Citing a warmer reception from parents and sensing an opportunity to take on the challenge of teaching English Language Learners, the state announced late Friday it plans to take custody of Neely’s Bend Middle School starting with fifth grade next school fall.
The announcement, which the state Achievement School District made public at 5 p.m., ends months of speculation over what area school the state would take over as MNPS struggles to turn around more than a dozen other schools ranked among the lowest performing statewide.
ASD Superintendent Chris Barbic last month narrowed the state takeover decision to Neely’s Bend Middle School and Madison Middle School. He called choosing between the two as an art as much as a science, saying test scores between the two schools were at similarly low levels. A three-year average of scores showed Neely’s Bend with 22.7 percent of children at or above grade level and Madison scoring 20.8 percent at or above grade level. Both schools saw increases in all subjects since last year but have struggled with high teacher or principal turnover in recent years.
Meanwhile, high numbers of English Language Learners at Neely’s Bend provide an opportunity if connected with LEAD Public Schools, which has experience teaching students who speak a language other than English at home, said Barbic. According to Metro Schools’ Academic Performance Framework, 16 percent of students at Neely’s Bend are English Language Learners, compared to less than 7 percent at Madison Middle.
At a set of simultaneous town hall meetings at the schools last week, MNPS school board members bucked the ASD’s track record and led rancorous opposition to state takeover at the schools. Barbic said meeting with parents outside the meeting revealed more parents welcoming to a new school management.
“Once the cameras were gone and the politicians sat down, we could actually talk to parents individually, whether it was in their living room or it was after the meeting, I think that’s really where this is coming from. Again, both of these schools are in need,” said Barbic in a conference call with reporters Friday afternoon.
Jill Speering, Madison’s school board member who opposes the takeover, said Barbic’s claim gives her pause that some parents who don’t speak English may not have understood what was said. Further, she questioned why the ASD would take Neely’s Bend, one of the better schools on the city’s worst-of list.
“Why would they choose Neely’s Bend when they could have taken other schools that are much more in need of support, except to make their own ASD dismal scores look better,” said Speering.
According to the Tennessee Report Card, which measures student achievement among all districts and schools, 17 percent of middle schoolers in ASD schools were proficient or advanced in math last year, as were 21.8 in English language arts.
The announcement comes amid consternation in recent weeks as school board officials charge that that the ASD — and its partner charter operator that will run Neely’s Bend, LEAD Public Schools — lack the track record to prove that a conversion is the best decision and communities at town hall meetings at both schools pushed against possible takeover.
The move brings the ASD’s footprint up to 30 schools between Nashville and Memphis in the 2015 school year and teaching 10,000 students. Pressed about claims that the ASD’s test scores are lower than Neely’s Bend’s, Barbic said with one in five students at or above grade level, an intervention is necessary and contends LEAD’s presence in two other Nashville Schools are cause to believe they can turn Neely’s Bend around.
