The Promise

In this series, we're going to tell you about what's been described as a toxic culture of misconduct and retaliation within the Metro Nashville Police Department. And the disciplinary system that has allowed that culture to thrive.

It’s February 2020, and Warner Elementary’s star is rising. It’s showing so much progress this year that it might be able to go from one of the lowest performing schools in Tennessee to one of the best. Now it’s just time to hunker down and work until the big state test at the end of the year.    But we all know what happens next. First, a natural disaster in Nashville. Then, a global pandemic. And at a school with low-income students, these challenges hit especially hard.   “I'm tired of fighting for kids. One person can’t consistently carry that burden,” Warner principal Ricki Gibbs said. “I was at a point where I was going to say, ‘You can have Warner. This is too much.’”  In this dramatic final episode of Season 2, crisis brings Warner’s challenges to a breaking point.  The Promise is written and produced Meribah Knight. Edited by Emily Siner, with additional editing by Anita Bugg, Tony Gonzalez, Samantha Max, Sergio Martinez-Beltran and Damon Mitchell. Fact-checking and research by Sam Zern. Advising for this season by Savala Nolan Trepczynski and Alex Kotlowitz. Mixing by Jakob Lewis of Great Feeling Studios. The music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

There was a time when the decision of where to send your child to school was relatively simple: public or private. Now, in Nashville and many other cities, those choices have multiplied exponentially.    In large part, it's because of white families — a way to keep them in the public system, but on their own terms. But with so many choices at play, things have gotten messy. Judgement is cast. Pedagogy is ruthlessly ranked. Gossip and chatter steer decision making. And information begins to splinter.    In this episode, we follow two mothers whose experiences in choosing a school couldn't be more different.    The Promise is written and produced Meribah Knight. Edited by Emily Siner, with additional editing by Anita Bugg, Tony Gonzalez, Samantha Max, Sergio Martinez-Beltran and Damon Mitchell. Fact-checking and research by Sam Zern. Advising for this season by Savala Nolan Trepczynski and Alex Kotlowitz. Mixing by Jakob Lewis of Great Feeling Studios. The music is by Blue Dot Sessions. 

Last fall, parents from Lockeland Elementary held a community meeting to talk about the elephant in the room: Despite the diversity of the neighborhood, their school was the whitest school in the entire district. Some white parents in the neighborhood simply didn’t see any problem. Others did and wanted the district to find a solution that would bring more children of color to their school. But there was a time, not that long ago, when an idea was floated that could have changed the makeup of Lockeland’s student body — and it did not go well. In this episode, white parents start to realize that their choices, and the choices of their neighbors, created this problem. The Promise is written and produced Meribah Knight, with additional reporting by Samantha Max. Edited by Emily Siner, with additional editing by Anita Bugg, Tony Gonzalez, Samantha Max, Sergio Martinez-Beltran and Damon Mitchell. Fact-checking and research by Sam Zern. Advising for this season by Savala Nolan Trepczynski and Alex Kotlowitz. Mixing by Jakob Lewis of Great Feeling Studios. The music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Warner Elementary is about to take its moon shot. After landing on the state’s list of lowest-performing schools, it’s aiming to make the list of highest-performing schools. Finally, it has all the right tools: an infusion of federal grant money, an energetic and experienced principal, and new class offerings that set the school apart.  But the real turnaround will only work if more students enroll — white students, specifically. And most white families in the neighborhood want nothing to do with Warner.   In this episode, Warner begins its uphill turnaround battle.   The Promise is written and produced Meribah Knight. Edited by Emily Siner, with additional editing by Anita Bugg, Tony Gonzalez, Samantha Max, Sergio Martinez-Beltran and Damon Mitchell. Fact-checking and research by Sam Zern. Advising for this season by Savala Nolan Trepczynski and Alex Kotlowitz. Mixing by Jakob Lewis of Great Feeling Studios. The music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

In a neighborhood with tons of Black families, Willie Sims’ daughter was the only Black child in the kindergarten class of one East Nashville elementary school. Then he started hearing murmurings from other families, white families. They were mobilizing against resegregation. Did he want in?

After 43 years of courtroom battles, Nashville's landmark school desegregation lawsuit was settled.  In the eyes of the law, the city finally made an honest effort to racially integrate its schools. But in truth, the matter was far from settled.

In this episode, we’re going back to the early days of this battle for racial equity in the classroom, to the time not that long ago when school desegregation literally blew this city apart. 

It’s the start of the 2019 school year, and two elementary schools in Nashville are about to be at the center of a neighborhood battle over the resegregation of schools.

Season 2 of The Promise grapples with some of the most divisive topics in America: public education and race. This is a story about one school trying to stay afloat, a neighborhood divided over race and economics, and a city that’s resisted school desegregation every step of the way. Coming Aug. 31 to a podcasting app near you. 

This season on The Promise, we’re exploring the thorny subject of public education and race. Two public elementary schools just over a mile apart. One is overwhelmingly black and poor, the other is almost exclusively white and well off. What happens when the neighborhood begins to notice? 

This season on The Promise, we take on one of the most divisive topics in America: public education.   We spend the year at Warner Elementary, a struggling school in East Nashville, Tennessee. Warner’s students are almost all black and almost all poor, despite the fact that the neighborhood is far from it. The school’s test scores are in the doldrums, its enrollment is dropping. But it’s about to embark on one of the most ambitious turnaround efforts in district history.   Will it succeed?  

Ms. Vernell has another big decision to make: to stay in Cayce through the chaos of redevelopment, or to leave? Her conclusion reveals something about this long, messy process to overhaul Nashville’s public housing. What happens when residents get tired — tired of being told to keep waiting, tired of being asked to keep moving … just tired?

If you've listened to The Promise, you no doubt remember Dexter Turner, aka Big Man. We met him in episode 2. The husband, father and community leader with a quick wit and a large personality had been planning a family barbecue, when a fatal shooting happened right in front of his apartment. In this episode, Meribah Knight speaks with Big Man months later, live on stage at Nashville Public Radio's Podcast Party.

We return to the James Cayce Homes to follow up with residents amid the $600 million overhaul. But in checking back, we trip into some news. And we’re reminded, yet again, of how difficult it will be to pull off this massive redevelopment. As the city preps to turn its largest public housing projects into a mixed income development, Cayce residents have to sign a new agreement with steeper fines for late rent, stricter limits on guests and cleaning rules. Plus, higher income tenants won’t have to sign it, which is making residents all the more skeptical, casting doubt on whether the housing authority can really deliver on its promise: To build a community where both the city’s poorest residents and prosperous city-dwellers can live in harmony.