The Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) Board of Education provided school choice supporters with a mixed bag at Monday afternoon’s specially called meeting.
The board voted in favor of a request by Knowledge Academies to consolidate its three Antioch schools under one charter but denied a new school request by southeast Davidson County-based Tennessee Nature Academy. Both school requests have emerged in recent months as key tests for how welcoming the MNPS board will be to charters.
Knowledge Academy Decision Ends a Lengthy Dispute
The decision involving Knowledge Academies in particular has been a source of dispute for months.
The charter operator requested consolidation after MNPS denied a charter renewal for Knowledge Academy Middle School in January. Under the plan, Knowledge Academies would merge the middle school and Knowledge Academy High School into its KA @ the Crossing charter that runs through June 2026. This decision would allow families with children who’ve been attending Knowledge Academy Middle School to remain with the charter during the upcoming 2022/2023 school year and extend the charter for Knowledge Academy High School through June 2025. All three schools are located on the same property in Antioch.
The MNPS Board of Education denied Knowledge Academies’ request and administrators appealed to the Tennessee Charter Commission which sided with them in June. That decision left MNPS with two options, approve the consolidation request or appeal and leave parents in the dark about where their children would attend classes next month.
“My concern is of course that our power as elected officials is being taken,” said board member Rachael Elrod. “The decision-makers are not the people that are supposed to be in charge of our school system but instead an unelected unregulated commission that creates their own regulations.”
Elrod was among those voicing support to appeal the Tennessee Charter Commission decision but even a few of the five board members who voted in favor of approving Knowledge Academies’ request expressed frustration with the process.
“This process is broken,” said board member Sharon Gentry “If we’re making decisions based on enrollment needs and we don’t have those enrollment needs and we don’t have a capacity problem, we get overruled.”
Tennessee Nature Academy Vote Close
The board’s other charter decision proved to be equally close.
MNPS board members voted 5 to 4 against a new start charter school application from the Tennessee Nature Academy to provide a nature-based education to up to 684 middle and high schoolers in southeast Davidson County.
“I still have come to the conclusion that it does not meet the standards. Is it a unique even innovative idea, I mean sure.” said board member Emily Masters. “Is it my job to allow my head to be turned by those appeals? It is not.”
The approval process for the Tennessee Nature Academy has involved allegations of unfair treatment from the school.
Tennessee Nature Academy administrators argue that MNPS board members did not receive an accurate report on their application from the charter evaluation team. They claim charter review made 18 incorrect statements in their recommendation against the Tennessee Nature Academy including findings administrators say incorrectly portray their ability to provide adequate funding, pupil-teacher ratios, Algebra I for 8th graders, student achievement gap solutions, and accessibility for students with disabilities among other needs.
In the MNPS July 12 meeting charter evaluators admitted it’s possible they may not have read new information in the amended Tennessee Nature Academy charter application when making their final recommendation because it wasn’t highlighted.
Board member Fran Bush continued to express concerns that the disputed findings still haven’t been properly addressed.
“I’m still uncomfortable with this process,” said Fran Bush “Their argument that this information was incorporated into their amended document and yet we’re still not able to come up with a good decision to say, maybe you all got it wrong because we don’t know.”
The Tennessee Nature Academy will have the option of appealing its denied application to the Tennessee Charter Commission.
