Stephen Yeargin

Tonight Metro Nashville Public Schools presented a plan to drastically alter the current clusters – that is, elementary and middle schools that feed into larger high schools – to better utilize space and resources. As an alumnus of an MNPS school, my eyes wandered directly to a particular section of the story.

Several changes were proposed for students from schools that feed into Hillwood High School. Planners want to close Martha Vaught Middle and move the current Big Picture School into the building. They also want the board to consider reassigning an island of students from the Metrocenter area to Pearl-Cohn, which is closer.

The “island” referenced was introduced in the last cluster shakeup of 2002, with the introduction of Pedro Garcia as director of schools and the exit of Executive Principal R. Clay Myers to Stratford High. Many other changes took place, including the transfer of one gentleman that I still hold in high regard: my ecology instructor Wesley Roberts. Many of the best educators at Hillwood were sent off to help other struggling schools. Others retired.

The author of the article wisely avoids what will most know to be true: The change of bringing students in from the Pearl-Cohn cluster, a lower income inner-city area of Nashville, had a dramatic impact on the school itself. Hillwood, located in the middle of the Belle Meade area, is surrounded by a country club and million dollar homes (not so much in the homes themselves but in the protracted appraised value). You can see how two worlds are on a collision course. It only took about an academic year for Hillwood to be labeled as a “poor” school with “too many kids from the inner city” and “overrun by gangs.”

I graduated in 2001 with somewhere between 200-240 other students. Three years later an altercation near the cafeteria left several injured and prompted the emergency transfer of one principal and the introduction of the current. The average class size is now around 350, although I cannot find hard numbers other than enrollment figures. The good news is that other than missing test scores (repeatedly), Hillwood stays out of the evening news. For the most part.

It is likely no coincidence that Ensworth High School, a private school with annual tuition of approximately $15,000, opened in Bellevue not too many years afterward. Upper-income families zoned for Hillwood easily have the flexibility of attending private school. I believe that the situation then and now could be added as prime example of the “White Flight” phenomenon.

We pay no attention to the students that are being bused in from Metrocenter or how they are labeled as troublemakers before ever setting foot in that so-called “pristine” suburbia. I could write for days about the psychological game that plays out in the classroom – teachers afraid to teach, students unmotivated to learn, administrators too stubborn to change. While many alumni look at it and say “What have they done to my school?”, I personally believe that it had a chance to succeed. From International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement courses to the annual Symposium that likely launched the careers of many to college, Hillwood has a lot to offer those that walk its halls. (Believe it or not, I was not involved with their outstanding student newspaper.)

We must break this habit of writing off our public schools. I walked in to a Taco Bell before school started and the conversation between a worker and local police officer was about how X school is too violent and how Y school is not much better. The suggestion was always “send your student to Z school.” In reality, running around between schools is part of what has created this mess. A student yanked out of one school and placed in another is just as likely to fall in with the wrong crowd, particularly when friendships are severed on such short notice.

As we are a couple without children, my wife and I are frequently given the advice to be mindful of the schools when selecting where we will “ultimately” live. Many have gone as so far as to recommend which clusters to avoid. I reject that notion on principle:  any child of ours will be able to succeed because of what they are taught at home in addition to the classroom. I also believe that attending school with people of different backgrounds makes for a more well-rounded adult. In short, I sincerely hope that our schools have a rich assortment of people of as many ethnicities and backgrounds as possible:  Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Muslim, Indian and beyond. I have no sympathy for the parent that considers a school in their area insufficient and struggles to pay the tuition to a private school.

Avoiding a particular school district while refusing to support education (by way of approving the taxes it requires) only perpetuates the problem. Even more damaging is the label placed on a school as “poor” that keeps quality instructors away and sends gifted students to private schools. Society sees those that attend a labeled school as something less than human.

Private schools have a place in the world. I am generally supportive of secular schools that focus energies on discovering a natural talent within the student in the arts and sciences. If the opportunity were to present itself, I would happily send a child to such a school as a gateway to a brighter future. But it would be for that reason alone, not to “escape” because my home fell on a line on a map.

I hope Hillwood’s image improves and again attracts the best and the brightest instructors. The school was often referred to a “best kept secret” in Nashville with proud academic achievement and rich cultural diversity. I strongly believe that it can be exactly that even without the proposed changes to the cluster if we could all just see past the labels.