NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WTVF) – Some of Nashville’s most prestigious private schools have received millions of dollars in forgiving loans through the Federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
But some of the schools decided to return the money to the federal government when they saw that enrollment was not declining and there was no danger of dismissing employees due to COVID.
Other private schools say they have followed the guidelines of the program and plan to ask forgiveness for the loans, which means they do not have to repay the money.
The private schools applied for the PPP loans last spring when Congress passed the CARES law and paid out billions of dollars in emergency pandemics.
Traditional public schools do not qualify for the PPP loans.
Franklin Road Academy received $ 2,063,100 from the Paycheck Protection Program according to data from the Small Business Administration.
The data also shows that Harding Academy, a private school for 8 to 8 students in Belle Meade, received $ 1,204,500, while Nashville Christian Schools Inc. received $ 1,204,500. in Bellevue, for toddlers up to 12th grade, received $ 1,043,300.
The PPP loans are easily forgiven, which means that it is essentially free money if schools use the most money to make sure employees are not fired during the pandemic.
“It’s really scary to see the amounts there,” said metro councilor Dave Rosenberg when we showed him receiving several private schools.
Rosenberg doubts whether private schools have had a decrease in enrollment due to COVID, especially since parents began taking their children out of public schools so they could attend class in person.
“PPP was supposed to refer to small businesses that would otherwise have to lay off employees,” Rosenberg said.
“Private schools have many sources of income, whether donations or tuition,” Rosenberg said.
Christ Presbyterian Academy on Old Hickory Boulevard received $ 3,189,529, but decided to return all the money to the federal government when the school realized that enrollment had not dropped.
“We decided to send it back because if we do not need it, we should not use it,” said CPA head Nate Morrow.
“As we went through May and June, it quickly became clear that our families would be at CPA again,” Morrow said.
He said the school applied for the money last spring when no one was sure what impact the pandemic would have.
Montgomery Bell Academy also returned the PPP money it received.
The school received more than $ 3 million dollars, but decided it wanted to be a ‘good citizen’ and give the money back to others ‘who do not have enough resources’, according to school principal Brad Gioia.
Father Ryan High School, a private Catholic school, received $ 1,948,600 in PPP loans.
Director of Communications for the Diocese of Nashville, Rick Musacchio, said the school plans to keep the money and have the loans forgiven.
“We fully complied with the PPP program. It required keeping everyone employed, which we certainly did,” Musacchio said.
Another Catholic school, Pope John Paul II High School in Hendersonville, received $ 1,139,100 from the PPP program.
Musacchio told us that they also intend to keep the money, although the total enrollment with Pope John Paul remained unchanged throughout the pandemic. He added that Father Ryan had lost only three students.
NewsChannel 5 Inquiry asked, “If you continue to pay tuition fees and enrollments have not decreased, have you ever been in danger of firing people?”
Musacchio replied, “Yes. The PPP loans have become very important because we have been able to focus on keeping people employed, even in the face of the many challenges posed by COVID.”
Musacchio said more families needed financial help due to the economic downturn, and that the schools lost critical money when the summer camps closed.
He said the loans helped pay bus drivers and cafeteria workers who did not have jobs to do during the shutdown.
Musacchio also said that Catholic schools had less tuition than some of the other schools that provided loans, and he did not think that taking the money deterred small businesses from doing so.
“There are still funds available in the PPP loans that the government has not yet issued,” Musacchio said.
Currey Ingram Academy, a daycare and boarding school for kindergartens through 12th graders, received $ 1,566,000.
The school’s website states that it helps students with learning differences to reach their full potential.
It sent a statement saying the school had used the federal money to pay employees at its Child Development Center and Diagnostic Center, which is open to the public and unable to work during the extended quarantine . “
Councilman Dave Rosenberg said the frustrating thing is that public schools cannot even apply for the PPP loans.
“In a public school, you can see PTOs struggling to raise $ 5,000 to $ 10,000,” Rosenberg said.
“If you bridge the gap between public and private schools, it’s not good for us as a society. It’s not good for us as a city,” Rosenberg said.
We reached out to all the schools in this story and some of them sent us the following statements.
Statement by Currey Ingram Academy
Amid the uncertainty about what the next academic year would look like, Currey Ingram Academy applied for the Paycheck Protection Program in early 2020. The money received was for the retention of the faculty and staff of Currey Ingram Academy, as well as our staff at Child Development. Center and Diagnostic Center – both of which are open to the public and unable to operate during the extended quarantine – were operational during the crisis. It has also applied to the implementation of health and safety measures to enable our students to return to personal learning safely in the fall. We realize that businesses in almost every industry have been affected by the COVID-19 crisis, and we are thankful that we were able to receive a small portion to keep our staff employed and keep our community safe on campus.
CPA Statement
The Church (Christ Presbyterian Church) and the Academy have applied for the full amount offered, with uncertainty about our families’ ability to pay tuition or the members of the church members to make annual contributions during the pandemic. We are an organization that employs more than 250 employees and its remuneration depends on tuition, and our loan was a step forward in the uncertainty of the financial year. However, as the fall of 2020 unfolded, our tuition fees remained stable, enabling us to repay the full amount of the loan to other non-profit organizations that needed it more.
We are grateful that so many of our neighbors and nonprofits in the Nashville area have had access to financial relief and stability in the uncertainty of this pandemic.
Additional information from the Nashville Catholic Diocese
The loans helped all our businesses to prevent the payment of the payroll from compensating for the loss of income during the pandemic. The loans not only employed people, just as the purpose of the program was, but perhaps more importantly, saved many jobs that support services provide to meet a wide range of needs. For our non-school businesses, the loans have enabled us to retain significant staff and expertise, enabling us to ensure the continuity of our services to the entire Nashville community. These include providing affordable day care to low-income families, a distribution arm selected by the state of Tennessee to provide assistance with tornado relief services, and the city of Nashville choosing to provide assistance with relief and emergency services to families affected by the Christmas Day bombing.
The loans associated with our schools, for example, enabled schools to pay bus drivers and cafeteria workers, even though they had no jobs as students were under ‘stay at home’ orders. The funds also helped to provide for PBTs and the implementation of protocols and adjustments necessary for the safe reopening of personal learning at the beginning of the academic year in August 2020. All 16 of our parochial and diocesan schools have been reopened for personal learning as scheduled and the protocols and security adjustments put in place made it possible to stay open throughout the year. Personal learning not only provides the safety and education of both Catholic and non-Catholic students, but it also relieves their family of providing supervision and support for students engaged in distance education programs.