Nashville school board votes to close Rocketship Northeast Elementary charter

The Metro Nashville Public Schools board rejected one charter school's renewal application Tuesday and approved two others.

Rocketship Northeast Elementary School on Dickerson Pike was denied renewal Tuesday by a vote of 8-1. The lone vote to keep the school was by Board member Erin O'Hara Block.

Valor Collegiate Academies and Kipp Collegiate High School's renewals were both approved.

Charter renewals last 10 years. Rocketship can appeal the board's decision to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission, according to MNPS spokesperson Sean Braisted. If approved, the state would take over authorization of the school and it could remain open. If the appeal fails — or if the school chooses not to appeal — it would close at the end of the current school year.

The Rocketship denial came despite a recommendation by the charter review committee, made up of MNPS staff and community members, to renew the charter.

But Board Chari Rachael Anne Elrod said Rocketship Northeast Elementary had 10 years to show progress and exceed the educational scores and growth of MNPS. She said the charter failed and had a low success rate below that of MNPS.

She said the school received $6.8 million per year in taxpayer money and had a chronic absenteeism rate of 41.5%.

"They have a low success rate, it's actually below ours, though I know that we're not striving for mediocrity. We really do want exceptional," Elrod said. "They are not outperforming the district."

Board member Emily Masters moved to decline Rocketship Northeast Elementary's application.

Masters noted a lack of evidence of future planning as the charter's application sought to reduce the number of students it could handle.

Board member Christiane Buggs, who voted against Rocketship's renewal, said she is typically a proponent of keeping schools open to avoid disrupting student lives.

MNPS Director Adrienne Battle said the surrounding five elementary schools in the area could handle the nearly 525 students if the school were to close.

Valor Collegiate Academies

Valor Collegiate Academies met or exceeded standards in academic, financials and operational stability and future planning. Valor serves students in fifth through 12th grades and is located on Nolensville Pike.

Board member Abigail Tylor said it apppeared to her based on data collected that Valor cultivated a group of students that wasn't as economically disadvantaged as those as MNPS schools in the surrounding area.

"I think it's pretty clear looking at the students that they are picking and choosing to recruit," she said. "I see that the vast majority of their students are not economically disadvantaged. They have a very small students with disabilities group."

Tylor abstained from voting for or against Valor's renewal.

Elrod said Valor is one of the best charter schools in the state.

"A concern that I have is that as a board, we agree that charter schools if we are going to renew them, or whether they're a new charter, we're stating that we believe that they're gonna do a better job than us," Elrod said.

She abstained from the vote. The other seven board members voted to renew Valor's application.

Kipp Collegiate High School

Though the review committee said Kipp Collegiate High School had room for improvement in academics and background check practices, the board voted to renew the school by a 6-3 vote.

The three voting against the East Nashville charter were Elrod, Tylor and and Masters.

The review committee recommended renewing its application.

Elrod and Tylor noted Kipp Collegiate High performed below MNPS.

"For us to have to say 'we're just going to continue to allow them to do the same or worse than us' and give them a pass, when let's be honest, nobody's given MNPS a pass for having the same grouping of children and struggling ... what could our schools do if we had more, if we had the ability, if we had the resources, if we had the autonomy to do the things they have and if we had private groups coming in and giving us extra money," Tylor said.

The district spent $6.4 million on Kipp Collegiate High.

Reach reporter Craig Shoup by email at cshoup@gannett.com and on X @Craig_Shoup. To support his work, sign up for a digital subscription to www.tennessean.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville board votes to close one charter school, keep open two more