Tag Archives: Nashville School Board

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Nashville Chamber’s SuccessPAC Endorses in School Board Race

Today, the Nashville Chamber’s SuccessPAC endorsed candidates for the upcoming Nashville School Board race. Below is part of the release from the SuccessPAC:

SuccessPAC, the political action committee created by the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce for school board elections, announced today its support for four Metro school board candidates in the Aug. 4 election in which voters will elect five of the nine school board members. The SuccessPAC board invited all candidates who qualified for the ballot across the five districts up for election to complete a questionnaire and interview with the committee.

“Our committee had a thorough discussion about each of the candidates over the course of the past two months,” said Darrell S. Freeman, Sr., SuccessPAC chairman. “In making our endorsement decisions, we look for candidates who are knowledgeable, experienced and are focused first and foremost on academic success for all students. This year, we specifically looked for a commitment to improve the board’s governance and public perception.

The endorsed candidates are:

District 1: Sharon Gentry

“School Board member Sharon Gentry has served ably for two terms, and has led the board as chair for the past two years” said Freeman. “Dr. Gentry’s leadership capabilities were clearly evident in guiding an often divided board through the completion of the second director search in 2016. It was successful, largely because the board was able to learn from and address the shortcomings of the 2015 search. Leadership is realizing when something isn’t working and then being willing to try a different approach.”

The other candidate in the race, Janette Carter, was not able to schedule an interview with the committee.

District 3: Jane Grimes Meneely

“The committee was impressed with Jane Grimes Meneely’s past business experience in management, technology and human resources,” said Freeman. “Her focus is on making sure there are high-performing public schools in every neighborhood in district 3. She is also committed to a school board that focuses on setting policy and a cohesive strategy for improvement.”

“The committee respects greatly incumbent Jill Speering’s long career as an MNPS educator and her passion for literacy. We are hopeful that new leadership gives the next board an opportunity to move past the divisiveness that has characterized much of the past four years.”

District 5: Christiane Buggs & Miranda Christy

Voters in district 5 are truly fortunate to have a range of choices on the ballot. “We found Christiane Buggs to be an energetic, and passionate advocate for children,” said Freeman. “She has the insights of a professional background in education, while also demonstrating a clear understanding of her potential board governance role. Her teaching experience in both MNPS and a charter school also positions her to help the rest of the school board bridge their toxic divide over charter schools.”

“We believe Miranda Christy has the necessary background, skills and temperament to be an outstanding school board member,” said Freeman. “Ms. Christy’s professional background as an attorney and her extensive volunteer experience in education equip her to be an effective representative for district 5. We appreciate her clear understanding of board governance and the need to also serve as an effective representative of her constituents.”

Voters will also find that candidate Erica Lanier brings a valuable parent perspective to the race in district 5.

Candidate Corey Gathings declined to participate in the committee’s process.

District 7: No endorsement

The Committee chose not to make an endorsement in district 7’s two-candidate race. “Four years ago, our committee believed incumbent Will Pinkston had the background and expertise to help lead our school board to a new level of strategic focus and effectiveness. Unfortunately, Mr. Pinkston’s public battles on social media and his attacks on officials with whom he disagrees have limited his effectiveness,” said Freeman.

Challenger Jackson Miller is an MNPS parent and business owner who has been a committed volunteer in education. “Mr. Miller’s candidacy gives voters a choice in the district 7 election,” said Freeman. Ultimately, the committee was not convinced that Mr. Miller had the time to manage the considerable demands of serving in elected office.”

District 9: Thom Druffel

“Thom Druffel is a longtime business executive and education volunteer who exhibits a passion for educating our city’s children,” said Freeman. “The committee was impressed with Mr. Druffel’s desire to steer the school board away from the political divisiveness of much of the last four years. We believe that Thom Druffel will focus less on promoting his personal viewpoints, and instead work to find common ground with the remaining eight members of the school board on how to move the school district forward. We commend Mr. Druffel for placing a priority on increased student achievement for all students.”

Incumbent Amy Frogge declined to participate in the committee’s process.

For more on education policy and politics in Tennessee, follow@TNEdReport.


 

 

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Nashville Rise to Host School Board Candidate Forum

Mark your calendars, Nashville!

Nashville Rise, a grassroots group of parents who are trying to elevate the parent voice in Nashville, is hosting a school board candidate forum later this month.

Date: Thursday, June 23, 2016
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm, with doors opening at 5:30 pm
Location: Tennessee State University, Avon Williams Campus, 330 10th Ave North, Nashville, 37203
Who will be there? School board candidates from each district that is up for election this year.
Who is moderating? David Plazas, the Opinion Editor for the Tennessean will be moderating. There will also be a panel of parents there to ask the candidates questions.

Transportation to the event and interpreters will be provided. Please RSVP at info@projectrenaissancenashville.org or 629-888-9692

I love that there will be a panel of parents asking questions!

Parents involved with Nashville Rise have been going door to door to invite parents and community members to attend the forum. In preparation for the event, Nashville Rise has released a TV ad and direct mailer to invite community members to the forum.

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I hope to see you on June 23rd!

