Magnet school notices

Tuesday evening's consent agenda for the MNPS BOE includes their response to Metro Council Resolution RS-2006-1518 which the agenda says reads:

"A resolution requesting the Metropolitan Board of Public Education to send Magnet school selection/acceptance letters used to fill vacancies by certified mail."

The administration says this will cost $19,811 to implement and the Garcia administration is recommending the Board say no. Since the Council didn't send a check along with this resolution I do think the BOE is wise to decline the suggestion. Done this way it comes across as an unfunded mandate. Now the Council might want to consider sending the BOE a check for $20,000 to be used expressly for this purpose to counter that criticism and show citizens that they are concerned about seeing the problem solved.

I do think the Metropolitan Nashville Public School System has done a very poor job of communicating with parents of magnet school applicants and the Council's suggestion is a good one. Garcia's administration hasn't made reasonable changes to the entire magnet notification process that could vastly improve the communication between participants and ensure that all the available magnet slots are utilized. For the Board to just turn down this suggestion without a plan of their own in place is going to look bad in the community and come off as further evidence that they don't really want to improve the process.