State commission overrules decision to close high performing Nashville public charter school

Sara Vaneel says she chose to enroll her son in Rocketship Nashville Northeast Elementary School when he was entering kindergarten because she wanted him to have a different educational experience than she received.

Vaneel says instead of staying with one teacher each day, her son has benefitted from the public charter school’s class rotation schedule, and he loves his coding and robotics classes.

“Because we live in a digital world, I believe that these classes are not only keeping him engaged in school now but are setting him up for future success. I don’t know another school near us that offers these types of programs, and I would hate to see him lose his biggest interest,” said Vaneel.

Vaneel’s son and his more than 500 classmates have all been at risk of losing what they enjoy about Rocketship since November when members of the Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) Board of Education voted against renewing the school’s charter. That decision threatened to close the school, but Rocketship appealed to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission.

Friday, commissioners unanimously voted to overturn the board’s decision and grant Rocketship another ten-year charter. It’s the latest in a series of decisions by commissioners to overturn MNPS board votes against public charter schools.

“We are grateful that the Commission staff conducted a fair and thorough appeal process,” said Rocketship Tennessee Executive Director Will Hill in a statement following the decision. “While School Board members are quick to criticize the appeal process as “state overreach” or undermining their authority as elected officials, their decisions would not be overturned if they were based on merit rather than politics.”

Commissioners themselves also had strong words for the process MNPS board members used to deny Rocketship’s renewal.

East Tennessee Commissioner Eddie Smith questioned whether MNPS board members might need help understanding how the charter approval process is supposed to work.

“MNPS Board based a decision on lack of facts, lack of substance, to the point that honestly, I would recommend that the charter school office, while I know they work for them, go back and say, you know, Emperor you have no clothes on here,” said Smith. “It’s so thin in what they decided to use to deny that it really looks for all intents and purposes of just absolutely targeted punitive action.”

Denial Process Questioned

One key criticism Rocketship leaders and commissioners shared about the denial process happened before the November vote.

MNPS staff provided Rocketship leaders with a performance report that cited no concerns. Staff followed that by recommending approval for the renewal application, but gave it a "partially meets" state standards rating. Both commission staff and Rocketship leaders believe district staff violated state policy by not allowing the school to correct the record or provide additional information before school board members received the district's recommendation and rating.

Multiple board members cited that "partially meets" rating in their decision against the public charter school.

MNPS Director of Charter Schools Shereka Roby-Grant defended that decision at Friday’s meeting saying Rocketship’s renewal application lacked important information and detail for how the school would deal with challenges like chronic absenteeism.

“Since the renewal application serves as the framework for the charter agreement, it is unclear what Rocketship’s next agreement would include. For that reason, MNPS can not blindly place the education and well-being of the students into the school’s hands,” said MNPS Director of Charter Schools Shereka Roby-Grant.

Among the deficiencies included in the "partially meets" rating was a request by Rocketship to lower its enrollment target by 60 students to better serve students with special needs.

MNPS board members additionally chose to utilize districtwide comparisons to make the decision that involve comparing Rocketship to schools that are less diverse and more wealthy located outside northeast Nashville.

The most recently posted 2021/2022 state academic performance data shows Rocketship outperformed every other elementary school in the Maplewood school cluster in Math and English language arts and only one elementary school scored higher proficiency rates in science.

Rocketship Nashville Northeast has additionally scored in the highest or second highest category for student growth every year it’s been open and it received the third highest grade of any elementary school in the Maplewood cluster on this year’s School Letter Grades.