Knox County’s District 7 includes Halls, Powell and the surrounding rural areas. Running for school board to represent the district are an incumbent Republican and a Democrat in her first run for public office.

Fenner is opposed to school vouchers and charter schools, while Triplett supports both.

Republican Steve Triplett won election to the seat in 2022, trouncing Dominique Oakley by 42 percentage points in the first year of partisan school-board elections. The Democratic challenger, Amy Fenner, is a small-business owner who lives in Powell. Both were unopposed in their respective primaries.

School choice is the issue that most clearly divides the candidates. Fenner is vehemently opposed to school vouchers and charter schools, while Triplett supports both.

Neither candidate has emphasized fundraising. Fenner has raised $1,577 over the course of the campaign and Triplett has taken in $1,510. The incumbent started out with $4,442 in his account, however, though he hasn’t spent much and had $5,494 on hand as of June 30.

Fenner spoke with Compass for this article, but Triplett did not respond to messages seeking an interview. His profile comes from Compass news reports, his website and other media accounts.

Amy Fenner

Fenner has never sent a child of her own anywhere but a Knox County public school, and she says that is the core of her campaign for school board.

“I actually believe that public schools should exist,” she said. “I will never vote to give money away from public schools to private schools, and I will always be an advocate for students and teachers and caregivers and parents. My focus is our public schools.”

Fenner, 46, a longtime hairdresser who owned a salon in South Knoxville for years, has lived in the Knoxville area for 30 years, splitting time between Knox and Anderson counties. She graduated from Anderson County High School in 1999. She has three children who have all come up through Knox County public schools — two have graduated, and her youngest is now in the fourth grade.

“I think that’s the most important piece of my background is having public-school children,” she said. 

Fenner has never run for public office before, though her husband, attorney Jackson Fenner, ran unsuccessfully for law director in 2020 and 2024, and district attorney general in 2022. What finally pushed her to run, she said, was watching Triplett’s actions in office. 

“We have somebody who votes against the things that the district wants and has voted to take away funds from our public schools,” she said. “That was the main reason that I ran; I wanted to protect that, and also nobody else was doing it, and I didn’t think that somebody should be able to just walk away with this job that they’re not necessarily good at.”

Vouchers top her list of concerns, both for her district specifically and for Knox County Schools as a whole. Asked about the biggest challenges facing the district, she named funding first and pointed directly to the state’s voucher program. 

“I think vouchers are a scam. The people who are better equipped to send their kids to private school are getting a coupon to save money to keep sending their kids to private school.”

Asked further on where she stands on vouchers, she didn’t hold back.

 “I think that the whole system needs to be dismantled. I think it’s an assault on our public schools and a money grab.” Fenner said she’s not supportive of charter schools either.

She’d also push back on County Commission’s recent move to redirect about $4 million from the schools budget to help fund raises for general county employees, which forced the district to reopen its budget and impose furloughs and staffing cuts. 

“I would do everything that I can to protect the budget, especially since those were already voted on,” she said. “I don’t think the schools’ budget should have to make up the shortfalls of the county, especially when there’s so many issues with funding for Knox County schools now.”

On what every Knox County student deserves, Fenner named food and equitable funding first. 

“Kids don’t learn if they’re not fed,” she said. “This helps with attention spans, and also, I think that all of our Knox County schools should be equitably funded, so every child gets an equal and fair shot at success.” 

She said she sees public schools as a genuine avenue to success when they’re resourced properly and used the way they’re meant to be.

Fenner also pointed to reducing screen time as a personal priority, citing studies suggesting heavy technology use can reduce how much information students actually absorb. She said she’d like to see schools lean back toward pencil-and-paper instruction, even cursive, and away from reliance on devices in the classroom.

Book removals from school libraries this spring drew a sharp response from Fenner, who called the effort a form of censorship. 

“Historically it has taken civilizations down a really scary road,” she said, adding that she doesn’t believe the decision should rest with people who haven’t read the books in question.

Transparency is the thread running through most of her platform. She pointed to a recent rezoning decision in her own Powell neighborhood as an example of residents being given the appearance of input without the substance of it. 

“They kind of gave us the illusion that there was a choice in there when actually their decision was already made,” she said. 

She said she believes whoever holds the seat owes the district an open line of communication. If elected, she said, she’d respond directly to constituent emails and hold informal meet-ups at local coffee shops so no one feels left out of the process.

