Marguerite Powell felt her prayers had been answered when she first met Nashville Classical West principal Alexandria Lambert.
Lambert was passing out flyers for the then soon-to-open public charter school on Davidson Drive and Powell immediately thought of her grandson who’s starting school this year.
Nashville Classical West is opening with an all-kindergarten founding class.
“When she said that, I knew it was God. I knew it. Cause I had been praying about it. My children are everything,” said Powell. “It’s a spirit of excellence with even Principal Lambert.”
Nashville Classical’s history of academic success interested Powell in part because of problems her grandson Honor had attending Pre-K at the traditional public school he’s zoned for in Nashville.
Powell says Honor wasn’t receiving the help and resources he needed there but the continuous communication she’s had with Principal Lambert provides confidence Honor will have a better learning experience at Nashville Classical West.
“I feel that they’re changing the culture, the environment to going back to the spirit of excellence and also listening to what the parents are saying getting the parents involved. And hopefully we’ll be able to come and volunteer and do some other things that’s needed,” said Powell.
Nashville Classical West is Nashville Classical Charter Schools’ second location in Davidson County.
The organization opened its first school in East Nashville in 2013. That location has received multiple accolades for its performance, including last year when the Tennessee Department of Education named it a “Reward School,” recognizing academic achievement and student growth.
Nashville Classical West’s founding principal played a role in that success serving as the east campus Assistant Principal of School Culture.
“I worked with creating a warm and welcoming environment for the scholars and as a principal, I’m still doing that and wearing lots of other hats,” said Principal Lambert.
Lambert had a very personal reason to join the Nashville Classical East staff. Her son was part of the school’s founding kindergartner class and continued through middle school.
Principal Lambert says she joined the school’s family because she was impressed by how Nashville Classical lived out its mission statement and she wanted to be a part of the change the public charter school was making.
“People say, ‘school is not family,’ but I often say it really is in many ways because our kids, they spend just as much, if not more, time awake and then waking hours with their teachers than they do their parents once they start school. And that’s tough. And so, when I think about that, I think we have to be a family because sometimes we are stepping in to (be) mentors, sometimes we are stepping in to guide our kids. We’re giving parental advice and reinforcing things that our parents want us to reinforce that they’re teaching at home also, so in many ways, it is a family, and these are all our kids,” said Lambert.
Lambert says she’s committed to creating the same sense of community and culture at Nashville Classical West that the east campus has. The principal still has former students that call her today and that experience is something she wants teachers at the school she’s now leading to experience.
“I’ve been doing this since – this is my 16th year working in public education and with kids, you may not see it now, but in ten years from now, 15 years from now, your kids are going to be teachers and doctors and nurses and they will come back to you and they will stay connected with you because there’s always something about that one teacher that really clicked that light bulb for you or that just gave you that extra love and support that you really needed that really pulls it all together, which makes it really amazing.” said Lambert.
Math teacher Liv Moore hopes to make that kind of an impact for her students.
Moore started as a resident teacher for kindergarteners at Nashville Classical East. Coming from a family of teachers, she knew she had to start her career at Nashville Classical.
“I, at the time, was just looking for something different. I have a family of teachers and I wanted to explore being a teacher. And after coming to this school and seeing how inclusive this school was, how the school really got to know each other as a community, as soon as I walked in the building you just knew that that was just a family, honestly. You knew each teacher had each other’s back. And I was like, ‘I wanna be involved in this’,” said Moore.
Charlie Friedman founded Nashville Classical Charter Schools shortly after moving to Nashville.
He spent two years traveling the country to research best educational practices and did a listening tour around the city of Nashville. Friedman wanted to learn what community members wanted and if they would be willing to start a school with him.
“I would meet with parents in church basements, libraries, park benches and just ask them what their hopes and their dreams were,” said Friedman. “I think the lesson is that talent and hope are sort of everywhere, right there all over the city, they’re in every house, but opportunity and great schools aren’t. And so I think we see this as both providing an opportunity to the neighborhood and the community, and also the city at large.”
Nashville Classical’s curriculum has a focus on explicit phonics instruction, teaching the relation between letters of written language and the individual sounds of the spoken language with a core in knowledge, language, and art. Both schools are among the first in the country to use this specific curriculum.
Like its East counterpart, Nashville Classical West aims to build a diverse community and offer students like Honor a high-quality, well-rounded education.
“We are serving every scholar in the best way that we possibly can and that every single family knows that we are an option and an opportunity and a choice for them to be able to choose something better than maybe what they have because kids deserve it, and families deserve choice. And I really believe in school choice for every single family in, in the city,” said Lambert.
