The Tennessee Board of Education may vote Friday to overturn a charter school decision made in Nashville. If the state panel follows a recommendation released by its executive director Tuesday, it will override a local denial for KIPP Academy to open two more schools in Nashville.
On a 5-4 vote, Metro’s school board
voted in August to deny KIPP based primarily on the fiscal impact of continued growth of charters.
“I cannot conclude that MNPS has carried its burden of proving that the approval of KIPP Middle’s application presents a substantial negative fiscal impact on the district,” Tennessee Board of Education executive director Sara Heyburn writes in her lengthy recommendation.
More:
Read the full KIPP Middle opinion
here and the KIPP Primary opinion
here
.
This is a first test of a
new law that gives the state board of education authority to open and oversee charter schools on its own. If that happens, Metro school board member Will Pinkston, who voted with the majority to deny KIPP’s schools, says legal action may be necessary.
“Laws are made to be tested, and that may be what we end up doing in this situation,” Pinkston says.
If the state board of education chooses to override the local decision, the Metro board would have a 30-day “reconciliation period” and could decide to oversee the KIPP schools itself or let the state do it.
The state board’s executive director is
affirming two of Metro’s denials of the International Academy of Excellence and Rocketship.
“I cannot recommend that the state board approve an additional elementary school at this time,” Heyburn wrote about Rocketship, which has a year-old elementary school on Dickerson Pike. “While there is promising evidence of growth, there is not yet enough objective evidence of achievement from the sponsor’s current Nashville school to merit approval of an additional school.”
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