Metro Nashville schools try to catch up with charters on recruiting

For nearly a decade now, Metro school officials have watched as they’ve gotten out-hustled and outsmarted by a budding group of charter schools when it comes to recruiting kids.

Now the district is looking to play catch-up.

Metro school administrators, teachers and parents this month are launching door-to-door canvassing on weekends, a campaign-style strategy long ago adopted by the charter sector. Teachers are now expected to sell what’s going on inside their buildings. And Metro recently added a new central office administrator whose job, as community outreach coordinator, is to find ways for faculty to recruit students.

“Their achievement scores are tremendous, and honestly, they out-recruit us,” Metro Director of Schools Jesse Register told a crowd of 75 this week inside East Nashville’s Jere Baxter Middle School as he discussed charter schools that have popped up around it. “I can’t recruit many children to Jere Baxter. But Jere Baxter faculty and parents can. That’s the way we recruit.

“You’re our best salesmen,” he said to teachers in attendance.

Jere Baxter, with 408 students, is operating at only 53 percent of its building’s capacity. Parents have found options elsewhere: More than 200 families zoned for that school attend nearby charter schools, led by KIPP Academy Nashville and Liberty Collegiate Academy. Another charter, Rocketship Nashville, opened just blocks away this year, adding to the competition.

Recruiting is nothing new for charters. Aiding their efforts are boards of directors, specific to each school, that create natural networks for community outreach. In charter hotbeds such as East and North Nashville, it’s not uncommon to get a doorstep visit from a representative of a charter school, as well as mail and fliers. Public relations and outreach specialists work inside some of them.

Charters also have figured out how to package a product, adopting school colors, recognizable slogans and catchy names.

“Inevitably, there are so many ways you can meet families, and the most worthwhile is to knock on doors and have conversations with folks,” said Ravi Gupta, co-founder of RePublic Schools, a charter school network in Nashville.

Changing the culture

Jere Baxter, where nearly all of students are considered low-income, faces a perception and an academic problem. It is one of 15 schools in Davidson County considered a priority school for falling in the bottom 5 percent of performance statewide. Only 22 percent of its students are considered proficient on tests.

“For a lot of parents, they hear ‘Rocketship’ and ‘KIPP,’ and they feel their kids are going to learn,” said Kevin Rankins, who has a first-grade son at Jere Baxter.

Jere Baxter is one of the schools that is getting attention as part of Register’s turnaround plan for East Nashville that could include closing some schools, turning others over to charters and creating a new “choice zone” to let parents pick their kids’ schools. Plans for Jere Baxter are unclear, but Register has expressed confidence in its new principal. Before changing the perception of a place like Jere Baxter, he said, the first step is changing its culture.

He recently brought in Jill Peeples, a former teacher at Glencliff High School, to lead recruiting and community engagement efforts for Metro. For now, she’s concentrating efforts in East Nashville. She said she believes every school has something to sell to families and area businesses — while Jere Baxter might not be excelling academically, she said the school provides after-school clubs to all students.

“A lot of times, we have those good things that we’re doing and we’re working really hard, but it’s not as obvious to others,” Peeples said. “My position will really empower teachers and leaders to tell their story to people.”

The district is planning an East Nashville fair to showcase its schools, though a date hasn’t been announced. Peeples also is creating teams at the Stratford and Maplewood high school clusters to foster more parental involvement.

“I think we can learn from some of the things they’ve been doing,” she said of charters. “But every school is different. Every school is going to market differently.”

No easy task

Matching charters in recruiting is no small task, though, especially for a system that has some 140 schools to market. “In order for MNPS to even come close to matching those efforts, you’d have to really think about your approach to community engagement,” board member Will Pinkston said. “We’re in the process of doing that at the board level, but it remains to be seen whether they can do that at the central office.”

It also might require money. Linda McDaniel, Jere Baxter’s librarian, said charter schools are able to attract parents to information sessions in ways her school can’t — serving barbecue, for example, or hosting monthly breakfasts.

“How do we get those things so that we can draw people in?” she asked. “Can we get some money for some barbecue dinners?”

Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236 and on Twitter @joeygarrison.