Partisan elections and charter debates
Good afternoon!
Welcome to School Zone, our weekly newsletter highlighting the top education stories across Tennessee.
I'm politics & investigations editor Duane Gang filling in this week.
It's back to school time. There's the usual excitement, of course, but also the stress and worry about new schools, teachers, changes in policy and the remaining uncertainty about the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a parent of two Metro Nashville Public School students, I know this first hand. My kids are both excited and nervous about the start of the year.
As a reminder, here's when area districts start:
Schools in Wilson, Sumner and Dickson counties started Monday.
Williamson County and Franklin Special, along with Rutherford County Schools, start with a partial day on Friday.
Metro Nashville Public Schools, Memphis-Shelby County Schools and Knox County Schools start Monday.
Now, let's get to some of the highlights.
Partisan elections
Thursday is election day in Tennessee, and, for the first time, we have partisan school board races. School board politics already were, at times, rough and tumble. Now, there's the new, partisan dynamic at play.
In Nashville, there are four competitive races:
District 2 pitting Democratic incumbent Rachael Anne Elrod against Republican Todd Pembroke and independent Edward Arnold.
District 4 with Republican Kelli Phillips running against Democrat Berthena Nabaa-McKinney.
District 6 where incumbent Fran Bush, running as an independent, is up against Democrat Cheryl Mayes.
District 8 with Democrat Erin O'Hara Block running against independent Amy Pate.
Early voting is over. Polls open at 7 a.m. CT on Thursday and close at 7 p.m. CT. Go to Tennessean.com Thursday night for live election results.
School safety
Speaking of Nashville schools, Metro Police Chief John Drake and Director of Schools Adrienne Battle unveiled a two-pronged school safety plan Tuesday morning.
Public safety reporter Molly Davis writes that the immediate plan includes increased police presence at all elementary schools in the first few weeks of school.
Then, Drake said, there's plans to hire part-time "safety ambassadors" who will be unarmed employees of Metro Schools. They will be on campuses every day.
According to the chief, these safety ambassadors will be equipped with a radio with police frequency and receive the same emergency response training as School Resource Officers.
"After the latest school shooting, we doubled down on working with Chief Drake to create a safer learning environment," Battle said. "Ambassadors will also help to keep everyone vigilant and alert, while ensuring that teachers and staff can focus on their jobs."
What's the latest from Memphis on Joris Ray?
Here's an update from Commercial Appeal education reporter Laura Testino, who expertly helmed this newsletter last week. (We hope to have her back because there's important news coming out of Tennessee's largest school district.)
► From Laura:
The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board placed superintendent Joris Ray on paid leave July 13 when, in a 7-2 vote, they initiated an external evaluation of Ray for policy violations and abuse of power while superintendent.
Allegations in divorce documents filed by Ray’s wife, also a district employee, include alleged affairs with two women The Commercial Appeal has identified as current and former employees of the district. Records have since revealed Ray supervised the current employee when she is said to have signed a non-disclosure agreement about their affair in 2004.
Records show Ray once directly supervised the former employee. In a 2005 evaluation form, he called her “a dedicated and loyal employee” who he would recommend for future positions. Ray was her top job reference in a successful job application the woman made to the county government more than 10 years later.
Additional documents obtained by The Commercial Appeal show that the two people named in divorce filings to have knowledge of the alleged affairs include a current district employee Ray has promoted in the past and a former school district employee who described Ray as a mentor when listing him as a job reference in his application to work for the school district.
On July 13, a spokesperson for the school board said the district would pause its planned annual performance evaluation of Ray while the external investigation continued. But last Tuesday, the board said it was moving forward with the evaluation as planned.
The board has not confirmed the current timeline. But the most recent timeline specified the board evaluations would be due this Wednesday, Aug. 3, the day before the election. The MSCS board is sure to change by at least two of its nine board members this election cycle.
Charter appeals to watch
Don't expect the controversy surrounding comments from Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn to die down. The next battleground is on charter applications.
School boards in Madison, Montgomery and Rutherford counties denied applications for Hillsdale-affiliated charters last month.
The schools all appealed the local decision, setting up a showdown with the state charter commission, statehouse reporter Adam Friedman notes. Here's the next steps, per Adam:
The commission has 75 days to hold a public hearing on each school.
Afterward, the commission can vote to override each school board's denial.
How the issue played out in Williamson County
Here's how Arnn's comments are having an impact in Williamson County.
A dispatch from Williamson County education reporter Anika Exum:
► From Anika:
Founders Classical Academy re-applied to Williamson County Schools in hopes of a second chance at being approved to operate in the county.
The WCS board of education ultimately denied the application again. The WCS board has historically voted against charter schools.
Beforehand, though, Founders’ spokespeople worked to distance themselves from its prior partnership with Hillsdale College, its charter school initiatives and Arnn.
Arnn has come under scrutiny across the state for controversial comments made during a private event with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, in which he said teachers were trained "in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country."
Leaders of Williamson’s two school districts have since spoken out against Arnn’s comments and in support of their thousands of public school teachers across the county.
“Teachers are not dumb. Teachers are not Marxists," Franklin Special School District director of schools David Snowden said. "Teachers need to be trained to be highly effective. The teachers I know and have had the opportunity to work with are smart, dedicated, passionate and very resilient.”
Extra credit
► Since last week's edition of School Zone, there's been new developments with Tennessee's new school funding formula. The Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, known as TISA, is now working through the rulemaking process.
The rules are needed, Laura Testino in Memphis tells us, to provide specific guidance for how to implement the new formula.
In a public hearing about the rules last week, Tennesseans requested the department be explicit and transparent about the data collection and reporting processes that inform new district dollars. Others expressed concerns about how the rules identify and provide financial resources to students who are English language learners, Laura reports.
► There's still a chance to weigh in. Public comments are being accepted through the end of today, Aug. 2. Then on Aug. 11, the State Board of Education will supply a designation of the rules.
The fastest way to comment is by sending an email to Tisa.Rules@tn.gov.
► Here's more from Laura in Memphis: As Achievement School District schools continue to peel out of the state-run turnaround district, there's another first: Westside Middle School will return to Memphis-Shelby County Schools in 2023 as a charter school, more than a decade after Tennessee state officials took over and removed it from the district.
It's unclear whether the board's vote to accept Westside will set any kind of precedent for the remaining Memphis charter schools in the ASD. The final operating year for current Memphis ASD schools is 2025-26. The Tennessee Department of Education has no leader for the ASD and cut the department in half ahead of this school year as the ASD portfolio shrank from 27 schools to 17.
► The state on Tuesday announced a redesigned portal to access TCAP assessment results. Check out this video from the state and this graphic to learn more.
The TCAP Family Portal is at https://familyreport.tnedu.gov/.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Partisan elections and charter debates
