“Any decent poet can use words to stop
the bleeding.”
― Serhiy Zhadan, Месопотамія

Start Times, Lawsuits, and the Quiet Drift Away from Public Schools

At this week’s Metro Nashville Public Schools board meeting, members once again took up the question of school start times, primarily for high school students. This is not a new conversation. It’s the kind of issue that cycles back around every few years, usually with the same ingredients: a survey, a few town halls, a PowerPoint deck, and a firm insistence that this time the district is really listening.

Earlier this year, MNPS released a survey that generated more than 16,000 responses. That sounds impressive until you put it in context. MNPS serves roughly 80,000 students. It employs more than 5,000 teachers, at least another 5,000 support staff, and what feels like an infinite number of central office employees. Sixteen thousand responses is not “everyone.” It’s not even close.

In addition to the survey, the district hosted several town halls: four in person and a couple virtual, all under the banner of community engagement. The idea, at least on paper, was to collect meaningful public feedback before making any decisions.

At Tuesday’s meeting, board member Cheryl Mayes went out of her way to stress the importance of hearing from “everyone,” with special emphasis on immigrant families, who make up a growing share of the city’s population. I suppose she feared that without her explicit intervention, those voices might somehow be ignored. Or maybe this had something to do with an upcoming reelection campaign. Hard to say. But I digress.

After all of that outreach, the one point of broad agreement was that high school starts too early. About 67 percent of all respondents felt that way, a figure that jumped to 74 percent when limited to high school students, families, and staff. On the other end of the spectrum, middle school families and staff, who currently deal with the district’s latest dismissal time at 3:55 p.m., were largely opposed to any later start.

When you zoom out, support for changing start times landed almost exactly down the middle.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: this is largely an argument of privilege.

That point was reinforced by an anecdote shared by The Nashville Banner, which profiled a family navigating the current staggered schedule:

“Jeff and Cristy Weems, the parents of one high school and two middle school students in the district, pointed to research that later start times allow students to get more sleep and can improve health and academic performance.

‘Our main concern is education,’ Jeff said. ‘I can sympathize with people who don’t want their kids to get off after basketball or football, but that’s a choice, too.’

Jeff wakes up at 5:30 a.m. each morning and leaves the house an hour later to drop off the three kids — one at 7:05, the other two at 8:55 a.m. Just a few hours later, that process repeats for afternoon pickup.

Cristy said the transition from starting the day at 8:55 a.m. to 7:05 a.m. is a “huge jump” for ninth grade students moving from middle to high school. The family has learned to plan its schedule around this two-hour gap, placing the middle school students in morning extracurricular activities or even hanging out in the park between dropoff times.

“You can sit in a parking lot and do homework or all those things for 45 minutes,” Cristy said, “but two hours is too much.”

I get it. I really do. I’ve got two high schoolers myself, and 5:30 a.m. comes early no matter how many times you experience it. But the simple fact that you can drive your kids to school is itself a privilege.

MNPS is a high-poverty district. Many families don’t have that option.

A large number of Nashville’s high school students are balancing extracurricular activities with after-school jobs or family obligations, including caring for younger siblings. For them, the comparison isn’t “45 minutes in the park versus two hours killing time.” It’s an hour to catch your breath before younger siblings walk through the door and you’re on duty for the next four to six hours.

Schools often prefer earlier start times to avoid rush-hour traffic and to help families coordinate childcare. What gets overlooked in these discussions is that many MNPS employees don’t live in Nashville. They commute from Williamson, Wilson, and Rutherford counties, with more than a few coming in from Dickson County. Start messing with school schedules, and you start messing with people’s lives. At some point, those people start considering other employment options.

MNPS already struggles with staffing. Creating additional friction seems like an odd strategy.

But then comes the rallying cry: the science.

What about the science?

It’s become the go-to argument in almost every policy debate. “What does the science say?” As if science is a stone tablet handed down from a mountain. Yes, there is research suggesting later start times can be beneficial. There’s also research suggesting those benefits are modest and highly dependent on context.

There is no guarantee that a later start time results in more sleep. Teenagers are remarkably adaptable when it comes to staying up later if they know they can sleep in. At some point, shouldn’t high school students begin taking responsibility for managing their own sleep?

And then there are the economic questions no one seems eager to address. What happens to businesses that rely on teen labor if their workforce loses a couple of afternoon hours? Will some students drop out because employers are no longer willing to accommodate limited availability? These are not hypothetical concerns. They’re real, and they deserve serious consideration.

Faced with a mountain of data that provides very little momentum for change, the district can’t simply walk away. That would look like failure. So instead, we get three “options,” each one carefully designed to look like action without actually solving much of anything.

The first plan, called “squeeze,” would move high school start times 20 minutes later to 7:25 a.m. and elementary start times 10 minutes later to 8:10 a.m. The second, “shift,” would move elementary, middle, and high school start times by 15 minutes to 8:15 a.m., 9:10 a.m., and 7:20 a.m., respectively. The third option is no change at all.

Anyone who has navigated Nashville traffic knows exactly how much damage 15 minutes can do. Hit the window just right, and your commute is manageable. Miss it by five minutes, and you’re sitting in gridlock wondering what you did wrong with your life. Why introduce that kind of risk for families when the upside is so marginal?

