Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) District 5 school board member Christiane Buggs listed public charter school demographics as one reason why she planned to vote against an application to open Invictus Nashville Charter School.
Any parents listening to her comments during Tuesday’s board meeting came away with an inaccurate view of who public charter schools are actually serving. Buggs claimed public charter schools aren’t serving students of color and they’re not serving North Nashville.
“They’re not looking to serve children that live in Cumberland View, Dodge City, or Cheatham place. They’re not,” said Buggs. “When we look at our choice schools across Nashville, most of them do not come from low-income housing projects, they don’t come from low SES (socioeconomic status) families, they more often than not come from middle-class families.”
An analysis by the Nashville Charter Collaborative last year found 80 percent of public charter school students are students of color compared to 69 percent of the MNPS district overall. Charters also average 4 percent more economically disadvantaged students than the district.
Those students performed higher at public charter schools in Nashville than the state average in English language arts and math on state testing last year.
Invictus Nashville founder and former MNPS teacher Dr. Brenda Jones grew up in East Nashville’s Cayce Homes public housing complex and designed her proposed school to serve the needs of both groups with a diverse-by-design model.
The proposed K-8 school would provide a Montessori curriculum to elementary students and then change in middle-school to a project-based learning model (with Montessori undertones), where students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects. Invictus would serve students in the Donelson and Hermitage communities that currently have just one public charter school and one school using a Montessori curriculum.
“Our mission is for all the kids, all of your babies, to find their unique path to personal and professional freedom. And that’s whatever it looks like for them. We understand at Invictus that everybody has a different journey to success, and we shouldn’t be the holders of defining what that looks like. We should be supporting what that looks like,” said Jones.
Half a dozen supporters of Invictus spoke Tuesday night encouraging the board to approve the school and Firefly has confirmed each board member received nearly 100 emails in support.
Despite those numbers, Dr. Berthena Nabbaa-McKinney, who represents the area where Invictus would be located, attempted to downplay the school’s support to explain why she opposed it.
“I have not received any phone calls,” said Nabbaa-McKinney “I’m not seeing any awareness of Invictus coming to district 4 or there are requests or need for Invictus in district 4.”
Review Process Questioned
Misleading comments by board members aren’t the only roadblocks Invictus faced.
District charter reviewers initially determined the proposed public charter school partially met state standards during the first round of the approval process in April. Under state law, denied charter applicants can submit an amended application.
Invictus Nashville did, but district reviewers surprisingly provided a lower grade to the amended application. MNPS found the amended application failed to meet financial and operational requirements and recommended a denial.
“I was shocked to find that we were partially meet expectations all the way through the first time around with explicit instructions to only change the things that were recommended to change and upon making those changes two categories now do not meet expectations,” said Jones. “I struggle as an educator to see how if I told a student this is the bar. You have a B, change what I asked you to change, and then they did the work and came back and received a C, it didn’t make sense to me.”
District reviewers told board members a charter applicant like Invictus can see a rating go down if the additional information it provides weakens the application.
Invictus Nashville supporters questioned the way the review process was conducted, including Invictus Board Chair Allison McGuire who said the district went beyond state (rubric) requirements to deny the school.
“We were penalized for not having a permanent site. Your rubric does not require one. It requires a plan to acquire a site and a timeline for opening,” said McGuire. “We were penalized for not having sufficient funds for facility costs and tenant improvements. This is an unfounded assumption. At the time we submitted the application we had yet to acquire a permanent site, so it wouldn’t have been possible to judge that we didn’t have the funds to cover the cost.”
The MNPS board isn’t required to follow the district’s denial recommendations, but multiple board members referenced the review before making a 7 to 1 vote to deny Invictus Nashville’s application.
Other Charters Denied
Board members also voted down two other two amended charter applications Tuesday.
Pathways in Education operates public charter schools in 4 states and the organization applied to serve at-risk students with an innovative flexible schedule while Nashville Collegiate Prep High School applied to open a college prep focused school providing unique pathways in art and technology.
District reviewers recommended denial for each school’s amended applications and board members followed it, unanimously denying both.
All three proposed public charter schools will have the option of appealing to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission in the fall.
Last year MNPS denied every public charter school application and commissioners overturned three of them.
