“The problem isn’t who is in charge. It’s what is in charge. The problem is that people are encouraged to function as machines. Or, actually, as mechanisms. Human emotion and sympathy are unprofessional. They are inappropriate to the exercise of reason. Everything which makes people good – makes them human – is ruled out. The system doesn’t care about people, but we treat it as if it were one of us, as if it were the sum of our goods and not the product of our least admirable compromises.”
― Nick Harkaway, The Gone-Away World

Metro Nashville Public Schools likes to brag about knowing every child.

It sounds good if you say it fast. Put it on a slide, say it at a board meeting, and everybody can nod along. Spend a little time talking to families, and the slogan starts doing more work than the system.

Every day, I hear stories of students who have fallen through the cracks. Sometimes it is the unavailability of advanced academic classes. Sometimes it is a family situation that never fits neatly into the district’s preferred categories. Sometimes it is a disciplinary decision that seems to consider everything except the child standing in front of the adults.

Different circumstances. Same question.

Is the student being seen, or is the student being counted?

Because the spreadsheet knows every child, too. That doesn’t mean it gives a damn about them.

There is a difference. A number can be moved around a spreadsheet. A child has ambitions, fears, relationships, and a future that doesn’t pause while the adults work out how to protect the organization.

As we head into fall break, that distinction keeps coming back to me. The backpacks get a rest. The consequences don’t.

Opportunity for whom?

We talk about all the academic growth the district has purportedly made over the last four years. Meanwhile, another group of seniors is discovering that its opportunities weren’t quite what the promotional material suggested.

These are students with aspirations to attend prestigious universities. They have worked hard, taken the challenging courses available, and done what adults told them to do. Now some are finding that their six AP classes don’t necessarily stack up against applicants who had the opportunity to complete more than a dozen.

The distinction matters. They didn’t decline the opportunity. They never had it.

And these students won’t be competing only against classmates who faced the same limitations. They’ll be applying for college spots alongside students who had access to more advanced classes, better-resourced programs, and more chances to build on their interests. Later, they’ll compete for internships, jobs, and other opportunities with people who benefited from those advantages. Hard work matters, but it doesn’t magically erase an opportunity gap. We can’t limit what students can access today and then tell them tomorrow that they should have done more to stand out.

Before somebody misunderstands me, college admissions are about more than counting AP classes. But access to challenging coursework is still access. A student can’t enroll in a class that isn’t offered, and a family shouldn’t have to discover that limitation when applications are due.

Too often, we underserve high achievers with a shrug and a dismissive reassurance:

“They’ll be all right. look at all the opportunities they have at Belmont, MTSU, or UTC.”

Don’t get me wrong. Those are fine schools that deliver an excellent education. This isn’t a knock on any of them.

The district doesn’t get to put a ceiling on a kid’s ambitions and then congratulate itself because the kid found something underneath it.

The district should help a child pursue those ambitions instead of deciding that the opportunities already available should be good enough.

If every student is seen, their ambitions ought to be seen, too.

That doesn’t mean promising admission to anybody’s dream school. It means being honest about what is available, identifying gaps early, and treating those gaps as something worth addressing. High achievers are students. Doing well shouldn’t be the thing that gets you moved to the bottom of the district’s to-do list.

A pie, a well, and a student

That same tension showed up in the recent charter school approval hearings.

MNPS again rejected applications from two schools proposing experiences that would add something different to Nashville’s educational landscape.

Music City Academy, founded by former Tennessee Titan and longtime educator Dr. Kevin Dyson, would center career-connected learning around athletics, wellness, and sports business.

The Gate School would serve middle school students through the discussion-based Harkness Method, placing students around an oval table to discuss ideas with one another.

You can debate whether either proposal would deliver on its promises. You should. A proposed school deserves scrutiny, and a compelling description isn’t the same thing as a successful school.

But when it came time to make the case against these schools, the district reached for the checkbook.

MNPS estimated that Music City Academy would shift about $1.67 million in per-pupil funding during its first year, while The Gate School would shift about $1.87 million. District leaders argued that even relatively small enrollment losses leave existing schools with fixed expenses they cannot quickly eliminate.

Deputy Superintendent Dr. Mason Bellamy put it this way:

“It is a pie, not a well,”

Fair enough. Buildings cost money. Staffing costs money. Losing students doesn’t automatically erase those expenses. I understand the math. I just don’t think the math gets to be the whole conversation.

But somewhere in that explanation, we need to talk about what the students would gain. The financial argument tells us why the district wants to retain enrollment. It doesn’t, by itself, tell us why a particular child would be better served by staying.

The executive director’s review reached a different conclusion: opening Music City Academy and The Gate School would not significantly harm district finances. Both schools were recommended for approval at the October 9 Charter Commission meeting.

At the time of this writing, those are recommendations, not final decisions. Let’s keep that distinction straight.

What follows could matter even more.

The direct-application pathway at issue here allows proposed charter operators to apply to the Charter Commission after the state overturns three of the same district’s denials within three consecutive years. That option remains available for five years after the third reversal. Applicants can choose the district or the Commission.

