We strongly urge Metro School Board members to VOTE AGAINST Dr. Register’s 9/12 proposal to eliminate 7th and 8th Grades at MLK.
Why is this important?
Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet at Pearl High School is one of only two academic magnet high schools in our city (the other being Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet). Due to recent overcrowding trends, the Metro Nashville Public Schools director has recommended dropping the seventh and eighth grades in coming years. We believe that it is necessary to keep 7th and 8th grades intact at MLK because these grades prepare students with the critical academic skills necessary for 9th through 12th grade attendance at a nationally ranked Top 100 high school.
Key reasons why we believe it is important to keep the 7th and 8th grades intact at MLK:
• Every single ZIP code (with the exception of Downtown Business District) in Davidson County is represented at MLK.
• MLK 7th and 8th students are exposed to unique opportunities and advantages unavailable in a middle school; these include the ability to later access a record 22 AP and other advanced honors courses, cohesive 6-year pathways in key subjects such as math, science, and foreign languages, mentoring by older high school students, and lower transition stress to high school.
• Students who don’t arrive until 9th grade often struggle and face challenges with MLK’s rigorous academic curriculum due to lack of adequate preparation from non-academic magnet middle school feeder schools.
• The general solution for overcrowding in Metro Schools is to find more space through both temporary portables and/or more permanent additions. We never hear of other high schools removing their 9th grade class due to overcrowding.
• Other potential solutions to overcrowding exist and will require changes in pathway policies and/or academic qualifying criteria.
