The dominant topic of Tuesday night’s Metro Nashville Public School board meeting was charter schools, as the board reviewed four “new start” applications and an emergency amendment application.
Awards and Recognition
As per usual, the meeting started out acknowledging outstanding MNPS students. Tuesday night, the board recognized MNPS’ valedictorians and salutatorians, as well as career and technical education ambassadors from Hillsboro High School.
Governance
Without a director’s report from Adrienne Battle, the board moved straight to governance issues. This portion of the meeting started with a resolution from District 8 representative Abigail Tylor, who moved to adopt a resolution regarding the proposed new state education funding formula, the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act. District 7 representative Freda Player-Peters expressed concern about creating a resolution regarding legislation that hasn’t passed yet, while District 3 representative Emily Masters countered her point, saying that passing the resolution during the legislative process could present “a collective voice of the board and could actually serve as a tool to legislators as they continue moving forward.” The resolution ultimately failed.
After discussion of the resolution, representatives from MNPS’ office of charter schools approached the board to present their findings for each of the evening’s five pending charter applications. The office considers academics, operations, finances and, if applicable, past performance.
The first two charter applications were from KIPP Southeast Nashville College Prep — one to open an elementary school and one to open a middle school, both in Southeast Nashville. The review for the elementary school found that the application did not meet the district’s financial standards, and only partially met its standards regarding academics, operations and past performance. The middle school partially met the academics, finances and operations metrics, and it met the past performance requirement, as KIPP middle schools have been designated as rewards schools. Neither of the KIPP school applications were approved by the board, which board unanimously agreed to deny the elementary school application. Every member but District 6 representative Fran Bush voted to deny the middle school application.
Saber STEM Academy (for grades K-8) was next up. The proposal overview indicates that Saber, which currently has charter schools operating in Michigan, would have included an Arabic immersion program. Its proposed location was the "Islamic Center of Tennessee in Antioch. The district analysis of the application found that it did not meet the district’s standards for academics, operations or finances, but it partially met the past performance criterion. The board unanimously voted to deny the application.
The final new start application was that of the Tennessee Nature Academy (for grades 5-12). Its mission as stated in the district’s proposal interview is to “cultivate happy and healthy young adults who are knowledgeable about the world, passionate about the outdoors, and motivated to do good work.” Tylor and Player-Peters voiced their support for the environmentally minded premise of the school. At this point in the discussion, the livestream cut out — the Scene was tuning in virtually — and the Metro Nashville Network instead aired graphics with recycling tips. When the meeting returned, background music still replaced the audio as District 1 representative Sharon Gentry discussed charter application processes. It was pretty funny. The district charter office found that the school partially met academic and operational standards, but did not meet financial standards. District spokesperson Sean Braisted confirmed that the board denied the Tennessee Nature Academy’s application during MNN’s technical issues.
The final application of the night was an emergency amendment application for Knowledge Academy at the Crossings to consolidate its middle and high schools. In January, the board denied Knowledge Academy Middle School’s renewal request. The charter submitted an application to the state charter commission, but later withdrew that application before submitting the emergency amendment application through MNPS. The charter office found that Knowledge Academy didn’t meet the standard for “the addition or removal of a grade level or levels and changes in student enrollment threshold forth in the charter school's charter agreement.” The board discussion centered on the fact that the application didn’t come as an emergency, but as an opportunity for the charter, which has not reached its enrollment capacity.
“It is clear that they are using a loophole of this emergency request, there is no emergency,” said Gentry. “And so having missed the deadline, if we approve this … we are affirming a bad behavior.”
The emergency application was denied by the board, with Bush as the lone dissenting vote.
