Metro Nashville Public Schools Accused of Hiding Information to Steer Parents Away from a Higher-Performing Public Charter School
Exterior of LEAD Cameron (Photo by LEAD Public Schools)
LEAD Public Schools filed a motion for contempt against Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) on Thursday, alleging the district is hiding information from parents in South Nashville to steer their children away from attending LEAD Cameron Middle School.
Unlike most public charter schools that have open-enrollment policies, LEAD Cameron operates under a unique agreement with the district that allows it to serve as the zoned school for elementary students attending Fall-Hamilton, Glenview, and John B. Whitsitt, to feed into it when they advance to middle school.
Last year, the district attempted to change that by removing LEAD Cameron’s zoned status and assigning its students to Margaret Allen Middle School. LEAD Public Schools challenged the rezoning plan in court and convinced Chancellor I'Ashea L. Myles to temporarily put it on hold for the 2025-26 school year.
A trial on LEAD’s lawsuit is scheduled for next March.
‘Creating Confusion and Misinformation’
The poster showing an incorrect Glencliff Cluster pathway (Image by LEAD Public Schools)
LEAD’s attorneys argue MNPS hasn’t lived up to the requirements of Chancellor Myles’ order and is instead attempting to confuse parents of children currently zoned to attend LEAD Cameron.
Thursday’s legal filing claims LEAD staff attended an event at Fall-Hamilton Elementary School earlier this month and were “surprised to see” a poster showing parents an incorrect pathway for their children in the Glencliff school cluster that included Margaret Allen Middle School, instead of LEAD Cameron.
Though the public charter school is currently included in some sections referencing the Glencliff cluster on the district’s website, LEAD’s attorneys additionally question why the school has been omitted from other sections.
This includes the district’s ZoneFinder tool. The Tennessee Firefly entered LEAD Cameron’s address into the tool, and it returned Margaret Allen Middle School as the zoned school.
LEAD’s attorneys argue these discrepancies create challenges for parents whose children are zoned for LEAD Cameron, as more than half are English language learners.
“Creating confusion and misinformation with the parents who attended the event, the teachers, and the students is significantly detrimental to LEAD as it could affect student enrollment…. communication to these families is particularly important because the majority of these families are economically disadvantaged and do not speak English as their first language,” wrote LEAD attorneys. “The fact that MNPS prominently displayed a poster at Fall-Hamilton and had corresponding information in more than one place on its website without mention of LEAD Cameron shows willful deliberation and not some innocent mistake.”
Performance Comparison
LEAD additionally argues the rezoning plan itself is bad for students.
A Tennessee Firefly analysis of the state’s most recent Report Card found LEAD Cameron students outperformed students in Margaret Allen and the Glencliff cluster’s other middle school in every subject on state testing, and received a higher School Letter Grade.
LEAD Cameron’s success is part of a larger trend in recent years in which public charter school students in Davidson County outperform their traditional and magnet school peers.
Charter Schools are free public schools operated by a non-profit organization under a “charter” with a school district or the state.
MNPS Case for Rezoning
District leaders have defended the rezoning plan as more convenient for families, and during February’s legal hearing, attorney Allen Smith argued that MNPS has every right to make the change because the language in the school’s new charter agreement doesn’t include a “zoned designation.”
“The fact of the matter is, is that the clear and plain language of the contract now relegates them to be like their other (charter) schools, to a choice school,” said Smith.
