'To build the leaders of tomorrow' | Here's how charter schools and traditional schools differ

A family who wants their child to attend a preparatory school first needs to apply online.

"There are no prerequisites to come into our school. It's an independently done lottery. It's not based on income, not based on grades or behavior," Scott said.

To get into the preparatory school, students' names are usually then chosen through a lottery system. The system is not based on places where students live, test scores or tuition. It takes the pool of applicants and chooses 105 students from that school who will be given the opportunity to attend.

In 2015, Emerald Academy became the first public elementary charter school in Knox County. The number of applicants outnumbered the seats available, so they used a lottery system to choose who would attend.

Students who were not selected were placed on a waitlist. 

"Our building is open to whoever applies. So, the only criteria is that you have to be zoned for a Hamilton County school," said Diamond Kelley, the principal at Chattanooga Preparatory School.

"We're providing families who normally would not have a choice in their education a choice," Scott said.

Tennesseans for Student Success (TSS) conducts a Quality Charter Review of charter schools across the state. Its goal is to make sure certain charter schools are a good fit for the community. 

Sky Arnold, with TSS, said the lottery system helps schools be more inclusive.

"Public charter schools serve all students. They have no selective admissions, and they must accept all students. So where the lottery comes in is sometimes there are more students who want to attend a public charter school than that school can handle," Arnold said.

The Tennessee Department of Education said that Chattanooga Preparatory's demographic makeup is 62% Black and 34% Hispanic.

In April 2022, Tennessee lawmakers passed a new funding formula for schools across the state. It funded public schools and charter schools the same way, basing the amount of money a school gets on each individual student's needs.

It was called the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement and replaced a 30-year funding formula called BEP. It gave each school district $6,800 of base funding, supplementing that money based on different categories listed below.

• Economically disadvantaged students
• Students living in areas of concentrated poverty
• Students in sparsely populated communities
• Students in a small school district
• Students with unique learning needs

"For every one of those students that are there, that money covers the cost of their teacher. It also covers building maintenance, custodial staff, cafeteria staff, office staff — it covers the whole kit and caboodle," said Candace Bannister, a former elementary school teacher with Knox County Schools.

According to TISA, when a student leaves a public school and goes to a charter school — the school effectively loses money that could go into different programs, infrastructure or other kinds of improvements.

"If you open up a charter school and take public money and put it into that charter school, that's less money available to the existing public schools," said Keith Britts, a father of three children in Knox County.

Charter schools have an additional source of funding that public schools don't — non-profit backers. These organizations can generate more money than a school district alone could. That money is raised mostly for the charter school, though.

Scott said charter schools still need to pay district fees to operate, which comes out of the amount of money that they get from the state. 

"Public charter schools pay an authorizer fee back to the traditional school district, based on our per pupil, so it's not a total loss of those funds," Scott said.

"It bothers me that public money is gonna go feed one group filet mignon," Bannister said. "But public money can't feed all of our children filet mignon."

Traditional schools usually answer to a publically elected Board of Education. The Board of Education sets policies and expectations for schools. They also usually answer to state leaders in the Department of Education, which can set rules that apply to schools across the state.

Charter schools do not answer publically elected boards in the same way. They are allowed to set their own curriculum, disciplinary policies, hours, hiring policies and more.

"We are our own entity — a nonprofit entity. We have our own governing board, all volunteers, and that governing board acts a lot like a school board," Scott said. "They're not elected, but they work in a sense of approving funding options, but also leadership decisions and should be the stewards, just like a school board of the organization."

While charter schools may not answer to publically elected boards of education, they can answer to the state Department of Education. Like traditional schools, they are evaluated based on test scores and performances. Scott said that if a charter school is not performing well, the state has the authority to shut it down.

"Every five years, every public charter school goes through a mid-evaluation of even deeper metrics of accountability. And then every ten years, the charter is reevaluated and re-approved by the local authorizer — the local school board. So, there's a lot of interaction with the county here in Hamilton," Scott said.

Scott said that Chattanooga Preparatory School aims to ensure students attend higher education after graduation.

"We don't want boys just to go to college. We want them to graduate. We want them to graduate with little to no debt," Scott said. 

To do this, the school provides 15 Advanced Placement courses, after-school tutoring, a free ACT exam and courses to help students prepare for the ACT exam. They also take students to visit at least one college per semester.

"All of our students take AP classes. So those AP classes, if they pass the tests, they will get in college credit. So a Chattanooga Prep High School student can go to college with 16 hours under their belt. It costs them absolutely nothing," Scott said.

