Belinda Payne appointed as the site coordinator for the new TCAT facility in Fentress County.
Payne said she will manage the campus daily and oversee instructors as the facility begins hosting in-person classes and dual enrollment programs for high school juniors and seniors. Payne said she spent 19 years as a classroom teacher and four years as the reading ambassador for the Fentress County Schools.
“I’m going to be able to help Fentress County and Fentress County students with except it’s on a whole new level of instead of asking them like the the kind of books that they’re interested in reading and encouraging them to read,” Payne said, “That I could encourage them to make decisions about what they want to be.”
Payne said her responsibilities include coordinating with the TCAT main campus in Oneida and serving on the hiring team for new program instructors.
Payne said the opportunity to transition into higher education felt like an open door she could not ignore.
“I needed to be in a position that I was going to still be able to encourage kids you know, whether they be in elementary school or high school and I even told a group of adults yesterday if they enrolled in a class, you know, they would they would be a student to me, you know, a kid to me, it didn’t matter what their age was,” Payne said. “So it it was something that I wasn’t looking for but I’m very happy that that I have it.”
Payne said the TCAT programs will share the Fentress County Higher Education Center building with Roane State. Payne said the two institutions are working together to ensure the facility serves the best interests of the students regardless of which program they are enrolled in.
“One of the things that we are trying so hard to do is that we are working together on things,” Payne said. “That it’s not two schools even though it is two schools under one roof, that we come together because it’s it’s not what’s best for each one of our schools, it’s what’s best for the students that we have that are coming through our our programs.”
Payne said TCAT will continue to operate several programs at York Institute and Clarkrange High School, including cosmetology, culinary arts, welding, and automotive training. Payne said the practical nursing program was the only one moved from the high schools to the new main campus, where 11 or 12 students are scheduled to begin classes this week.
“My goal is as I want the people of Fentress County to see what we have and if they want to make a change you know in in a career or if they just want to like some may have never gone to school at all other than just high school, maybe they want to come back you know and try something out because I can tell you from experience it’s never too late to go back to school,” Payne said.
Payne said she is currently inviting community members to tour the facility to see the resources available to them.