Senate passes legislation to provide public charter school students with better school buildings

Tennessee Senators voted 23 to 1 in favor of legislation designed to improve the school buildings public charter school students across the state attend Thursday.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. School districts would not be required to sell or lease buildings district leaders want to keep.Supporters say the bill will help with the facilities funding gap charters across the state are facing. A recent report by the organization ExcelinEd found current state funding is only meeting 50 percent of charter facilities needs and this gap is expected to grow to just 42 percent of facility needs met in five years as more families choose to send their children to public charter schools.This gap also disproportionately impacts students of color who make up more than 90 percent of the student population of public charter schools statewide.State Senator Brent Taylor, R-Memphis, was among those voting in favor of the plan.“I was a member of a charter school board for nearly a decade and the greatest challenge we had was acquiring facilities for our schools, so this is desperately needed,” said Taylor.The bill has faced some opposition from House Democrats in committees but the story was different in the Senate. All three Memphis Senate Democrats chose to abstain from voting on the bill.Senator Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville, was the facility bill’s only no vote.Under the bill, the fair market value of a property would be determined by the average of two appraisals, one ordered by the school district and one from the public charter school. Campbell argued that taxpayers could be better served selling these properties for the highest profit, instead of using them to provide better school facilities for public charter school students, who are more likely to come from historically disadvantaged backgrounds.In Senator Campbell’s home county, recent studies have found 45 percent of students attending public charter schools are economically disadvantaged compared to 41 percent for Metro Nashville Public Schools overall. Last year the Tennessee Comptroller reported more than 85 percent of public charter school students in Davidson County are students of color.“I worry that the problem here is that this would put taxpayers at a significant disadvantage because we are basically limiting the ability for the public to get market value,” said Campbell.Bill sponsor Senator John Stevens, R-Huntingdon, pushed back on Campbell’s concern about real estate profit by pointing out the properties in question have been paid by taxpayers specifically to be public schools.“These are school buildings that are already owned, that used to be operated as a school more than likely for public school students, just like a charter school is a public school. And so the intent of the bill is to put those buildings back into utilization for educational purposes for educating students,” said Stevens.The bill still needs approval from the State House and it faces a vote in the House Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee next week.