“Virtue was vanity dressed up and waiting for applause.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

I try to produce a new Dad Gone Wild piece every Friday. It’s important to have a schedule, but sometimes, events conspire to make that schedule moot.

Sometimes there is such much action, you gotta do a little more. This has been one of those weeks, hence an extra edition of Dad Gone Wild.

Nashville is still reeling from last weeks school shooting at Antioch High School. To make matters worse, Dr. Battle and her leadership team continue to try  manage circumstance with a high degree of tone deafness.

It’s a tone deafness that appears to put both the district and Dr. Battle above the needs of those they purportedly serving.

Last night’s board meeting started with a resolution read by Board Chair Frida Player that attempted to put Wednesday’s student deaths in the same basket as recent crisis including natural disasters and COVID. With minimal acknowledgment of the loss of student life, they instead chose to praise Dr. Battle.

Going as far as to cite her sacrificing family time in order to deal with this crisis. Does somebody need to remind them that there are two sets of parents that have sacrificed all of there family time with two of their students?

The praise for Battle was effusive and distateful, considering that we are still in the midst of an ongoing crisis.

In Players words, “She has been tested time and time again, and she has truly inspired us, and led the way when the road felt so hard.” Player goes on to praise Battles team and their hard work admidst a crisis that is far from over, despite their desire. In short, Player and the board go out of their way to, as the kids say, glaze the districts superintendent.

Somebody needs to ask the family and teachers of Antioch how supported they feel.

Did board memeber really feel that heaping praise on district leadership was needed, even as parents, teachers, and students are grappling with the fallout from last week’s events. There are many who still have fears about entering an MNPS school. Last week tragedy made a hypothetical fears, real fears.

Antioch HS ain;t that different from any other Metro school. There is a lot of good things going on, and the majority of students are fantastic. Still, there are challenges and students that need more attention.

The shooting at Antioch made everyone think about what it’d be like to leave for school, and have that be the last moment you ever see your loved one alive. That’s a feeling that doesn’t subside because the director and everybody on the board are wearing the same colored t-shirt with a positive slogan. It’ll linger for at least the near future.

As I mentioned last week, the school was closed for the remainder of the school week. Teachers reported back on Monday and students on Tuesday. The rest of the district returned to school immediately, even as students and teachers grappled with Wednesday’s student murder/suicide. Not surprising, teacher and student absences were abnormally high on Thursday and Friday.

My own daughter, took a mental health day on Thursday.

That morning, she was showing signs of depression and anxiety – some of it connected to the shooting. Unfortunately. I wasn’t as unsderstanding as I should have been and it led to a fight between us.

“I know this is all overwhelming.” I said, “But some times you just have to push through and persevere.”

“I’m trying Dada!” She emotionally replied, “I try to push through and persevere. I just can’t always presevere like you do.”

That stopped me in my traps. That’s not just a lesson for parents, but one for everyone. Including our district leaders. She took her day, as did many students across the district.

Had MNPS Superintendent Dr. Battle heeded my daughter’s words, all students would have been given that benefit.

Parents and students would have been afforded an opportunity to process and deal with circumstances that are becoming all to familiar. Battle talks a great game about relationships, but few of her policies do anything to foster those relationships. The gap between the classroom and the board room continues widen.

Some have tried to lay blame at the feet of the state and its Rhino governor, Bill Lee. Social media feeds have been awash with accusations that Lee demanded that Antioch use snow days to allow the school to close. While it is fun to blame Governor Lee for nefarious intents, that’s not quite how it works.

Governor Lee is not involved in the process. That’s the TDOE.

Every district in the state is provided with 5 days where they can close school for various reasons. Mostly those days are used for inclement weather, so they earn the moniker of snow days.

If a district uses more then five days, they can apply for a waiver. The catch is, you can only apply for a waiver after you’ve used all five days.

MNPS has used one day, depending on how Monday is counted – teachers reported, students did not – the district has now used three or four days. If they use one more, they would then have to begin thinking about waivers.

Antioch’s closure counts for the whole district, not just the individual school. Another reason why MNPS Schools should have been closed all week.

