Today's Opinions

By Kent Flanagan, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government

Tennessee Department of Children’s Services has one of the toughest, most unforgiving jobs in state government — to protect the most vulnerable children in our society from harm — but few Tennesseans know much about the agency.

Most details about Children’s Services operations are denied to the public by confidentiality required under state law to protect the privacy of the children and the families that come into contact with DCS.

Gerald Largen’s “I told you so” column on on the jailhouse situation (Friday, March 8) proved that he has the uncanny ability to discern the future without ever having lived there.

Some would call this ability clairvoyance. However by using that power or by transitting a time portal, he was able to accurately predict that the new jailhouse would not achieve incarceratorial nirvana.

I am a school bus driver for Roane County Schools, and I would like to take the time to thank our new director of schools, Gary Aytes, for helping to keep the children and bus drivers safe.  

I have driven for Roane County schools for seven years.  

At the beginning of the school year, Aytes was there to welcome us and let us know how much he appreciated what we did.  

He also came by a few weeks ago while we had our bus certification and did the same.