: for both Cleveland stores, Ooltewah, Dayton, Soddy, Etowah to begain the change over. Channel 3 reports- Erlanger’s Life Force medical helicopter will soon have a new home base here in Cleveland. Beginning today, Life Force one will fly out of Cleveland’s jetport, picking up patients and taking them to Erlanger. The other helicopters in the Life Force fleet are based in Sparta, TN, Calhoun and McCaysville, GA. A base for Life Force five will open in Winchester, TN also today. Life Force one will be stationed in Cleveland 12-hours a day until December, when it will officially based 24/7. It will be stationed at Erlanger overnight until then. When the Cleveland hangar, including crew quarters is complete, Life Force units will surround Erlanger in the outlying counties to provide quicker response times for trauma injuries. Cleveland Daily Banner- A local school is experimenting with a new program designed to help students pay more attention to how they treat others. This fall, Hopewell Elementary School began the “Hopewell Houses”?program, which sorts students into groups called “houses” and allows them to earn points for being especially helpful and kind. Principal Tim Riggs said the program represents a change in how the school’s teachers and staff are beginning to think about students’ behavior. Last spring, eight educators from Hopewell visited the Ron Clark Academy, a private school in Atlanta. They had seen the school’s namesake speak at conferences before, and were interested in seeing how his ideas worked in real life. Riggs said they were impressed by how students there are divided into “houses” as they learn, and they began looking at ways to make the concept work in Cleveland. “It was very much a life-changing experience, so to speak, for the teachers,” Riggs said. When students began school in early August, they were randomly placed into one of four houses. Teachers used electronic “wheels” on the screens of devices like smartboards and tablet computers to ceremonially spin and let students know what their houses would be. Each house has a distinct name and color, and students will be contributing to their assigned houses as long as they attend Hopewell. The house names are based on the school’s team name being the Hopewell Elementary School Tigers. The Siberian house, associated with the color blue, values “honesty and bravery.” The Bengal house wears green and emphasizes “courage and sacrifice.” The Sumatran house wears yellow and focuses on “peace and generosity.” Students in Indo, short for Indochinese, have red as their assigned color and the house will emphasize “people, tradition and faith.” Riggs said the program could be compared to one at a famous fictional school — the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry featured in the “Harry Potter” children’s book series. In the books, students are sorted into four different houses based on how a magical hat they try on judges their personalities. While students at Hopewell will only be studying normal subjects like math and English language arts, the program is expected to result in what some might consider to be a different kind of magic. School counselor Jenne Wilson said the school’s approach to discipline for many years has been on singling out students’ bad behaviors and dealing with them. However, the new program also allows the school to showcase examples of positive behavior so the good will hopefully outweigh the bad. “This was just a natural next step,”?Wilson said. “We really want to shift from the focus being on the negative.”? Whenever a student is caught doing something that goes “above and beyond” what school rules require, he or she may earn points for his or her house. Using a smartphone application specially designed by Bradley County Schools technology coach Teresa Scoggins, teachers are able to assign points to students’ houses with a couple quick taps on a screen. The points accumulate over the course of the school year, and the houses are in continual competition to see which one can earn the most points. A screen on a wall of the school’s main hallway displays a graph to show students which house is in the lead on a given day. Wilson said the hope is the points system — and the promise of future rewards for those points — will offer the incentives students need to be mindful about how they behave. The points can be awarded for any action a teacher considers to be especially worthy of attention, like a student going out of his or her way to pick up a piece of litter on the playground after several students have already passed it by. In some cases, points are also awarded to the houses of students who do things that show they have made good behaviorial progress, like a frequently angry child being caught opening a door for someone or sharing with a classmate without a teacher asking him or her to share. Fourth-grade teacher Paige Pittman said she once gave points to her entire class at one time. While they had in the past been slow to line up to get ready to go from place to place, she found they had for the first time lined up quickly and quietly, which was “impressive.” No matter why a student has earned a point for his or her house, teachers often follow a similar procedure when awarding the points; the teacher will tell the student why he or she earned the points. “It’s educating students on expectations and skills that teach them how to be a good friend, how to be a leader,”?Wilson said. “There can be an immediate response to that good behavior.”? Riggs added a teacher telling a student he or she has done a good thing lets the student know good behaviors do not go unnoticed, hopefully encouraging them to revisit those behaviors in the future. The program is designed to keep the “good” kids from thinking only the “bad” ones get all their teachers’ attention. As each student is part of a team with a special name and a special color, it also allows students to practice a new kind of school spirit within their houses. “We’re looking at ways to really make this a part of the culture of our school,”?Pittman said. She said teachers are also considering dividing students into groups based on their houses for possible new peer tutoring or mentoring groups. Since the house system is based on students having been randomly assigned to a house, each house has students ranging from kindergarten to the fifth grade. Pittman said the houses represent a new opportunity for teachers to let older students practice their leadership skills. With their shared house names, colors and emphasized values, she added she sees the program as giving students a “family”?they can automatically be part of when they go to school. “We want them to feel like they belong,”?Pittman said. School faculty and staff are also assigned to houses, and many of them wear lanyards with their designated colors and house names. Even the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office school resource officer stationed at Hopewell, Mitchell Roe, has been sorted into a house and encouraged to help recognize students modeling good behavior. While faculty and staff are encouraged to serve as the designated cheerleaders for their houses, Riggs stressed all students are being encouraged to share the kind of kindness “that goes above and beyond the norm.”?In the future, as students continue to earn points, the school’s educators expect to host special lunches and other events to reward the house that has earned the most points at a given point in time. Though the program is in its first semester, students are already embracing it. Fourth-grader Maddie Simms said she is excited to continue to earn points with her house — Sumatran. “It’s like a fun competition,” Simms said. “And it’s really fun because everybody is trying to be nice to each other. … Now, a lot more people are being nice and kind.” Simms said more students are doing things like opening doors for teachers — and even being quieter than normal when lining up to go outside to meet their buses or other rides at the end of the school day. Her teacher, Pittman, said the incentive of being able to give students points for their houses has become a valuable tool in her proverbial bag of tricks. With the addition of the houses, the school also adopted a set of new rules dubbed “The 10 Essentials”?that emphasize good etiquette. Among them are instructions for students to say “thank you”?when they are given something, “always be honest,”?address adults as “sir’ and “ma’am,”?report any bullying and “be the best person you can be.”? Riggs stressed there are still consequences for students who act up, but he said this new program represents a way for Hopewell to encourage what is good rather than placing all the attention on the bad. “I think it will really turn our school around,”?Riggs said