And now, after all of this, the district is conducting yet another survey asking people to choose between three largely meaningless plans.

One more digression, if you’ll allow.

The Tennessee General Assembly is back in session this week. My wish is that someone in that building would draft a law requiring a full accounting every time a public entity launches one of these large-scale public opinion campaigns. Who paid for it? How much did it cost? Who designed it? Who decided which questions to ask?

That kind of transparency might help answer a question a friend asked me recently: “When everything is equal, whose voice carries the most weight? Families? Teachers? Students? Or politicians trying to curry favor?”

I don’t know the answer. But I’d like to.

This week also brought news of yet another lawsuit against MNPS related to the tragic shooting at Antioch High School last year. This one was filed on September 11, 2025, by a former Antioch assistant principal.

Kelly Latham was an assistant principal at Antioch at the time of the shooting. According to the lawsuit, she and Executive Principal Nekesha Burnette were both on campus when the incident occurred. Their responses, as alleged, could not have been more different.

According to the filing, Dr. Latham immediately ran toward the cafeteria after hearing calls for help. She heard gunshots and continued toward the source of the danger, becoming the first administrator on the scene. She assisted students in evacuating, contacted school resource officers, called for an ambulance after witnessing the student shooter take his own life, and helped organize dismissal alongside law enforcement.

The lawsuit alleges a contrast in responses, stating that Principal Burnette did not proceed toward the scene during the incident. Later, she reportedly worried about how her actions might look, and the filing suggests that her failure in that moment led to her heightened criticism of her executive team and their ultimate replacement.

The filing further claims this was not an isolated incident, pointing to a prior event in May 2024 involving a reported gun on campus that later turned out to be a water gun. In that instance, Burnette allegedly remained in a conference room while Latham and another assistant principal ran toward the reported threat. The next day, Burnette allegedly claimed she had responded by running to the scene.

What followed, according to the lawsuit, was harassment and retaliation. While I’m inclined to extend some grace in the aftermath of trauma, if these allegations prove accurate, what Latham experienced is indefensible. She was eventually removed from her administrative role and returned to the classroom at a lower salary.

Latham is seeking a jury trial, back pay, and punitive damages for what she describes as intentional and willful interference with her professional standing.

This one deserves close attention.

Meanwhile, the application period for Tennessee’s Education Freedom Scholarships is open, and demand continues to outstrip supply.

More than 50,000 applications have been submitted this year, up from 43,000 last year. The program currently offers 20,000 scholarships worth $7,295 each. Half are reserved for income-eligible families; the other half are open to all Tennessee students. Applications close January 30.

This surge comes even as the state comptroller raised concerns about Tennessee’s earlier voucher program, limited to Nashville, Memphis, and Chattanooga. Still, interest in school choice continues to grow.

Public education advocates need to have an honest moment with themselves. Charter schools and vouchers are expanding. Public school enrollment is declining. It cannot be because all 53,000 applicants are foolish or misled. At some point, the system has to stop assuming bad faith from families and start examining its own.

Why is the choice message resonating more clearly than the public school message? That’s the question no one wants to answer.

Education is not just a collection of data points. Students are not cells in a spreadsheet.

The comptroller’s report noted that public school students scored slightly higher than voucher students. But what does that really mean? Often, it comes down to three or four questions on a standardized test. Does that capture a student’s growth, resilience, or readiness for life?

No one cares what you scored on TCAP a year after you graduate. They care whether you can show up on time, regulate yourself, learn new skills, and work with others. Those qualities are only marginally reflected in test scores, yet we sacrifice nearly everything to chase them.

Success in life is built on relationships. Who you know often matters as much as what you know. But teachers are given little time to help students build those skills because the system is obsessed with metrics.

Sometimes that obsession borders on abuse. It becomes so ingrained that many educators no longer recognize it as such. I recently heard stories of principals attempting to enforce “sick day blackouts.” The idea that teachers can’t get sick on certain days is absurd, yet more than one administrator seems to think it’s permissible. That speaks volumes about the leadership above them.

Critics point to the lack of standardized testing in voucher schools as a flaw. Parents may see it as a feature.

MNPS loves to repeat the phrase “Every Child Known,” but struggles to live it.

My 11th-grade daughter is enrolled in the Science and Math at Vanderbilt program, an accelerated academic opportunity she’s participated in since freshman year. Once a week, she attends classes at Vanderbilt University with about 30 other students.

Almost every Thursday, which is her day to go to Vanderbilt this year, I get a call saying my child is absent.

Each time, there’s a moment of panic, followed by irritation when I remember exactly where she is. If my child is truly known, why isn’t this reflected in the system?

It’s a small thing, but it’s revealing. If high-achieving students can be lost in the shuffle, what happens to those flying under the radar?

That’s the appeal of smaller schools. Especially when the state helps offset the cost.

Critics argue that the vouchers aren’t enough to cover full tuition. What they ignore is that for many families, even partial assistance can make the difference between staying in a struggling school and finding a better fit for their child. Most families aren’t looking for free. They’re looking for help.

We’ll hear plenty more about vouchers in the coming weeks as lawmakers debate expansion.

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Until next time:

Accountability begins with accuracy—and with listening to the people closest to the work.

Categories: Education