Image Credit: Rocketship Nashville Northeast Elementary / Facebook
The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
The Tennessee Charter School Commission voted unanimously on Friday to overturn a decision previously made by the Metro Nashville Public School Board and to renew the charter agreement for Rocketship Nashville Northeast Elementary.
At their November meeting, the school board voted 8-1 to close the school at the end of the ’23-’24 school year, claiming a lack of academic growth, high rates of absenteeism, and poor planning for future growth as their reasons for the decision. This decision was made even though the charter review committee, a group comprised of community members and MNPS employees, recommended that Rocketship’s charter be renewed.
Erin O’Hara Block was the only board member to vote against shutting down the charter school, partially attributing her decision to having visited the school personally.
“I saw high quality instruction going on in classrooms,” Block said. “It feels very hard to me to want to say to a school that’s been a Level 5 TVAAS (Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System) school and that might well be outperforming some of its neighboring schools.”
The state Charter School Commission, established in 2019 by Governor Lee’s administration, can choose to approve or renew charter schools, reversing decisions made by local school districts.
William Hill, the executive director of Rocketship, noted at the time of the denial that Rocketship was one of the top performers in the Maplewood cluster, despite the cluster being one of the lowest performing in the district. He argued that the school board was politically motivated in their decision-making.
Hill also argued that the school was unfairly compared to schools outside of the Maplewood cluster, many of which do not have similar demographics.
Board members, however, argued that Rocketship had been given ten years to show adequate progress and maintained that they had not.
The Commission’s renewal of the school’s agreement means that the commission will now be over the school’s authorization for the next ten years.
