As a busy mom, it’s not often I make my way to our state Capitol to visit with my elected officials. But, last week, I had the chance to do just that as I took part in the Tennessee chapter of Public School Option’s 4th Annual Capitol Day.
Joined by hundreds of families from all across the state, including many from here in the Chattanooga area, we traveled to Nashville to make our voices heard. As parents, we believe that we know the best when it comes to deciding the best possible type of education for our children.
This is an especially important message to send as the state Legislature reconvenes and are set to consider a number of important education-related issues.
For many of us that traveled to the Capitol, we are deeply concerned that an important public school option for our families will vanish unless the Legislature renews the Virtual School Act.
Thanks to this law, I was able to enroll my children into the Tennessee Virtual Academy, a full-time online public school offered through Union County Public Schools, serving students in grades kindergarten through eight-grade. TNVA follows all state accountability standards and requirements, and uses Tennessee-certified teachers who provide instruction and support.
As a mother that highly values academic rigor, I was especially impressed by its curriculum and knew that this was the right type of school for my children.
Beyond the curriculum, I was also drawn to TNVA because of its flexible and personalized programs that are adaptable for all types of learners, including students with special needs or medical challenges.
In our case, our children’s busy extracurricular activities and involvement in athletics made TNVA a compelling choice.
But as I learned from this year’s Capitol Day, for some parents the choice to send their children to TNVA was more urgent. Some students have medical issues that prevent them from attending a traditional school. Still others were coming from an unsafe learning environment with bullying.
Unfortunately, TNVA’s uncertain future was on the lips of every mother, father and supporter I interacted with on Capitol Day. We are worried that TNVA is being unfairly singled out for closure because of its test scores, even though there are more than 100 other schools in the state that have the same level one test results – and none of these other schools are being threatened with closure.
What’s more, TNVA is improving and at a faster rate than other schools – including all other level one schools. Even former Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman noted that TNVA was succeeding – especially for students who are with the school more than one year, “When you take a deeper look at the data you see that students who have been there two and three years perform at a reasonable level.”
Thankfully, we were pleased to hear from a number of our state legislators that support parents’ rights to choose the best type of school for their children – including online education. Among the legislators that addressed our group included Rep. Delores Gresham that rightly said, “Parents are a child’s first teacher, and know that every child is different.” We were especially happy to hear from Senator Frank Nicely tell us that he “is going to do everything possible to keep TNVA going.”
As encouraging as Capitol Day was for the hundreds of families that traveled to Nashville in support of greater public school options, we know that we have our work cut out to raise awareness of this important issue that is affecting hundreds of families across our state.
At the end of the day – the simple fact is TNVA is working for hundreds of families across our state and it’s simply unfair for the Department of Education and legislative opponents of school choice to try and shut down TNVA when it is showing marked improvement.
Michelle Hamidi