Advanced Placement courses can also be offered at traditional public schools, depending on the school's resources. These kinds of classes give students the opportunity to review college-level materials while they're still in high school, earning credit in the subject area. Then, they can take an AP test.

If they score high enough on the test, students can earn college credit for the class as well.

"They take us to colleges get let us feel that experience. They put us in certain classes that challenge us. They always sort of put us at a point, so we can go get that challenge," said Tre Tucker, a student at Chattanooga Preparatory School.

Bannister said that parents of students in traditional public schools are often responsible for helping students through the college admissions process. However, some schools in Knox County offer resources to prepare families for college admissions. 

Some traditional Knox County schools have resources available online to help students prepare for the ACT exam, and others connect students with counselors or other staff members who help prepare them for the exam.

"It's gonna be up to parents to make those visits for the rest of the kids. And you know, Knox County Schools has 60,000 students," Bannister said.

Students at Chattanooga Preparatory School are also connected with mentors and a career counselor, who help them apply for colleges.

"All of our boys will get mentors. For a lot of our families, a lot of our boys are growing up in single-parent households. So, having that extra mentor to talk about life and talk about academics and talk about careers — it's crucial for their success," Scott said.

The after-school program is also unlike many other public schools. Chattanooga Prep is open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m., Monday through Friday.

"We get money from 21st Century (a financial organization) to where we're able to keep students after school. So, we have a very long day Monday through Thursday. Our Thursday starts at 7:30 a.m. Our first dismissal is at 4 p.m. And you would think after boys have been here that long that they would want to leave at 4 p.m. But a lot of our children stay after school for after-school tutoring," Kelley said.

Many students, like Tucker, also join clubs. Clubs in traditional schools in Knox County can vary depending on the school that a child attends. While the L&N STEM Academy offers a long list of clubs, other schools may not have as many.

"I play two sports. I play football and I run track. So we have a great sports program. And I also do Media Club. We do newsletters, podcasts, interviews, all that," Tucker said. "They probably also provide, like, lots of clubs for anybody in their interests. I think they have a chess club. That's one of the biggest clubs."

Kelley also said the school offers a "mock trial club," after a student said they wanted to be a lawyer and found nine other students to participate in mock trials. She said she found a judge who helps teach students about law once per week. 

"I think if you're using public money, we should treat our children equally. And that doesn't seem equal to me," Barrister said. "Other public schools don't have the money or resources to provide that level of engagement to their students."

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive state or federal financial assistance. Title IX applies to schools, local and state educational agencies, and any other institutions that receive state dollars.

"One of the issues that they've been dealing with is Title IX. The boys have a baseball field, and the girls have to have a softball field. Title IX says that if there's a boy sport and a girl sport, they need to have equal facilities," Bannister said. She said the same goes for schools.

Britts is a single father of 4-year-old triplets. He has two sons; Jefferson and Whitman. He also has a daughter, Amelia. Britts said his children will be enrolled in Knox County Schools next year. He doesn't want to see opportunities that exclude his daughter.

"Having two sons and one daughter, that's really how I got into this issue — that there may be opportunities available to my sons that are not available to my daughter," Britts said. "Charter schools aren't inherently bad, innovative learning techniques are fine. But in this case, where we're taking public taxpayer money to possibly fund a school that's going to be giving opportunities to boys that it's not going to be given to girls, that that seems frankly, immoral and illegal."

He said that he was impressed by young students from Chattanooga Prep that went to the KCS Board of Education meeting on Monday and spoke. He said he believed the male students were progressing academically, but he also said half the district's population was not represented among the ones who spoke — girls.

"There were no women there at all. And that's just really concerning that my daughter can never be part of that cohort," Britts said. "Given that if they are breaking the law by violating Title IX by offering male students different opportunities than female students, there's going to be a lawsuit, and they're going to lose that lawsuit. And so who's going to pay for that?"

Knoxville NAACP President Rev. Sam Brown also asked the Knox County School Board to reject Knox Prep's application to open a charter school in Knox County. The organization's director said a charter school would pull resources from traditional public schools and create disparity among students. 

"Charter schools, or anything that takes public funding from the public schools, does very little to help the greater part of the community," Brown said. "The current school system here in Knox County needs all of the resources that it can get." 

The Knox County Board of Education would have to vote to approve Knoxville Preparatory School. If the school board votes to reject the application, Tennessee's charter commission could overrule the Knox County BOE.  

The Chattanooga NAACP President, who is also a Chattanooga Prep school board member wrote a letter to Brown in support of Knoxville Prepreparatory School.