Speaking of teachers returning on Monday, Antioch’s teachers returned to the building for the first time sans an important guest – Dr. Adrienne Battle. For whatever reason, the Supperintendent did not feel it neccesary for her to appear and offer reassurances to teachers. Perhaps, she felt that her appearance at a lunceon she had hosted at the Martin Center last week was sufficient and Antioch teachers  just needed to get back to work without further words from her.

Remember everyone preservers different.

Students returning to school on Tuesday were greeted with metal detectors, sort of.

MNPS has chosen Antioch HS to pilot an AI technology to replace a failed AI technology, in an effort to ensure student safety. Can you say, checking a box with me?

The company supplying the technology is Evolv Technologies, who’s system functions like a traditional metal detection system, but is less intrusive. Currently both Nissan Stadium and the Clarksville-Montgomery County School Systems utilize their tehnology.

According to a WSMV report, in 2023, after Evolv was installed at Nissan Stadium, Mike Ellenbogen, Co-Founder and Chief Innovative Officer at Massachusetts-based Evolv-Technologies, Inc., told WSMV4 that while the scanners aren’t perfect, system upgrades continue.

The Federal Trade Commission and Evolv Technologies recently  settled a complaint filed by the FTC in 2024. It accused Evolv Technologies of using deceptive marketing practices.

The FTC complaint said the weapons detection system failed to detect a seven-inch knife that was used to stab a student inside a school. Evolv first came under fire after two school stabbings, one in Ohio and one in New York, where Evolv scanners were in place but failed to detect the knives used in the attacks.

Antioch is the only MNPS school that will be getting the Evolv system until the district has sufficient time to gather data and analize it. Cost will obviously be a factor. No time line has been provided for when other schools can expect to receive their own upgrades. Something that is not sitting well with parents.

In regards to the current AI system utilized by MNPS, Chad Marlow, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union who specializes in privacy, surveillance and technology issues, told The Tennessean  a growing number of tech companies are targeting school districts with new safety technology with little evidence it works to prevent shootings.

He pointed out that these system struggle to identify conceled weapons. Therefore if a kid brought a gun to school in a back pack, it would likely go undetected. Some didtricts have gone to clear bag policies, as an additional means to keep students safe.

Marlow said the detection systems can be riddled with false positives — like a broomstick mistaken for a gun — and that it can take longer for the system to verify if the object is in fact a gun, costing precious minutes.

“I would say, if in fact the school was using the technology, this is a worst case scenario of how a school discovers that they’ve been bamboozled by one of these gun detection school surveillance companies,” he said.

Marlow said it’s all part of a billion-dollar education technology industry that markets everything from weapons detection systems and email scanning to facial recognition software for schools desperate to keep kids safe.

Dr. Battle continues to cling to her belief that metal detectors have a negative impact on schools. She says metal detectors are often an unreliable measure when it comes to preventing weapons from finding their way onto campus and can have “unintended consequences.” The superintendent doesn’t spell out those “negative consequences”, but it’s hard to eimage any that are worse then two dead kids.

Many of the Antioch students who returned on Tuesday, walked out in the morning to hold a protest and a rally outside the school.

District official responded by refusing re-entry to those students who had left the building. While this is consistant with MNPS polocy, the plans for the walkout were well known and based on last weeks evnts, there should have been a contingency plan in place. Locking out students who are not sure they even want to be in because of administrative failures, is never a good look.

MNPS’s contingency plan seems to be a hastly thrown together district sponsored rally in the afternoon, while standing on protocol:

We are providing time and space in our building to give voice to their concerns and advocate for themselves and their peers. We have worked with student leaders to create a walk-in rally this afternoon where they can exercise their first amendment rights within the safety of our facilities. While we appreciate legitimate feelings of grief and anger, and we are working to help them process those, students who leave campus without parent permission may be subject to discipline in accordance with our student-parent handbook.

Did I mention the words tone deaf?

The district also announced that Antioch HS will receive an additional student resource officer. That means that the school of 1700 kids will now have three designated SROs. I’ll leave the math to you.