In other words, under those conditions, charter operators could bypass MNPS altogether.

Think about the financial implications of that option alongside the state’s voucher program. Then consider the enrollment numbers. If the figures in the MNPS data warehouse are correct, the district has lost roughly 10,000 students over the last decade.

Check the numbers. Absolutely. But if they hold up, this isn’t a district that can afford to assume families will keep buying what it’s selling.

Board Chair Dr. Berthena Nabaa-McKinney offered a point worth remembering:

“Fiscal impact becomes student impact.”

Yes, it does. That argument ought to work in both directions.

An opportunity withheld has a student impact, too. And defending district finances can backfire if repeated denials open a pathway to less local control.

MNPS could have explored a partnership with schools proposing services it wasn’t offering. Instead, it has created an adversary.

A partnership wouldn’t make every problem disappear. Neither does stamping NO on an application.

The system has been defended. At what cost?

Knowing a child when it matters

Nowhere is the question of seeing individual students more consequential than in discipline.

Consider Lilith Pipkin’s case.

Here is what the district says in the material provided to me:

On January 14, 2026, during the school day, Lilith Pipkin, reported and turned in a written note on a ripped sheet of paper that stated, “I have a gun. Leave at 1:30. Don’t tell anyone.” The content of the note constituted a direct threat of mass violence on school property. Upon receipt of the note, school administration and MNPD (School Resource Officers) immediately initiated an investigation in accordance with MNPS protocols. One of our campus support staff and a school administrator received the threat, This prompted our school administrators and MNPD SROs to conduct an investigation to determine the individual responsible for the threat. At th conclusion of the investigation, there was no evidence signifying that any other student in the building, composed the threatening note based on the information we received from the student, however, the evidence collected led to the following findings:

The district says the evidence points toward Lilith. Her family says she didn’t write it. I’m not going to pretend those are the same account or that I can settle the dispute from my keyboard.

I can ask whether the evidence described supports the certainty of the consequence imposed.

Among the evidence described: torn pieces of paper in her jacket pocket that resembled the paper used for the threat:

“The note was written on a torn corner from a note book. Torn notes similar to the threat were found in Lillith’s jacket pocket. There wasn’t an exact match, just similar torn notes.

Similar isn’t identical. That’s a pretty important distinction when the next step is throwing a child out of school.

Nothing in the district material identifies a handwriting match between Lilith and the threatening note. A handwriting expert hired by the family says the writing does not match hers. That directly challenges the district’s conclusion about who wrote it. Before imposing a consequence as severe as expulsion, the district should explain how it reached that conclusion and how it addressed the expert’s finding.

The materials documenting the case fall short of offering compelling evidence that Lilith wrote the note.

There is a hand gesture.

Did you know the “Ok” hand symbol could be interpreted as school-shooter symbolism? I didn’t until this case. The report doesn’t identify the gesture as the familiar circle made with the thumb and forefinger, but that is what the pictures appear to show.

A gesture requires context. Administrators need to explain the evidence supporting their interpretation and how much weight it carried. With stakes this high, that explanation is essential.

Apparently, Lilith also watches true crime programming. The kind thousands of people watch to fall asleep every night.

One woman told me that if men knew how many women watched those shows, we might be concerned. That was a joke. What’s happening to Lilith isn’t.

Watching them on a school-issued laptop during school raises a separate issue. But a rule violation involving entertainment and proof that somebody authored a threat are different things. The connection needs to be demonstrated, not assumed.

When a safe space becomes evidence

The most concerning piece of the account, to me, involves Sown to Grow.

The initiative is presented as a place where students can share feelings and concerns. Something resembling an online diary. A space where adults can identify needs and offer support.

For the record, I never trusted the district enough to encourage that kind of disclosure. I told my kids not to write anything in it.

Turns out, this case isn’t exactly making me regret that advice.

According to the account, Lilith wrote that she sometimes gets “mad easily.”

Well, there is a trait we have in common. Spend a little time with my inbox and you’ll understand why. Also, she’s fourteen. That seems worth remembering.

The account also cites her desire to join the military. The school offers JROTC. A student in JROTC wants to join the military. Somebody is going to have to explain to me where that becomes suspicious.

A wellness check reportedly found no weapons in her bedroom. Her father owned firearms secured in a lockbox in the residence. According to the account, Lilith knew about them but did not have access to them.

Again, context matters.

A threat demands investigation. Nobody is arguing that administrators should shrug at a note mentioning a gun. But taking something seriously means evaluating evidence carefully, too.

Students who believe expressions of anger can later be used against them have a reason to withhold the very honesty these wellness initiatives are supposed to encourage.

A district cannot ask for vulnerability without explaining how those disclosures will be used. Students and parents deserve to understand the boundaries before they are invited to share.

Otherwise, don’t act surprised when the next kid who needs help decides to keep their mouth shut.

Safety and fairness belong together

Based on the findings described, Lilith was expelled.

