The Covenant School and Covenant Presbyterian Church announced in a joint statement Thursday that they will begin a capital campaign to move the school to a new campus years after the March 27, 2023, attack on the Nashville school.
A new web page for the capital campaign suggested the decision was prompted by the continued growth of the Covenant School. This growth prompted school and church officials to determine that students would return to the church campus for “a three-year rent-free lease agreement with continued financial support from the church.”
Following this period, the Covenant School plans to transition to its own campus.
The joint statement said the plan to move the Covenant School remains in the “planning stage,” with both next steps and a possible location for the new campus still undetermined. The school asked for prayers for its effort.
If the three-year time commitment begins immediately, this would suggest the new Covenant School campus will open sometime in 2027, around four years after Audrey Elizabeth Hale claimed the lives of three 9-year-old students and three staff members in her attack on the school.
After Hale’s attack, the return of students was delayed until April 2024, with officials explaining children would benefit from returning to the campus after the one-year anniversary of the tragedy.
Hale, who was born a biological female but identified as a transgender man at the time of her attack, left both a journal and a notebook containing an operational plan for her attack in the vehicle she drove to the Covenant School.
The Tennessee Star published the journal Hale left in her vehicle earlier this month after obtaining the document, and a portion of Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) documents related to the Covenant case, from a source familiar with the investigation, after more than a year of litigation seeking to compel MNPD and the FBI to release Hale’s writings.
Both the state and federal litigation remain ongoing, with Star News Digital Media, Inc., which owns and operates The Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy recently filing their intention to appeal Tennessee Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea L. Myles’ July 4 decision not to release one page of the killer’s writings.
While the materials obtained by The Star contained new revelations about Hale, including her various mental health conditions, 22-year mental health treatment and two evaluations for commitment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), and her obsession with male genitalia, there was no indication Hale harbored animosity toward the Covenant School, nor that she was abused as a student.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “The Covenant School Gym” by The Covenant School.