As media outlets begin to look into events prior to the shooting, questions are emerging about MNPS discipline policies and how they contribute to student safety.

WSMV4 is reporting that in October, shooter 17-year-old Solomon Henderson was suspended from school months before the shooting that claimed the life of a 16-year-old girl and himself.

Disciplinary records show that on Oct. 24, 2024, the teen was disciplined for bringing a box cutter to school and threatening to harm another student with it. No student was harmed, and Henderson received a 2-day suspension.

Reporter Jeremy Finley also uncovered that guns were previously removed from Henderson’s home in 2023. An MNPD spokesman confirms that the two guns belonged to adults and have remained in the department’s property room since then.

MNPS likes to say every student known, but in this case, Henderson clearly wasn’t.

Principals are quick to be blamed for lack of discipline in school, but often have their hands tied by those above them. MNPS policy requires principals to seek approval from their executive director before expelling students, even for violent infractions.

MNPS does not consider it a zero tolerance assault of staff unless a staff member has a serious bodily injury. Why is it okay to slap or punch a teacher once and not be expelled?

Principals are often discouraged from suspending or expelling students because of how it looks for “disproportionality”. Once again, appearence over service.

In order to be expelled for fighting, a student must have three fights in a nine week period. That’s alot of leeway.

In a semi-perfect world, the board and DR. Battle would be holding public conversations that took a hard look at policy and the failures of existing policy. You can heap all the praise you want.

Say all the positive things you want.

Talk about the great work your team is doing all you want.

The fact that there are now two empty seats at the dinner table this week, means a failure for those entrusted with keeping those children safe.

Unfortunately, MNPS’s school board has become little more then a PR firm for the current of director of schools. A firm that puts adult needs above student needs on a regular basis. In their eyes it is better to have a face of unity and compliance then it is to do what’s right for those they are supposed to serve.

God there are days that I really miss, Jill Speering, Amy Frogge, Fran Bush, and even Anna Shepherd.

While not always perfect, they never put appearences above serving students, teachers, and families.

At some point MNPS officials and board members are going to have to publicly admit that despite their back slapping and pretty words, they failed two kids.

The question remains, will they be allowed to do it again?

– – –

NAEP results are out today. Results nationally are for the most part flat. Tennessee though bucks the national average and shows positive results.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—commonly called the Nation’s Report Card—provides estimates of student achievement across subjects, using a sampling of students within a subset of schools, and reflects national achievement trajectories.

This year’s NAEP administration, the second since 2019, shows that the percent of 4th and 8th grade Tennessee students meeting grade level expectations has increased and is performing above the national average in both reading and math.

The growth is consistant on both the fourth grade and eigth grade level. This could mean that Tennessee’s focus on elementary school literacy is sticking with students as they advance. That’s a good thing.

Tennessee’s latest post-pandemic results stand n contrast to declines seen nationwide and in many other states. Tennessee students scored three to four points higher than the national average in math and one to two points higher in reading.

When looking at these scores it is important to recognize that NAEP is regarded as a much more difficult assessment then the state’s TCAP test.

Like all assessments, these results shouldn’t be seen as the be all and all, but they are cause for pride.

Well done Tennessee students and teachers.

– – –

Remember, back in the summer, I told you that this years voucher push wouldn’t be a long drawn out conversation like last year. It was going to be a wham bang thank you mamn affair.

Nobody should be surprised that this special session consisted of hand chosen committees and quick calls to the vote. This is what happens when you have a supermajority that decides it wants something passed.

Don’t tell me your party wouldn’t do the same thing, it absolutely would.

Now things head to the floor for a vote that should take place around midnight. Rememeber how your mom used to tell you, nothing good happens after midnight? Sage advice.

Some pro=choce advocates are counting their chickens before they are hatched – making the assumption that this is a done deal. It’s not.

Vote is going to be close.

While Governor Lee and his posse are out threatening lawmakers, its worth noting, that in many communities, the same thing is taking place.

We shall see who has the biggest stick and the tastiest carrots.

– – –

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Categories: Education