The Aug. 4 school board elections will be the first partisan races in Metro Nashville Public Schools history. They’re also the first school board elections since 2020. In the years since the start of the pandemic, there has been heightened attention on local school boards, as heated political discourse has crept into the education realm and students continue to recover academically from a year of COVID-induced virtual learning. Some parents felt emboldened, taking on a greater role in their kids’ education — not to mention the education of the roughly 82,000 other students in MNPS.
There are two main camps in this year’s elections — those who have experience with education policy and those who don’t. Incumbents Rachael Anne Elrod (District 2) and Fran Bush (District 6) are running to keep their seats. Cheryl Mayes (District 6) served on the board from 2012 to 2014, but was not reelected in 2014. Berthena Nabaa-McKinney (District 4) owns an education consulting firm and was appointed to temporarily represent District 4 after then-representative Anna Shepherd died in 2020. Though John Little was ultimately elected to carry out the remainder of Shepherd’s term in the district, he lost to Nabaa-McKinney in this year’s Democratic primary election. Erin O’Hara Block (District 8) has held various education-related positions for the state and served as the executive director for the Tennessee Education Research Alliance. Aside from Bush, who is running as an independent, all of these candidates are running as Democrats, having won their party’s primaries in May.
Other candidates are citing their passion as parents in hopes of winning votes. Edward Arnold (District 2) and Amy Pate (District 8) are running as independents, while Todd Pembroke (District 2) and Kelli Phillips (District 4) won the Republicans primaries. Arnold has teaching experience, and Pate has been active within parent-teacher organizations.
Last month, Conexión Américas, Nashville Organized for Action and Hope, Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, CivicTN and Urban League of Middle Tennessee hosted a forum for the MNPS candidates, moderated by The Tenneseean’s David Plazas. Bush was the only candidate not in attendance, but she spoke through surrogate Bernadette Minyard.
Candidates’ opinions mostly stayed within party lines. Arnold, who unsuccessfully ran in 2014 and 2018, said he’s running independently because neither Republicans nor Democrats supported his fiscal proposals. Pate, who was especially critical of the district for keeping schools closed in 2020, said she’s running independently because she doesn’t “want to be involved in culture wars.” Bush also pushed for schools to reopen that year and often defies, butts heads with and criticizes her fellow current board members.
Plazas asked every candidate if they believe teachers should be armed in case of active shooters. Pembroke, a member of the U.S. Army National Guard, was the only candidate who supported the idea — so long as teachers receive training. Other candidates, including Phillips and Arnold, didn’t provide a definitive response about arming teachers. Arnold, along with Pembroke, Phillips and Minyard (on behalf of Bush) stated support for school resource officers. Bush does not support arming teachers. O’Hara Block and Elrod, who don’t support arming teachers, also were critical of the presence of SROs in schools. Neither Pate, Nabaa-McKinney nor Mayes mentioned SROs, but none supported arming teachers.
The Metropolitan Nashville Education Association Political Action Committee for Education — Nashville’s teachers’ union — endorsed Elrod, Nabaa-McKinney, Mayes and O’Hara Block. SEIU Local 205, which represents some MNPS support staff, endorsed Elrod, Nabaa-McKinney and O’Hara Block. SEIU is not endorsing a candidate in District 6. Though SEIU declined to comment, both Bush and Mayes have been criticized by unions in the past. In 2021, the teachers’ union filed an ethics complaint against Bush for fighting with teachers about reopening schools. In 2014, SEIU accused Mayes of violating board policies regarding campaigning on MNPS property. An SEIU blog post from that year says Mayes was “ousted from elected office thanks to the strength of SEIU’s political program. … Mayes was also a staunch supporter of the director of schools, Jesse Register, who the union has had repeated conflicts with since he arrived in Nashville.”
The attention surrounding the school board has died down since the district removed its mask mandate, and most culture-war-related issues have played out at the state level. The matters most likely to dominate the coming year include charter schools, safety and security, academic recovery, censorship and routine board responsibilities.
State and federal primaries and Davidson County general elections are on the Aug. 4 ballot
