Trimble Academy Could Be Tennessee’s First Rural Public Charter School

Students at the former Trimble Elementary celebrating the school’s TVAAS Level 5 recognition in 2023 (Photo by Trimble Elementary)

Margaret Prater says last year’s decision by the Dyer County School Board to close Trimble Elementary hit the tiny community hard.

Trimble has fewer than 600 residents, but the town has had a school since the 1800s. Prater says that changed unexpectedly when Dyer County leaders announced they were considering closing Dyer Elementary right before the Good Friday holiday weekend due to facility issues.  The final decision came days later, forcing families to send their children to larger public schools out of town, and sometimes outside of the county, this school year.

“We need a school. We need a school for our families that don’t want their kids to, you know, have to ride the bus almost an hour and sometimes over an hour to get 8 to 10 miles down the road,” Prater said. “We need a school to be able to provide the small classes, the small feel of a school where everybody knows your name. So, it was devastating, it was devastating when the county announced that they were going to close our school.”

“Best Option” for Trimble

Speaking on the Tennessee Firefly’s On the Fly podcast, Prater said that within weeks of the decision to close Trimble Elementary, residents began organizing the group, Trimble Forward Alliance, which she now leads, to explore options to provide the community with its own school again. She says that research ultimately led the group to apply to establish the county’s first public charter school.

“It turned out that a charter school was our best option,” Prater said. “We’re primarily an agriculture-based community, we have very strong moral values, so we wanted a model that would support that.”

Tonight, the Dyer County School Board will vote on the group’s application to open the K-8 grade Trimble Academy, which would eventually serve up to 374 students.

Taking Learning Outside

Prater says the proposed school’s education model would infuse outdoor education, character, and civic virtues with classical education on the 11-acre property of the former Trimble Elementary School.

Class sizes would be smaller, and the concept itself is modeled after a similar school in Chattanooga.

“The classes will be outside, and I’m not talking about one day a week or one time during the day. It is an outdoor classroom setting,” Prater said. “Obviously, there are sometimes that you have to be indoors, but the whole curriculum is built into that. Examples like, instead of a kindergartener sitting at their desk and counting beads, they could be walking out in the yard, picking up acorns, and counting them.”

First of Its Kind

If approved, the academy would not only be Dyer County’s first charter school but also one of the first in West Tennessee, outside of Memphis.  The Jackson Museum School is scheduled to open in the fall, and Trimble Academy would open the following year.

The charter school would also be the first in Tennessee to operate in a rural area.

Charter schools are free public schools that are operated by a non-profit under a “charter” with a school district or the state. These schools are allowed the freedom and flexibility to be more innovative in their approach to educating children, but are still held accountable for advancing student achievement.

Prater believes the concept is a good fit for rural communities, and she believes other small towns might be attracted to the possibilities of a charter school once Trimble Academy is running.

“Being able to have the flexibility to make your school kind of match your community and how your children are raised, I think that will be a huge asset to anyone,” Prater said. “Research shows that charter schools in a lot of cases have better results than just the general schools, so that’s really what we want for our students.”