From a press release by the group in the orange shirts:
East Nashville United—the parent-led coalition formed in September after the abrupt announcement of sweeping changes to East Nashville schools—celebrates the director’s recent actions to provide long-awaited support to East Nashville’s priority schools. For example, the district has recently provided more reading instructors and reading-related resources for several priority schools including Kirkpatrick and Inglewood Elementary and Jere Baxter Middle School. The district also hired an assistant principal for Inglewood Elementary.
Jai Sanders, a parent at Inglewood and one of the founding members of ENU, commends the move, even as he questions why it took so long for the district to address his school’s needs.
“Our school should have had an assistant principal well before we landed on the priority list. That was inexcusable.” Sanders says. “But we are grateful for the district for filling the position and providing more reading-related resources for our children. This will help children and help them right away.”
The support for Inglewood is particularly noteworthy considering that just a few weeks ago education insiders speculated that IES was ripe for a closure or charter conversion to KIPP. But Register quickly discredited those rumors and provided much needed resources to the priority school.
“For my family, ‘choice’ means being able to choose my zoned school,” says Sanders. “We hope that any East Nashville proposal continues the district’s recent focus on our priority schools.”