STRIVE Collegiate Academy has overcome challenges operating out of a former hospital. New legislation could remove barriers for other schools.

Students working in a STRIVE Collegiate Academy classroom (Photo by Sky Arnold)

LaKendra Butler moved to Nashville a decade ago with the goal of starting a public charter school.

STRIVE founder LaKendra Butler (Photo by Sky Arnold)

At the time Butler was the principal of a middle school in Dallas and she saw an opportunity to help put students in the Donelson and Hermitage communities of Davidson County on the path to become college-ready high school graduates.

“Started to meet with leaders and community members in the area and felt that it was home and so we then opened STRIVE with 100 fifth-graders in 2015,” said Butler.

Today STRIVE Collegiate Academy serves sixth through eighth-graders in a building complex in Donelson that originally served the community as a hospital.Butler says the school has built out a section of the building to make it into a school for students but there have been obstacles to overcome, and situations traditional public schools do not experience.

Students attend classes at STRIVE on the second and third floor of the building that's not immediately recognizable as a school. Some classrooms have large structural pillars in inconvenient places and the building itself also serves as an office for businesses, including a security company with armed staff.

Exterior of STRIVE Collegiate Academy (Photo by Sky Arnold)

“Of course families felt safe about it but just that balance between sharing a building with a team that has firearms,” said Butler.

Additionally, the building has no space for a gymnasium, and it’s surrounded by a parking lot. Without green space, Butler says the school has had to improvise to create a place for middle school students to engage in physical activity.

“We ended up building out kind of an outdoor space so our students can have P.E. So we don’t have like an indoor facility for students to engage in like physical activity so when it’s the best weather outside they’re able to go outside but when it’s not, we have to be creative inside so they can get that physical activity,” said Butler.

Playground facilities at STRIVE (Photo by Sky Arnold)

Challenges like these are not uncommon for public charter schools in Tennessee and it's a big reason why the Tennessee General Assembly is now considering a bill designed to make it easier for charter leaders to access true school buildings that school districts aren’t using.

The proposed 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.

The facilities bill passed the House Education Administration Committee earlier this month and Wednesday the Senate Education Committee advanced it on an 8 to 0 vote. It now goes to the House Government Operations Committee for a vote next week.

“Facilities are one of the greatest challenges facing charter schools and this bill as amended seeks to implement an efficient and financially responsible solution,” said bill sponsor Senator John Stevens, R-Huntingdon.

Supporters say the legislation will also 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 economically disadvantaged students and students of color because public charter schools serve a higher percentage of those student groups.

Entrance of STRIVE (Photo by Sky Arnold)

At STRIVE roughly 75 percent of students are students of color.The school has overcome the challenges that come with operating out of a former hospital to this year receiving the highest score on the state's School Letter Grades of any middle school in the McGavock school cluster.

“Ultimately we’re making it work, to make it a great space for children,” said Butler.