A charter school representative Wednesday reacted to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission’s (TPCSC) vote to reject applications for Founders Classical Academy in Williamson and Sumner counties.
Brian Haas works for Del Rey Education, which helps launch charter schools nationwide, and works with Founders Classical.
“The assertion was repeated that we were not prepared to handle special needs students, based on projections that cannot be determined in advance of actually enrolling students,” he told The Tennessee Star. “I’m not sure how you come to the conclusion that an organization that adequately meets the needs of hundreds of special needs students, among the 14,000 they serve every year, is incapable of doing so across state lines. Especially with a program specifically designed to help special needs students that is already in use in at least 14 Tennessee schools.”
As The Star reported earlier this week, TPCSC voted against allowing the two Founders Classical Academy schools to open.
“I think it is clear that this school has a lot of community support,” Tess Stovall, TPCSC’s executive director reportedly said. “However, that is not the only thing that one needs for a school to be successful.”
The nine-member panel is comprised of appointees of Governor Bill Lee (R), who is purportedly in favor of school choice.
Still, TPCSC continues to deny charter schools the ability to open statewide.
In a previous battle with the commission, Haas said the commission misrepresented the charter school’s ability to provide hot meals and busing for students.
“Much of the Williamson County Schools presentation, especially the closing, dwelled on our purported ‘inability to effectively serve students,’ based on our lack of general bus transportation (Founders provides busing for special needs and in situations where necessary, and serves more diverse populations than most districts the schools reside in, with parents being willing to drive their children, as they are in Williamson), and lack of food services,” he told The Star at the time.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Nashville Collegiate Prep” by Tennessee Public Charter School Commission.
It certainly appears that TPCSC is controlled by education elites and builds walls to suppress charter schools. I’d like to see the data. The Star should publish a scorecard showing how many charter school applications have been filed since the commission started, and what is the outcome of each application. It appears that most are rejected for the same vague reasons.
Maybe that would force Gov. Lee to address this.
Unless the Charter School Administration is willing to fall prey to the established academic administration and their money grubbing methods of defrauding the public they have no chance of getting licensed. Dismantling the Department of Education at the state and federal level and returning that funding to the local level is the only way we put this back in the hands of the people directly impacted. If you are not investing locally and the majority of your funding comes from the State and Fed, it might be time to rethink your priorities.
This decision only underscores the determination of the education industry in Tennessee that no one shall be allowed to prove its failings. First they rejected a stellar university’s attempt, already agreed to in principle, to establish charter schools in Tennessee because the President of the university spoke truth. Now this rejection on specious grounds. Perhaps parents in Tennessee should check into the curriculums being taught in their children’s schools, as parents are in other states.
It is time for Little Billy Lee to clean house in his education department and to start over again with conservatives to replace Penny “Berkley” Schwinn and Tess “The Mess” Stoval. His liberal leanings are showing like a red flashing light when it comes to his number one initiatives – public schools.
I am frightened to even think about his push for the “reform” (code for turning them loose) of the criminal justice system.
We have made educating people an opportunity to “fundamentally change America” into a third world s— hole while making our political friends rich.