Public charter schools haven’t exactly received the warmest of welcomes from the Metro Nashville Public Schools Board of Education in recent years, but Dr. Brenda Jones hopes to change that Tuesday night.
Dr. Jones’ proposed Invictus Nashville Charter School is one of three charter applications board members will be deciding whether to approve. The board denied all three in the initial round of the approval process last April. That vote followed a similar denial of every proposed public charter school the year before.
Jones hopes Invictus Nashville will find an easier path with its education model that focuses not just on academic outcomes, but social and emotional outcomes, opportunities for students to direct their education, and help students figure out what they want to do and what they can do to pursue their goals.
“Everything about Invictus Nashville is dedicated to that outcome and that outcome being what happens to our students when they leave our four walls. So, the mission of Invictus Nashville is to help every student identify their unique path to personal and professional freedom, whatever that looks like for them, so we are not the owners of their success,” said Dr. Jones.
As a Nashville native who grew up in Cayce Homes, Dr. Jones has experienced the public school system firsthand. Using a special transfer, she was able to attend Hillsboro High School in Green Hills instead of her zoned school in East Nashville.
Jones says she created the proposed Invictus Nashville to take her experience both as a first-generation graduate and as a former public charter schoolteacher to make a school that brings out the best of the public education system and bring more options to Nashville.
“The name of my school is “Invictus Nashville,” and if you are familiar with the poem, “Invictus” means “unconquerable.” So, I am very much a Nashville native and I believe that Nashville is an unconquerable city and that is reason for the name,” said Dr. Jones. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else. Nashville is home. It’s exactly where I want to be and I want to invest in my community. This is the place that I had to overcome obstacles to get to where I am today. This is where I’ve had my highs, and this is where I’ve had my lows. And I know there are students and families who are in the same situation as I was as a first-generation high school graduate, trying to figure out what life would be for them. And I want to be able to be that model.”
The proposed K-8 public charter school would serve families in Donelson and Hermitage. The area is currently part of the McGavock school cluster of Nashville, which has the largest high school in Middle Tennessee and ten percent of Metro Nashville Public Schools’ student population.
The school would utilize a mentoring program and the Montessori model, which allows students the opportunity to use their creativity and self-direct their learning path. This will also allow the students opportunities to be in mixed grade levels, so that they can extend their learning or receive additional support and prepare them for the project-based learning model of the middle school.
If the application is approved, Dr. Jones will be the first Nashville graduate to open a public charter school in the district.
