It has now been 4 months since Dr. Battle announced the plan to eliminate over 40% of the academic middle magnet seats in Davidson County by removing 7th & 8th grade from MLK. Although district leadership has said that there will be opportunities for stakeholder engagement to discuss academic programming, there have not been any forums for dialogue nor have questions posed to MNPS leadership been answered. 

Below are some updates regarding community efforts to open dialogue and save MLK's middle school:

• An open records request regarding the ReimaginEd plan for MLK has revealed that the earliest communication about eliminating middle school at MLK was on October 31, 2023.  Multiple board members, as well as the executive principal of MLK, have said that they only learned of the plan at the end of November 2023.  (The plan was announced at the December 12th Board Meeting, and MLK faculty members were notified 1 hour prior to the meeting.)  The open records request also indicates that, other than eliminating MLK's academic magnet middle seats, there is not a transition plan in place for how this will look for students and/or faculty at MLK or Head.  The 4 people tasked with carrying out "ReimaginED MLK @ Head" are the executive principals of MLK & Head and their respective executive directors.  Their meeting notes/questions, directed to Dr. Norris (the executive officer who presented the ReimaginED plan), have gone unanswered.
• During the 2024 MNPS School Choice Process, Meigs (the only other MNPS academic magnet with middle school seats) leadership had said that 50 seats would be added to the 6th grade class; however, an open records request shows that 253 rising 6th graders were instead offered a seat at Meigs (170 of whom have enrolled for the 24-25 school year).  This is in addition to the 170 5th graders currently enrolled at Meigs who will matriculate to 6th.  Intentionally or not, MNPS has doubled the 6th grade academic middle magnet seats at Meigs from 170 to 340 without explanation while refusing to entertain a conversation about creating a 6th grade at MLK.  Meigs is already at capacity and does not have adequate space to add more students while MLK's building is at 80% capacity and has plenty of space to create a 6th grade class of 125 students.
• At the February 27th board meeting, 12 people from the MLK community spoke during the public participation portion to request that the board re-examine this decision, invite community feedback, and consider the addition of 6th grade to MLK.  These speakers reside in each of the 9 MNPS districts and were a diverse representation of Nashville by race, gender, & age.  According to the MNPS Board of Education website, "The school board represents the public's voice in public education, providing oversight for what the public schools need and what the community wants."  However, instead of listening to the voices of their constituents, some school board members proposed further restrictions to the public participation policy in the subsequent board meeting. This Change.org petition has nearly 700 signatures, but there has yet to be open dialogue about the future plans for MLK.

Please continue to reach out to Dr. Battle and MNPS School Board Members to request that MNPS re-examine the plan for MLK/Head, invite community feedback, and consider the addition of 6th grade to MLK.  The contact information for relevant MNPS leadership is included in this LINK. 

Thank you for your support and please continue to spread this petition!