Despite massive turnout in support of two Founders Classical Academy charter schools, the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission (TPCSC) has rejected the schools’ bids to open campuses in Williamson and Sumner counties.
“I think it is clear that this school has a lot of community support,” Tess Stovall, TPCSC’s executive director reportedly said. “However, that is not the only thing that one needs for a school to be successful.”
TCPSC voted unanimously against the charter schools.
The nine-member panel, comprised of appointees of Governor Bill Lee, a supposed school choice advocate, has rejected several charter school applications statewide this year.
As reported Tuesday by The Tennessee Star:
The executive director of Tennessee’s Public Charter Schools Commission has recommended against two new charter schools, after last month battling to stop a charter school from opening in Rutherford County and another from opening in Williamson County.
Tess Stovall reportedly agreed with the Memphis-Shelby County School Boards’ unanimous votes – one in April and another in July – and recommended against the opening of Binghampton Community School and Tennessee Volunteer Military Academy.
Stovall is a known left-winger whose résumé includes working for a left-wing nonprofit and a Democrat congressman from Tennessee.
For Founders Classical in Williamson County, which has been battling with the state to open a campus in Brentwood, the vote was another blow in a long saga.
Earlier this month, TPCSC held an appeals hearing after its initial rejection of the school. Tuesday’s decision appears to be the result of that hearing, in which the school was accused of having an “inability to effectively serve students” due to its purported lack of bus transportation.
But Brian Haas of Del Rey Education, a company that helps launch Founders Classical Academy public charter schools around the country, told The Star at the time that that was a misrepresentation of facts.
“Much of the Williamson County Schools presentation, especially the closing, dwelled on our purported ‘inability to effectively serve students,’ based on our lack of general bus transportation (Founders provides busing for special needs and in situations where necessary, and serves more diverse populations than most districts the schools reside in, with parents being willing to drive their children, as they are in Williamson), and lack of food services,” he said at the time.
He also said that politics plays a role in whether charter schools can open, despite the fact that many lawmakers in Tennessee say they support the alternatives to traditional public schools.
“There is pushback from both political sides; however, this appears to be the result of political positioning and establishment manipulation by the unions, which have shown their disregard for students throughout COVID,” Haas said at the time. “For example, the existence of charter schools was approved by the legislature and is endorsed, in general, by many legislators. However, in more than one case legislators who supported charter schools have changed their position now that applications have been submitted in their districts, due to obvious political pressure.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Tess Stovall” by Tess Stovall.
