Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Education CP: Great Hearts Changes Tune With Appeal
Posted by Jonathan Meador on Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 1:25 PM
The City Paper is reporting that the Arizona-based charter school corporation Great Hearts Academies has amended its proposal to the Metro school board following an initial rejection that sparked debate among the city's political power centers.
Steve Cavendish reports that Great Hearts' revised application will address transportation concerns as well as the number of schools it plans to open.
The revised application includes a transportation plan — something they claim is not needed but was cited as a deficiency by the board's charter review committee — and identifies the West Nashville area where they would put their first school."The decision rendered by the MNPS Board of Public Education on our charter application was not compliant with board policy or state charter law and we appeal to you for reconsideration," reads the letter from CEO Dan Scoggin and Great Hearts America-Tennessee President Peter Bezanson.
Metro’s Charter Review Committee, which recommended the board reject Great Hearts’ initial charter application last month, is in the process of reviewing five charter groups that have appealed prior denials.
The board will rule on appeals at its June 26 meeting.
Great Hearts is currently searching for property or a building within a 2.9-square-mile area bounded by White Bridge Road, I-40 and 25th Avenue along Centennial Park and West End Avenue. This would be the first of five proposed academies, a point of contention between Great Hearts and MNPS, which claimed that it has no process to award five charter schools at once.
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Great Hearts did alter their transportation plan to add proposed point-to-point busing from locations within the city and then from future academy locations. But this busing plan would only exist for the first, West Nashville location.
In its letter to the board, Great Hearts curiously did not directly address the concerns over diversity, which attracted the most skepticism over its initial proposal.
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