House advances plan to help make vacant property available to public charter schools

Members of the House Education Administration Committee advanced proposed legislation Wednesday to help public charter schools access school buildings that are sitting unused by local districts.The legislation would require local school districts that have public charter schools in them to provide a list of vacant and underutilized buildings on an annual basis.  Under the bill, school districts would additionally be required to make those properties available to public charter schools at a fair market value and give charters a first right of refusal for either purchase or lease.“There are school buildings that are currently vacant or underutilized across the state but often the access to these buildings can be extremely difficult if not impossible to utilize,” said bill sponsor Representative Ryan Williams, R-Cookeville. “This option would provide charter schools with access to space that was designed for school use and financed by taxpayer dollars but now underutilized.”School districts would not be required to lease or sell buildings leaders want to keep.The proposed legislation is supported by charter operators across the state that are increasingly facing a facilities funding challenge that’s only believed to be growing worse as more families choose to send their children to public charter schools. These schools do not receive local capital dollars and thus rely on operating dollars to meet their facility needs.LEAD Public Schools Chief Strategy Officer Adrienne Useted said improving access to vacant school district properties will not only help with the facilities funding challenges but also provide children with a better learning environment.“You’ve got classrooms that are set up to be classrooms to educate kids in that are currently empty.  And so there are people like charter schools, other public schools, that are interested in coming in and serving additional students and so it just makes sense,” said Useted. “You’ll find that in Tennessee that charter schools can be really flexible about finding spaces to be able to educate kids but there’s really no substitute for a traditional public-school building.  Typically, they’re going to have libraries, they’re going to have large cafeterias, they’re going to have gym spaces, they’re going to be able to provide that, really three-dimensional support that we know that students deserve.”State Representatives Antonio Parkinson, D-Memphis, was among the three committee members to oppose the bill.Parkinson raised the questionable hypothetical scenario that charter operators might use the proposed law with the intent of making a profit buying and selling school buildings.“That’s really my angst about the bill,” said Parkinson. “It could make a CMO (charter management operator) specifically become a real estate brokerage company, you know buy property, sit on it, and sell it to the highest bidder you know after they buy the property and they may use it for a school for six months, they may use it for a school for a year, or a few days or whatever.”Parkinson did not provide any evidence that charter operators would actually be interested in pursuing this concept or that any have the real estate experience to make it work. In Tennessee public charter schools are all managed by non-profit educational organizations.The bill now moves to the House Government Operations Committee for a vote on Monday.