A partnership between two historic Chattanooga institutions – a church and a school – soon will offer a new education option for students in the city’s worst-performing schools.
This fall, Chattanooga Christian School and Olivet Baptist Church will launch The King School, a K-5 private school on the church’s grounds off M.L. King Boulevard.
The venture, leaders say, is meant to provide more quality education options to students for whom a private school education is unattainable and to increase educational equity in Chattanooga.
But as the school and church recruit and launch, it could pull students – and funding – from struggling local public schools and deepen the public/private divide in education.
“We want to provide an additional option,” Chad Dirkse, president of Chattanooga Christian School, said. “Evidence says that families desire educational equity and that the more options they have, the better off they are.”