Bellshire Elementary Design Center Principal Dr. Donald Black told members of the Metro Nashville Board of Education that his school aims for every scholar to be “ready for life.”¶
Black was among several school principals from the district’s Hunter’s Lane Cluster in northeast Davidson County who spoke at Tuesday's meeting about the success they’re seeing with community partnerships, magnet programming, and language exposure to better serve traditionally underrepresented students.¶
The school principals were a part of an in-depth review that district leaders provided the board on how the ReimaginED initiative and the cluster’s International Baccalaureate (IB) continuum are expanding early postsecondary opportunities for students.¶
District leaders framed the Hunters Lane presentation as a model of cluster alignment: elementary programming that feeds into a middle-years IB experience and then into Hunters Lane High School’s diploma program. MNPS officials said the goal of ReimaginED’s “in-depth data dives” is to identify successful practices in clusters such as Hunters Lane that can be replicated across the district, while also surfacing obstacles that limit student success. ¶
“One of our district’s bedrock commitments is creating consistent feeder patterns and aligned academic programming across every cluster in our district,” Renee De Perry, MNPS chief of academics in schools, told the board during the meeting. “Consistency and coherence ensure that every student, no matter which school they attend, has the same high-quality experiences, opportunities, and expectations.”¶
What MNPS Emphasizes: Pathways, Credentials, and IB¶
MNPS stressed that Hunters Lane offers multiple routes to become a Tennessee Ready Graduate through Advanced Placement (AP), Dual Enrollment, Local Dual Credit, industry certifications, or the IB diploma, and that the cluster is notable for its international baccalaureate programming beginning in elementary grades and extending through high school. Hunters Lane High School, district officials noted, was the first IB school in Tennessee, and in 2025, MNPS reported 21 students earned the IB Diploma and 68 earned the IB Career-related Certificate.¶
District leaders and principals described classroom practices aligned with IB’s inquiry-based and project-based learning, world language exposure in elementary grades, and partnerships with community organizations to support authentic, service-oriented projects for students. Principals from cluster schools highlighted Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) implementation, culminating in fifth-grade exhibitions and collaboration with outside organizations as features that distinguish the cluster’s approach.¶
The Data That Fuels Concern¶
While MNPS emphasized continuity and high-level programming in the board meeting, independent cluster profiles compiled by the Scarlett Family Foundation in recent years show challenges.¶
The Scarlett feeder profile for Hunters Lane covering the 2020–21 school year found that only 15.3 percent of students met Tennessee’s Ready Graduate standard despite an 81 percent graduation rate, and that the average ACT score in the cluster was 14.5, well below the state benchmark of 21. More than half of the cluster’s students were listed as economically disadvantaged, and about 28 percent were English learners in that profile.¶
Those numbers, many of which reflect fallout from the COVID-era testing interruptions noted in the Scarlett report, may raise questions about whether high-quality programs such as IB and expanded Early Postsecondary Opportunities (EPSO) are reaching the students who most need them, or whether they disproportionately benefit those already on stronger academic trajectories.¶
District Response and Next Steps¶
MNPS officials told the board the Hunters Lane review is the start of a longer process to catalogue best practices, map out where students are lost from feeder patterns, and pilot supports that can be replicated.¶
De Perry emphasized the district sees the cluster work as both a celebration of existing strengths and a diagnostic tool to correct fragmentation that can cause inequities.¶
“It eliminates gaps that occur when programming is fragmented, and it builds a seamless journey from elementary to our middle schools to our high school,” she said.¶
