Charter commission executive director provides mixed recommendations for proposed Nashville charters

On Wednesday, the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission will decide whether Nashville families in Antioch and Southeast Davidson County have new high-quality options for their children’s education.The commission is deciding appeals from KIPP Nashville and Saber STEM Academy to open public charter schools in the area.  The Board of Education for Metro Nashville Public Schools denied applications for both last July and each organization appealed to the state commission hoping to overturn those decisions.Those appeals received distinctively different reactions from the commission’s executive director.Last week Tess Stovall issued recommendations supporting the appeals from KIPP Nashville for a new elementary school and a middle school.  Stovall recommended against approving the appeal from Saber STEM Academy.

KIPP Nashville Appeal

KIPP Nashville envisions its proposed KIPP Southeast Nashville College Prep Elementary and KIPP Southeast Nashville College Prep Middle School joining two other schools in the area to feed students into the soon to open KIPP Antioch College Prep High School. This would utilize a similar model the organization is currently using for five other schools in North and East Nashville.School board members voted the proposal down claiming these additional charter seats were unnecessary in the Antioch and Cane Ridge clusters.In her written recommendation to commissioners, Stovall praised KIPP Nashville’s academic performance and pushed back on MNPS claims that the additional public charter schools aren’t needed in Antioch“The two KIPP Nashville schools located near the proposed location of the new school received over 1,000 applications for the upcoming school year, creating a waitlist of approximately 500 students. Approval of this application would serve a demonstrated need in the community. said Stovall.  “KIPP Nashville’s existing schools have demonstrated clear academic success. For the 2021-22 school year, four KIPP Nashville schools earned reward school status by the Tennessee Department of Education, and when looking at the schools within the Commission’s portfolio, both schools met the academic performance expectations set by the Commission’s performance framework. Additionally, both of the Commission authorized KIPP Nashville schools outperformed the geographic district of MNPS in proficiency rates for students. This further demonstrates the sponsor’s ability to deliver on its mission and vision and provide a high-quality option for its intended population.”

Saber STEM Academy Appeal

Saber STEM Academy proposes to offer the interdisciplinary STEM approach to students in grades Kindergarten through eight, focusing on hands-on and problem-based learning. Administrators also plan to offer an Arabic language program.MNPS board members cited concerns regarding the partnership with for-profit Michigan based Education Management and Networks in their denials of the application. In Tennessee, charters can’t be granted to for-profit corporations and governing boards are prohibited from hiring a for-profit corporation to manage the public charter school.Stovall cited similar concerns about Saber STEM Academy’s for-profit connections in her recommendation against granting the school's appeal.“In both the capacity interview and the public hearing, questions remained about the overall governance of the school, as well as the relationship of the parties named throughout the application. The highest concern for me in this section is the involvement of Education Management & Networks, Inc. (“EMAN”), which is a for-profit charter management organization,” said Stovall. “While the sponsor testified that Salman Community Services stands as the applicant, there was also testimony that EMAN will provide management services as a contract vendor. In any capacity, it would be a violation of Tennessee law to permit this for-profit entity to manage and operate a charter school.”Stovall’s recommendation will be considered by the full commission when it decides whether to approve or deny all three appeals.In it’s short history, the commission has generally voted in alignment with the recommendations of its Executive Director on new start appeals. The lone exception was an appeal last year from Rutherford Collegiate Prep that Stovall recommended against, but the commission granted.