CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A Tennessee state lawmaker is now officially calling on the state attorney general to investigate what went wrong when Chattanooga Preparatory School hired Kenya White.
White is the 8th grade ELA teacher who now faces more than a dozen charges, among them kidnapping and sexual exploitation of a minor.
He was accused of sending inappropriate text messages to a student while working as an employee of Hamilton County Schools at East Lake Academy.
But after Hamilton County ended his contract, Chatt Prep still hired him, even with red flags in his Hamilton County Schools personnel file.
Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) was the lawmaker who is calling for the state to investigate Chatt Prep. He told us charter schools need more oversight.
This leads to the queston we’ve been asking since this happened: Who is responsible for making sure a public charter school follows the law?
It turns out that the answer is complicated.
Here’s how state law outlines the system:
Hamilton County Schools is the authorizer of Chatt Prep since they approved the charter.
The Tennessee Department of Education told us
School districts that authorize charter schools are responsible for ensuring the charter schools they authorize are following state law and state board of education rules.
Why does that matter here?
Both TDOE and the State Board of Education told us oversight of public charter schools is the responsibility of the school’s governing board and the district who authorized it.
In the case of Chatt Prep, that’s the Hamilton County Department of Education.
After we contacted several of them, Hamilton County School Board members mentioned the Chatt Prep scandal at their meeting on Tuesday night, wanting to get clarification on what they are required by law to do.
School Board Chair Joe Smith: “We did exactly what we were supposed to do?”
Superintendent Dr. Justin Robertson: “Yes”
Board Member Jodi Schaffer: “Does the TCA state that we’re supposed to have oversight of charter schools?”
No,” Attorney Mary DeCamp answered.
Chatt Prep’s Governing board is made up of well known business leaders like Jimmy Haslam and local education advocates like Edna Varner.
The CEO of the Tennessee Charter Center says public charters are set up to have a certain amount of autonomy so they can try different curriculum and supports. It’s up to them to make sure they understand and follow the rules in place to protect your kids.
We want to respect that balance, but also want to make sure that that charter schools understand the very real, you know, possibilities that exist, and making sure that they are very well educated and informed on these issues,’ said Elizabeth Fiveash of the Tennessee Charter Center.
We reached out to each member of Chatt Prep’s board of directors. They are founders Kelly and Ted Alling, Edna Varner, Shewanee Howard Baptiste, Moise Baptiste, Jimmy Haslam, Dr. Dave Bhattacharya, Amber Williams, Ward Davenport, Aaron Love and David Caines.
Even though a lot of the oversight comes back to them, not one of them responded to our request to speak to them.
We’ll keep asking.
Depend on us to keep you posted as this charter school scandal continues to unfold.
