“Wow, I Bet You Guys are Exhausted.” Firefly Investigation Uncovers Metro Nashville Public Schools’ Rush to Deny Proposed Charter Schools

Logos of the Forge School (left), the Rock Academy (center), and Rocketship Public Schools (right)

At 5:32 p.m. Monday, June 2, an external reviewer helping Metro Nashville Public Schools evaluate charter school applications sent time-sensitive documents to district Charter Schools Coordinator Amy Leslie. Those files included rating information for the district charter review team’s recommendation to deny Rocketship Public Schools’ application to open a new public charter school.

District email records show Leslie had only provided reviewer Gay Burden the roughly 1,000-page amended application to look over eight days earlier.

“Wow, I Bet You Guys are Exhausted. This was a lot for one week,” wrote Burden in the email to Leslie. “Sorry I couldn’t be there in person. If you need anything else, please let me know.

Email provided by MNPS

The Tennessee Firefly obtained those emails and others in an open records request following last month’s school board decision to deny Rocketship and two other charter applicants, the Forge School and the Rock Academy.

Charter Decision a Month Early

In years past, district leaders have given staff more time to review the sometimes-expansive applications by scheduling charter decisions in the July school board meeting. This year, that vote came a full month early.

Some charter supporters have questioned whether that move was made to avoid impacts from a new state law that goes into effect July 1. Director of Schools Dr. Adrienne Battle gave a different explanation at the June 10 meeting for why the vote needed to occur before the board’s July 22 meeting.

“We can’t take more than 60 days to actually review the charter application. If you look at the original date the July date would have put us in jeopardy of not making the 60-day mark,” said Battle.

All three applicants sent in their amended applications to the district on May 23 so the July 22 meeting would have been exactly sixty days. Other school districts have additionally scheduled special meetings to approve charter applicants, including Memphis-Shelby County Schools last year.

Quick Turnaround for Review

Whatever the reason for the early vote, emails show the faster review of those three amended applications involved a couple of mistakes and after-hours work.

Leslie emailed Burden all three proposed schools’ amended applications just before 9 a.m. on Sunday, May 25. Five days later, Burden admitted providing district staff with the wrong documents after reviewing Rocketship’s amended application.

“I may have attached the wrong version. See attached,” wrote Burden.

Leslie responded to Burden hours later, saying that she believed staff were working with other incorrect documents.

“I am still not sure I have the right rubric for The Rock. This one only has feedback in 2.4 and 3.2, and I don't see any feedback that references the dual enrollment in CTE classes that you mentioned in your email. There was no feedback in the rubric for Rocketship TN 5 either,” wrote Leslie. “Sorry for any trouble, but can you review and resend any rubrics that were not updated with the amended feedback?”

Emails show the district review team completed its review of the applications at least by Thursday, June 5, when MNPS emailed all three charter applicants just before 7 p.m. that day, to let them know their proposals would be voted on the following Tuesday.

The review team recommended denial for all three applications. 

Charters Face Approval Challenges in Nashville

In recent years, some charter supporters have accused the district of making decisions to oppose existing and proposed charters purely for political reasons. MNPS hasn’t approved a new public charter school since 2021 and has had at least one charter denial overturned by the state every year since then. That includes three denials last year.

All three charter applicants denied this year plan to appeal those decisions to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission.

Three Different School Models 

If approved by the commission in the fall, each proposed public charter school offers something different to families.

The Forge School would provide sixth through twelfth-grade students with a hands-on, real- world learning model designed for students who are interested in careers in architecture, construction, or engineering. No other district school offers a program specializing in all three.

The Rock Academy would be Tennessee’s first opportunity charter school, designed for students who are at-risk because they’ve either dropped out, faced criminal charges, have been retained at least twice, or are more than a year behind academically. The school proposes serving high school students with a mentor and four distinct career and technical education (CTE) pathways.

Rocketship Public Schools currently operates three charter schools in Nashville. The charter operator hopes to add a fourth that would serve up to 576 students in South Nashville and Antioch.

Charter schools are free public schools operated by a non-profit entity under a “charter” with a school district or the state.