February’s second Metro Nashville Public Schools board meeting was a relatively quick one. Before the official meeting started, a director’s evaluation committee discussed semiannual feedback — the official director’s report will come in August. District 8 representative Erin O’Hara Block presented notes from board members along with self-evaluations from Director of Schools Adrienne Battle. While Battle’s self-evaluation touted successes, board member feedback highlighted areas where they would like to see more action and information, such as “Continued focus on grades that are not making as much progress,” and “specific strategies to address achievement gaps.” The full report can be found here.
At the top of the board meeting, Battle honored the late Debbie Booker, former principal of The Academy at Old Cockrill, with a resolution. She also took the opportunity to shout out East Nashville Magnet Middle School’s basketball team for winning the Tennessee Middle School Athletics Association boys’ basketball state class A championship. Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet High School’s Spencer Nicholas was also honored for his achievement as a state swimming champion.
With no director’s report, the meeting flowed straight into public participation. Several Metropolitan Nashville Education Association union members discussed the need for more adults in school buildings and the better pay required to get and keep them there. Because public participation now must be tied to an agenda item, many educators discussed these issues alongside a contract with Systems Integrations Inc., which will allocate more than $1 million to gun detection and monitoring software.
“This is a problem that should instead be addressed by investing in raising substitute teacher pay to a level that respects the skill, professionalism and absolute necessity of both long-term and day-to-day guest teachers,” said Antioch High School teacher Hallie Trauger. “Surveillance is not safety, and enhanced cameras cannot substitute for the relationships that make adequately staffed schools thrive as safe and supportive communities.”
One commenter used the current Neely's Bend zoning changes as an avenue to discuss understaffing. LEAD Neely’s Bend Middle School — a charter school — is transitioning out of the state-run Achievement School District and under the authority of the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission. As such, it will now become an open-enrollment school rather than the cluster’s zoned middle school.
The MNPS board unanimously approved a reconfiguration of Amqui and Neely’s Bend Elementary Schools to become pre-K-8 schools over the next few years in order to make space for students who would have been zoned to LEAD Neely’s Bend Middle School. LEAD representatives told the Scene last week that the only change for students is that they now have to fill out an application to attend LEAD Neely’s Bend Middle School, and that students who would have originally been zoned for that school will still be able to attend.