A young person’s life was altered. She and her father have been fighting to have the expulsion lifted and removed from her record. According to their account, the school board has not heard their case outside public comment.

I understand the district’s sensitivity following the Antioch shooting. Families want reassurance that threats are being taken seriously. Staff members deserve safe workplaces. Students deserve safe classrooms.

But should reassurance require a fourteen-year-old to absorb a consequence that the evidence, as presented here, leaves open to question?

If the district is invested in knowing every child and giving teachers the capacity to build relationships, those relationships should inform the response. They cannot replace an investigation. They should help adults understand what they are investigating.

If Lilith wrote the note, that would itself raise questions about what help she needs. Exclusion alone doesn’t answer those questions.

If she didn’t write it, the harm is different and equally serious.

Either way, the child doesn’t stop existing when she leaves the building. You can remove her from the attendance roll. You haven’t resolved what happened.

Consistency matters here. Would the same evidence produce the same consequence for another student? Administrators should apply consistent standards of proof, consider context, and weigh alternatives before imposing an expulsion.

Every family deserves a clear explanation of how those standards were applied. A district’s disciplinary standards should be clear enough that parents can understand them and consistent enough that students can trust them.

MNPS emphasizes using suspension as a last resort. The district also discusses the harm exclusion can do to students. Those commitments should apply when a case is difficult, not just when they make a good presentation.

According to the family’s account, Lilith does not have an extensive disciplinary record. This isn’t being presented as a three-strikes-and-you’re-out situation.

That ought to matter when adults decide how severe the response should be. So should the possibility that they got it wrong.

Her family is seeking legal assistance, which takes resources. Here is the link to their GoFund me.

I don’t think asking for a fair review is unreasonable. I think it is the minimum a family should be able to expect.

Apparently, we can afford another title

Meanwhile, the Tennessean has an article out today listing the top salaries of MNPS officials.

Well, there’s some fall reading for you.

Dr. Adrienne Battle tops the list at $382,341.15. Deputy Superintendent Mason Bellamy follows at $265,000.

I wonder whether anybody asked when we got a deputy superintendent and where that salary appears in the budget.

As I understand the sequence, Bellamy retired two years ago to spend time with his wife as their child headed to college. About six months later, he returned to the district in a similar role with more pay. Now he is deputy superintendent.

My understanding is that teachers generally face a yearlong wait before returning after retirement. If different rules or exceptions apply, explain them. The comparison deserves an answer rather than an assumption.

Especially in a district that already has eight chiefs. Apparently, the organizational chart still had some room.

The article lists Jorge Robles’ salary at roughly $218,000. My understanding is that he has recently left the district. If that is correct, the departure of the chief financial officer while financial audits are a subject of discussion merits a story.

Even if the story is that there is no story.

Here is something else the salary list brings into focus: three deputy chiefs, each making just under $194,000 annually.

We’ve come a long way from Shawn Joseph catching heat over having five chiefs. I guess five was a problem and eight is progress.

What is the difference between a deputy superintendent and a deputy chief of schools? The district ought to explain the responsibilities of each position and how the work benefits classrooms.

These are public positions funded with public money. We shouldn’t need a decoder ring to figure out what we’re paying for. Making every budget contain a listing of the top 25 paid positions and their duties wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Then there is Ashford Hughes, listed at roughly $182,000 as executive officer of student success and opportunity. As far as I know, Hughes has never taught a day in his life.

Classroom experience isn’t the only qualification for every district job. But when a role carries that title and that salary, asking about qualifications, responsibilities, and results is fair game.

It should bother people that, reading through the list, I had to get to page three before finding somebody who actually works in a school.

You know, the schools. Where the students are. Where all these titles are supposed to make a difference.

Nobody expects a district this size to run without administration. I do expect the district to explain why its administrative structure keeps growing while classroom needs remain unresolved.

Keep in mind, this is a district that, according to my understanding of the budget decision, cut a pre-K program while seeking $500,000 for a financial audit.

There always seems to be room for another title. Finding room for the kids is apparently the harder part. Those choices tell us what the district treats as essential and what it considers expendable.

That is the issue behind the salaries.

Every child means every child

The advanced student looking for a class. The family seeking a different school. The fourteen-year-old disputing an expulsion. The child who would have attended that pre-K program.

They don’t all need the same thing. That is the point.

Knowing every child ought to mean noticing those differences and responding to them. It ought to mean measuring success by more than whether the system survived another uncomfortable conversation.

Real accountability means parents get clear explanations, students understand their options, and taxpayers can follow the money. When those basics are missing, another slogan does nothing to close the gap. Neither does another title. The adults have the authority, the information, and the responsibility to make those clear answers available. Families should not have to become investigators simply to understand how decisions affecting their children were made. A district that knows its students ought to be willing to let its students and families know it, too.

Enjoy fall break. Teachers and families have earned some breathing room.

When we return, let’s ask who the district is protecting, what students are receiving, and whether the promises match the decisions.

Put that on the next slide.

Then show us what you’re doing about it.

Dad Gone Wild — nobody reads it, but everybody quotes it.

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Categories: Education