Sullivan County Schools

The Spark

Sullivan County Schools was fighting a battle it shares with districts across Northeast Tennessee: finding and keeping good teachers. Competing with neighboring systems for the same shrinking pool of educators every year, Director of Schools Chuck Carter went looking for any edge he could offer. The region’s child care shortage kept surfacing as both the problem and the opening. Much of Sullivan County sits in a child care desert, and the district’s own teachers were caught in it. Young staff were weighing whether to stay in the classroom or step out to care for their own kids because quality care either didn’t exist or cost too much. Carter saw a single move that could work three ways at once: recruit teachers, retain them, and start building the early educators the region will need next. The catch was that no single program or budget could solve or pay for it. It would take the creative braiding of several partners and funding streams.

The Solution

In a public-private partnership with the Greater Kingsport Family YMCA, Sullivan County Schools is opening two on-site child care centers inside existing school buildings, one at Sullivan Heights Middle School and one at Sullivan East High School, on opposite sides of the county to reach as many families as possible. Together they’ll serve roughly 125 children ages 6 weeks up to the start of kindergarten, with priority enrollment for district employees. The district chose its sites with data, not hunches: working with First Tennessee Development District, it ran a child care needs assessment and a follow-up survey to pinpoint where demand was highest and which ages to serve.

The make-or-break factor was never any single decision; it was the partnership itself. As Tianna Storey, COO of the YMCA of Greater Kingsport, put it, what made this work was putting the right people in the room with the passion and commitment to see it through. No one partner could have done it alone. First Tennessee Development District contributed the data and kept the work moving; the Y, a trusted after-school partner, took on running the centers as the licensed child care operator; and Sullivan County Schools supplied the building blocks: classroom space, custodial services, and meals through the school nutrition department. The funding worked the same way, braided across partners rather than drawn from one source: a state New Care Partnership Grant anchored the build, the district’s in-kind services met the match, Northeast State’s per-student investment counted toward it, and Perkins CTE and regional workforce dollars powered the educator pipeline. Carter is blunt about it: without these partners, the effort would have tanked early. Every time the team hit a hurdle, the answer back was the same, “we can do this.”

What makes the model even more compelling is what’s wrapped around the centers: a grow-your-own teacher pipeline. High schoolers in the district’s early-childhood CTE program will work in the centers as classroom assistants while dually enrolled at Northeast State Community College, earning work-based learning credits toward academic credentials. At Northeast State they progress toward a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential and then an Associate of Applied Science (AAS) in early childhood. From there, graduates can step into a registered apprenticeship the YMCA built with Northeast State through the Department of Labor, and, should they choose, go on to a bachelor’s degree and licensure at East Tennessee State University, closing the loop back into the classrooms the district is trying to staff.

The Results

The centers are pre-launch, targeting the 2027 school year, so the hard numbers are still ahead. But the demand signal is already loud: interest from district employees alone has outrun the seats available at opening, and the district plans to expand to more schools across the county. State officials told the team this is the first partnership of its kind in Tennessee: a district and a community operator braiding partners and funding to open two centers at once, a state grant, in-kind services, and workforce credentialing dollars, into one public-private model, a template other districts can follow.

Carter is clear about what he’ll measure once doors open: teacher attendance (days no longer lost to child care that falls through), recruitment (new hires who name on-site care as a draw), and retention (whether exit interviews stop citing child care). The Y will track kindergarten readiness through pre- and post-testing of the children in its care, addressing a gap the district had already flagged: too many children arriving kindergarten unprepared. Carter’s own summary of the arrangement says it plainly: it’s a win for the district, a win for the YMCA, a win for parents, and a win for the kids: “a win-win-win all the way around.”