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Oops. Annenberg May Apply to Magnets

As we have noted, the Annenberg Standards have been adopted by the MNPS Board of Education. These standards were adopted to hold charter schools accountable. The Governance Committee met last night, for the first time since January, to discuss the standards that were already adopted by the full board. Well, it looks like these standards may also apply to magnet schools.

And the standards also apply to other schools, Gentry said. Specifically, the standards speak to exclusionary practices that might apply to the district’s magnets.

“There are reasons why we have that differentiation. There is a reason why we have wait lists and there are reasons why students bust their butt to become a part of those things,” Gentry said. “You strip all those things away and what does that mean? … We need to clean up our language, because the first thing that comes out of our mouths is charter schools, but that’s not what we voted on. These are for all schools.”

The issue of magnet schools comes up a lot when discussing choice. Proponents of choice believe families deciding to go to a magnet school are already exercising choice. Behind the scenes, choice advocates point out that some local opponents of choice send their children to magnet schools. Choice advocates believe this is clearly a double standard.

Magnet schools have exclusionary enrollment barriers for students, which is exactly what some people believe charters should not have. Again, some people believe it’s a double standard that magnet schools can have barriers for students to enroll, but the recently passed standards do not allow charter schools to do the same.

(Note: I don’t know of any charter school with exclusionary enrollment criteria.)

If these standards do change how magnet schools work, I would expect a vote to change the adopted standards.

Mary Pierce, a school board member who voted against the standards, posted to Facebook about the passage and discussion of these standards. She believes these standards were passed too quickly without enough information.

Adoption of the Annenberg Standards: Let’s be clear on the timeline.

April 3: The state teachers’ union, TEA, kicked off an email campaign with statements of support for the Annenberg Standards for Charter Schools. *It took 30 days to get just under 100 unique emails senders.

April 14: “Those in the know,” that a resolution was coming, gave public comments asking the board to adopt the Annenberg standards. That same night, Anna Shepherd gave notice that she would bring a resolution to adopt the Annenberg standards to our next meeting, Thursday, April 30.

The language of the resolution– that states the standards are for ALL schools– was not given to the board until the morning of April 30 and was not posted to the online agenda until that afternoon. Public comments are not given at the 2nd board meeting of the month, so parents from magnets or charters were never given an opportunity to speak and barely opportunity to read prior to our vote. It passed 5-3. I was one of the 3, “no” votes.

In the April 30 meeting, I asked Ms. Shepherd if she envisioned opportunity to walk through the standards that might be contrary to state law or require significant changes to our schools in Policy Governance and she said yes. Hearing of this opportunity, concerned parents emailed and asked for common sense when applying these standards and for a voice by affected school leaders–we received over 100 emails in 30 hours.

However, at our policy governance meeting yesterday, committee chair, Amy Frogge, would not allow discussion on concerns over specific standards, and instead said the standards were adopted by the board and would now become policy–pending legal analysis.

Ironically, the first standard in the Annenberg is collaboration–not seeing that apply here and wondering where our commitment to communications and community engagement is?

The school board has asked Metro Legal attorney Corey Harkey to review the standards and to report back on June 15. Magnet school PTSOs and PACs have already started to email their members about this latest development. I will update you once Metro Legal comes back with their analysis.


 

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TREE Talks School Board

Tennesseans Reclaiming Educational Excellence (TREE), a statewide, grassroots group that formed in part in response to a push for a statewide charter authorizer, is talking School Board races. Specifically, they take a look at the races shaping up in Nashville.

From their email:

While much of education policy comes from the state level, local school board elections are critically important to the direction of your local public schools. School board elections will be held all over the state this summer. What do you know about the candidates running in your county?

In Nashville, special interests pushing unlimited charter school growth have invested lots of money in four particular candidates.

 From the Nashville Scene  “Those with the biggest war chests have something in common: a friendly, if not embracing, attitude toward charter schools. In the four races — touching the Antioch, Hillsboro, McGavock and Overton clusters — each features… challengers who want charters to play a bigger role in Nashville’s education system…

While people with deep pockets and a desire to see more charter schools have cut meaty checks in this race, they’ve done so individually. Two years ago, a trio of pro-charter activists created a political action committee called Great Public Schools that handed out some $20,000 to their candidates. But that strategy is a no-go this year, said Bill DeLoache, a leading charter advocate and member of the threesome. He declined to comment on why.

But his wife, Mary DeLoache, has spread $6,000 evenly among this year’s four charter favorites. Other former organizers of the PAC have given too, including Townes Duncan (who gave the maximum contribution of $1,500 to Pierce and $500 to Dixon) and John Eason (who split $1,000 between the same two). Both Duncan and Eason work for investment companies… Others in the business community have also spread their wealth, giving maximum or near max donations to all or most charter-friendly candidates.”

Be sure to look closely at your school board candidates, their financial supporters, and whose agenda they will carry. Will the candidate you vote for represent you, or special interests?

Local pro-public education groups that are covering local races include the following:

Williamson Strong http://williamsonstrong.org/candidates/

SPEAK: Students Parents Educators Across Knox County http://speaktn.com/school-board-candidates/

Strong Schools PAC (Sumner County) http://strongschools.org/candidates/

You can look at the full election calendar here.

For more on education politics and policy, follow @TNEdReport