Fenner is also involved with the parent advocacy group Public School Strong, a national effort to support public education beginning at the local level.

Asked what sets her apart from her opponent, she circled back to where she started: She’s a public-school mom who has never sent her kids anywhere else, and she says that’s not a talking point but the reason she’s running.

Steve Triplett

In his only comments through local media during this cycle, Triplett told KnoxTNToday that he’s running “because I believe our schools must remain focused on academic excellence, strong leadership, and rebuilding trust with parents. I am not seeking reelection to manage decline or get distracted by side issues — I’m running to raise standards and expect measurable results.” 

He said his top priorities are academic achievement, partnerships with parents and accountability.

“Over the past four years, we have seen improvements in proficiency rates in Math, ELA, Science, and Social Studies,” he said. “That progress matters — and it must continue. We must ensure every child can read proficiently, perform math at grade level, and graduate prepared for college, career or the skilled trades.”

Triplett said the district’s success must be measurable and clearly communicated to the community. “If we cannot measure it, we cannot improve it. Data — not politics — should guide our decisions and drive continuous improvement,” he said.

Triplett said Knox County Schools should be measured by third-grade reading proficiency, math proficiency at every grade level, graduation rates, the career and technical certifications that students earn and teacher-retention rates.

An investment in teachers is an investment in student success, Triplett said. “Teachers stay where they are respected, supported, and empowered to succeed,” he said. “During this term, we have invested more than $40 million in teacher compensation, resulting in fewer than 10 teaching vacancies at the start of the 2025-2026 school year.”

Triplett, the most outspoken religious conservative on the board, told KnoxTNToday that “Ultimately, students thrive when their lives are grounded in hope and purpose. That hope can only be found in faith in the risen Savior, Jesus Christ. While our schools serve families of all beliefs, we must recognize that strong families, moral clarity, and supportive communities are fundamental to student well-being.”

Triplett has taken a consistently pro-school-choice stance during his term in office. In January 2025, he unsuccessfully proposed adding support for private-school vouchers to the board’s list of legislative priorities.

“We are the answer for most of Knox County, but probably not all of Knox County. (Vouchers) provide some opportunities for those that will find a better fit somewhere else, not to the lack of our own effort, but just because it’s a better fit somewhere else,” he said at the time.

Triplett voted to approve the charter-school application for Knoxville Preparatory School in 2023. (The school closed at the end of the 2025-26 school year.) Zach Wishart, the executive director of the Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville, is working with Triplett’s campaign. Wilberforce wants to open a K-8 charter school in the Cedar Bluff area to offer “unapologetically Christian” education, and it has sued the school board over the state’s prohibition against religious charter schools.

Triplett, an ally of Moms for Liberty, supports removing library materials deemed offensive under state law, though he said the controversial removal of Roots from school libraries was an “overreach.” (Superintendent Jon Rysewyk later reinstated Alex Haley’s landmark book.)

He also joined in a failed attempt to keep children participating in the Freedom Schools program, a summer literacy program, from riding Knox County school buses already shuttling students to the district’s other summer programs.

Triplett graduated from Crown College, the Bible college and seminary in Powell, and his children attended Christian schools, including one he worked at in Ohio. 

He spent several years working as a school administrator at Heritage Christian School in Cleveland, Ohio, which his two children also attended, but resigned in the fall of 2013 because of fiscal improprieties. No charges were filed and Triplett paid restitution, according to the school.

Triplett moved back to Knox County. A Halls resident, he is general manager of the Chick-fil-A restaurant in Fountain City.

The disclosure of his experience in Ohio, which occurred just before the 2022 GOP primary, had no apparent effect on District 7’s largely Republican voters.

Triplett opposed the decision to redistrict Powell Elementary School students earlier this year because his constituents opposed it.

“Strong schools are built on strong relationships, and that starts with being accessible and engaged,” he told KnoxTNToday.

He said he would maintain open lines of communication with parents and community members, work closely with school administrators, attend community and school events, and respond directly to parent concerns, “even when the conversations are difficult.”

Triplett said on his website that he has been blessed to serve the next generation of leaders as a principal, as a pastor, as a parent and as the manager of a business that employs young people.

“Our kids need us now more than ever and I believe I am called to serve them and be a voice for families on the Knox County Board of Education.”