The Tennessee Department of Education has awarded more than $2.6 million in Perkins Reserve Grant (PRG) grant funds to 55 school districts to support career and technical education (CTE) programming in the 2024-25 school year.

Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds told state lawmakers there’s no easy way for the state to avoid federal education requirements by simply rejecting federal education dollars.Some Republican lawmakers have expressed an interest in rejecting more than a billion in federal education dollars to avoid complying those requirements and Tennessee General Assembly leaders created a Joint Working Group on Federal Education Funding to evaluate the idea’s feasibility earlier this year. This week members of that group are holding three hearings including one Tuesday morning highlighted by Commissioner Reynolds and her administration.