Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Principal Phil Schwenk in-studio to discuss Rutherford County, Tennessee’s growth and the need for and benefits of a public charter school in the area.
Leahy: In the studio, official guest host of The Tennessee Star Report, Aaron Gulbransen, and our good friend, great educator Phil Schwenk. Phil, so, let’s talk about a public charter schools and classical schools here in Middle Tennessee. I think there’s a great need for them.
Most parents who are listening to this program right now and grandparents realize that the K-12 public schools throughout Middle Tennessee are not performing as well as they could. I’m being kind. In Middle Tennessee, you had a couple of applications, one in Montgomery County, one in Rutherford County.
What’s it look like in the future? You’ve withdrawn the appeal from the Tennessee Public School Charter Commission. You have the ability to go back and reapply before school boards. What’s your thinking now and where are you going to be principal?
Schwenk: What’s most evident is that the families here are still interested in our work. They’re interested in these classical schools and having that choice for their kids.
So it makes sense for us to continue to kind of push forward and kind of feel out opportunities to open schools here. So yes, we haven’t fully left Tennessee, and, like you mentioned, Rutherford is a strong area where we continue to focus.
Leahy: And we understand that the old school board that said no to the initial application of American Classical Academy Rutherford is no longer the school board there.
They had elections, and from everything I can tell, this is a public charter school-friendly school board now in Rutherford County.
Schwenk: That’s my understanding as well.
Leahy: Rutherford County is a huge, fast-growing county. It’s about to be, I think, what, the fourth-largest county in the state. Our good friend Joe Carr was recently elected the mayor of Rutherford County.
Many of the people that listen to this program, right now, are driving in from La Vergne, or Smyrna, or Murfreesboro on I-24. It’s crowded right now, there is heavy traffic, and they’re thinking about their children or their grandchildren and what their school experiences are like.
It seems to me that with the huge growth of Rutherford County, there’s a need for a charter school where the money comes to build the school, comes not from the taxpayers of Rutherford County. But I think American Classical Education has enough money in banking relationships to build its own school, right?
Schwenk: Oh, absolutely. That would be actually one of the major perks. Obviously, the kids are number one as far as their education, but there would be money being saved by our ability to set up a facility for them as well.
Leahy: And you’re well financed?
Schwenk: Yes.
Leahy: American Classical Education. And so that’s not an issue. Looking at Rutherford County, where would be the most likely locations to consider for an American Classical Academy Rutherford school campus to be set up?
Schwenk: The two communities I’ve heard of – and Joel’s doing most of the work on that – it’d be in the Smyrna and…
Leahy: Joel is the head of American Classical Education, so you report to him?
Schwenk: Yes. And he does a lot of the work as far as the actual facility. But yes, I’ve heard Smyrna quite a bit, and the south of Murfreesboro.
Leahy: I was just there, by the way, over the weekend, in the south. And the growth – I hadn’t been to that part of Rutherford County for a while. I went to this little place in Christiana called The Gentle Barn.
You go with your family, and it’s like a 40-acre nonprofit. You see cows and lambs and pigs and the whole thing. It’s a great family thing, but really pretty out there. And I was very impressed. Back to the sort of south-of-Murfreesboro area. Huge development there.
Schwenk: Yes.
Leahy: Huge development. And it’s all very well done development, and it’s growing like crazy. So that would be another logical place to go.
Schwenk: This growth in Rutherford County is part of the reason why we’ve been having this conversation in the last few months about establishing a classical school there.
Leahy: For the parents that are listening there, the reality is, if the public charter school in Rutherford County, American Classical Academy, is approved, parents wouldn’t have to pay anything extra, right?
Schwenk: No, it’s a public school.
Leahy: And so, if there were an American Classical Academy in Rutherford, I suppose you might possibly have it up in the fall of 2023 or the fall of 2024.
Schwenk: That’s a good way to put it. The optimist, ’23. Maybe it’s ’24, but yeah, our original goal has always been ’23, but it may be ’24.
Leahy: Either way. Let’s say an American Classical Academy, Rutherford, was to be approved and built in either 2023 or 2024, if you’re a parent in Rutherford County, what would they do? Would they just say, hey, I want to go to this charter school, or how would it work?
Schwenk: It’s basically that easy. The way the public schools work is you basically have to enroll, so you have to apply. And the way the charter schools work is, as long as there are seats, it’s available to your child. If there are not enough seats, then you do what’s called a lottery. So it becomes a lottery process by which we fill these seats.
Leahy: My sense is a school would open, what, K-8 originally?
Schwenk: We would start K-5.
Leahy: And how many kids would be in your starting class?
Schwenk: About 350.
Leahy: And you’ve done this before with the Toledo affiliate?
Schwenk: Yes, I opened up the Barney Charter School Initiative school in Toledo.
Leahy: And my guess is this K-5 would probably – from what I hear, there’s just such growth in the number of students. My guess is a public charter school, if American Classical Academy were to open it up, my guess is that there would be terrific demand in Rutherford County for that.
Schwenk: Yes. I don’t think it’s unfair to guess that we may actually have to immediately start with the lottery. I think the demand is that high.
A lot of these schools across the country, it’s that high. Even like a Florida where you’ll have, like 1,000 kids and 2,000 on the waiting list, and that’s not an exaggeration. It’s a phenomenal demand.
Leahy: Phil, we wish you luck in that. And I think everybody listening in Rutherford County who have children in public schools right now are saying, I hope this happens quickly. They’re probably hoping for the fall of 2023.
Schwenk: Sure.
Leahy: Not fall of 2024.
Schwenk: Me too.
Leahy: You too.
Schwenk: We are on the same page.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Phil Schwenk” by Northwest Ohio Classical Academy. Background Photo “Classroom” by Wokandapix.
[Editor’s Note: American Classical Education is an advertiser in The Tennessee Star.]
