Five Tennessee school districts across the state received letters of intent for 17 proposed new public charter schools by last week’s deadline. Letters of intent are the first official step in next year’s new start charter application process.

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.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

Jauana Luiz Cruz says the transition of moving to Nashville from Mexico was a huge challenge for her elementary school age son.Speaking through an interpreter at Tuesday's Metro School Board meeting, Cruz says language barriers were especially a problem and her son hated school so much she worried the family might have to make an emotionally difficult decision of moving him back to Mexico.

That changed after a coworker connected the family with Rocketship Nashville Northeast Elementary School.