Mahoney Knows Homes: Pay Our Teachers and Improve Our Schools

Let’s be honest. Living in a small town doesn’t offer much in the way of convenience or amenities. There’s a trade-off that comes with living in a sparsely populated rural community.

But people who choose to live here aren’t asking for much. We want peace and quiet, privacy and the basic necessities of modern society. Clean water, electricity, maintained roads and a place where we can send our children to receive a quality education.

As a Realtor, I’ve helped several families relocate to Kingston Springs. One of the most common reasons I’m given for their interest in our community is Kingston Springs Elementary School and the opportunity to move away from Davidson County schools.

I’ll get this out of the way now. I am opposed to merging Pegram Elementary and Kingston Springs Elementary School.

After watching the Cheatham County School Board work session on Oct. 29, I couldn’t help but feel as though the community was being introduced to a conversation that had already been taking place behind closed doors.

The discussion ultimately resulted in board members voting to gather “more information.” Fair enough. But what troubled me was that throughout the initial presentation, neither the board members nor County Mayor Bill Anderson offered a clear explanation of where this proposal originated, what problem it was intended to solve or why it was being introduced now.

Instead, our community was presented with the possibility of consolidating two elementary schools without the supporting numbers, evidence or context necessary to understand the reasoning behind it.

We heard about steadily declining student enrollment in South Cheatham schools, which appeared to be the primary justification for considering consolidation.

I’d like to raise two concerns.

First, have we forgotten where we live?

Middle Tennessee has experienced tremendous growth, and anyone who has lived here for more than a few years has witnessed it firsthand. Kingston Springs and Pegram have remained relatively insulated from the development occurring throughout the region.

Consolidating schools in one of the few remaining areas with room for future growth seems shortsighted at best. Are we making long-term decisions based on short-term enrollment trends?

Second, why are families choosing alternatives to our public schools?

If local families are increasingly choosing private education or homeschooling, shouldn’t we be asking why?

Rather than focusing exclusively on declining enrollment, perhaps we should be examining what we can do to make our existing schools more attractive to families.

A quick look at publicly available school ratings suggests there’s certainly room for improvement. I understand that school districts have budgets to balance and difficult decisions to make. But our schools are more than line items in a county budget. They’re part of the foundation of our communities. Before we start discussing which schools to close, I’d like to hear a serious conversation about how we can make the schools we already have better.

Pay our teachers. Invest in our schools. Give families a reason to choose public education in Cheatham County.

That’s a proposal I can get behind.