Last month school board members in Nashville and Rutherford County voted down six proposed new public charter schools.Next month supporters from all of them will make their case to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission for why the decision was the wrong one.

MNPS Board of Education members voted down five proposed public charter schools.

Last year LEAD Public Schools turned to one of Metro-Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) most successful principals to head up the public charter school operator’s goal of expanding to become a true K-12 network.LEAD hired then Warner Arts Magnet Elementary Principal Dr. Ricki Gibbs as its new head of elementary schools. Gibbs gained attention in the district for transforming Warner from a low performing school to a Reward School in 2022 and earned the title of MNPS Elementary Principal of the Year in 2020.

More than 15 hundred elementary, middle, and high school students attend one of four Memphis Schools of Excellence in Shelby County.The organization that runs the public charter schools is now hoping to expand the school model to students in south Nashville.The Read Foundation is proposing to serve more than 800 sixth through twelfth-grade students with a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) based education that helps students develop the ability to make good decisions and encourages them to become contributing members of society.