The Memphis-Shelby County School Board unanimously approved an agreement Tuesday night to spend $28 million increasing teacher salaries.The historic investment will raise the average teacher with a bachelor’s degree’s salary by more than $4,800 in the 20224/2025 school year. Teachers with a master’s degree will average nearly $4,800 more, education specialists will see more than $6,300 more, and those with a doctorate will average more than a $9,900 increase.

Empower Memphis Career and College Prep will begin serving Orange Mound and South Memphis students a year later than planned.Chief Executive Officer Muna Olaniyi announced to supporters this week that the public charter school’s opening has been postponed until August 2025 because of facility-related challenges.

Daniela Castro Pu says the University of Tennessee Knoxville (UTK) felt like home almost immediately.Castro Pu is now weeks away from finishing her sophomore year at UT and she says the experience has been everything she’d hoped for but the ideal university match wasn’t always in the cards.Castro Pu says she might never have even considered the University of Tennessee if KIPP hadn’t offered a specific scholarship created for students like her.

New Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) Superintendent Dr. Marie Feagins is planning to listen to a diverse set of voices as she charts the path forward for the state’s largest school district.Last week Feagins announced the transition team that will help craft and execute the district’s next strategic plan and over the weekend she joined the co-chairs of that team at a retreat involving education leaders from across the country.

Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) announced a $5 million investment in three elementary schools made possible through a fundraising drive led by parents.Former Percy Priest Elementary School PTO President Katie Agnew and Percy Priest parent Sharon Martin led the fundraising effort that will help improve construction projects already in place to build larger gymnasiums at Percy Priest and Lakeview Elementary along with an expanded cafeteria and playtorium at Paragon Mills Elementary.

Three proposed new public charter schools in Memphis may have a challenging road finding approval from school board members next week.Tuesday night the Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ (MSCS) charter review team recommended a denial for all three including Blueprint College and Career Prep, Journey Northeast Academy, and the Memphis Grizzlies Prep STEAM School for Girls.Board members are scheduled to vote on each application at its meeting next Tuesday.

Last year LEAD Public Schools turned to one of Metro-Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) most successful principals to head up the public charter school operator’s goal of expanding to become a true K-12 network.LEAD hired then Warner Arts Magnet Elementary Principal Dr. Ricki Gibbs as its new head of elementary schools. Gibbs gained attention in the district for transforming Warner from a low performing school to a Reward School in 2022 and earned the title of MNPS Elementary Principal of the Year in 2020.

Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) announced a partnership with Vanderbilt Peabody College to create a new education program at John Early Middle School. The collaboration will create a lab school that provides students with education pathways that help bridging the gap between K-12 and higher education.The lab school will focus on STEAM programming and preparing students for success beyond John Early Middle School.

LEAD Public Schools has been providing families in Nashville with a school choice option since founder Jeremy Kane started LEAD Academy in 2007 for fifth and sixth-graders.Today LEAD has grown to run six public charter schools in Nashville, including four in the Metro-Nashville Public School district serving families in South Nashville and Antioch. What the charter operator believes it’s lacking though, are elementary schools to feed students into those existing middle and high schools.

Members of the Rutherford County School Board unanimously rejected what could be the district’s fourth public charter school Thursday but not without offering a gleam of hope for its supporters.The board provided more than a dozen stipulations for leaders of Novus SMART Academy (K-8) to address if they choose to file an amended application.

For more than a decade the Memphis Grizzlies Preparatory Charter School has provided middle-school aged boys with a science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) focused education in Memphis and last year school leaders proposed creating a similar school for girls.The Memphis-Shelby County School Board denied that application in 2023 but the proposal is back with some changes to address the concerns board members had.

As the job market in the greater Memphis area continues to expand, more schools that focus on career and technical education (CTE) and college prep will be in demand. This is especially true for low-income neighborhoods where students face barriers entering the workforce.It’s one reason why the founders of Blueprint College and Career Prep (BCCP) chose the Southeast Memphis communities of Oakhaven and Parkway Village as the location for their proposed public charter school. They say families there want a high-quality public education option that addresses each community’s needs.

West Nashville Representative Bo Mitchell, D-Nashville, provided Metro Nashville Public Schools with some eyebrow raising advice on the House floor Thursday.Mitchell suggested the district bulldoze buildings, like the former Hillwood High School campus, before letting public charter schools use them. The district stopped utilizing the Hillwood property as a school when the new James Lawson High School opened last August.

Humes Middle School in North Memphis will close at the end of this school year as it returns to the Memphis Shelby-County district’s control after a decade in Tennessee’s failed turnaround district for low-performing schools.The last-minute decision to shutter the nearly 100-year-old building, where a young Elvis Presley attended high school, is a change in plans since the fall, when teachers were told the school would stay open, said Bobby White, head of Frayser Community Schools, the charter company that runs Humes for the state’s Achievement School District.

The arts can be a place where students find community and acceptance as they navigate through their school years.Some students in Williamson County worry the art teachers that help provide that community aren’t adequately valued by their district. Monday night more than half a dozen students and parents told Williamson County Board of Education members those teachers deserve to be paid more.Fairview High School junior Rosalie Mobley was among them. Mobley has been active in theater since the fifth-grade and she told board members it’s given her opportunities few people get.

Leaders of Novus SMART Academy (K-8) hope to provide families with another public school option.

Students, faculty, and alumni gathered Tuesday night to celebrate a new chapter in Middle Tennessee State University’s (MTSU) work in political and global studies.The university is merging its existing Political Science and Global Studies departments into one new Political and Global Affairs department at its Spring Alumni Showcase. The departments have had plenty of overlap over the years, sharing many of the same students and faculty and the merger is part of a plan to adapt to changes in the future.

New Memphis schools leader Marie Feagins plans to rely on a group of former and current superintendents for support during her transition to the role by working with the Council of the Great City Schools, a national coalition of big-city districts.The council’s work in Memphis could serve as a pilot project for future educators new to the superintendency.

Last school year three groups of Nashville elementary school students who were all performing below grade level, took part in a unique pilot program for mastery-based instruction.The mastery-based approach utilized by participants in the Encompass Community School program is designed to ensure students receive the instruction they need when they need it and for as long as they need it, instead of a traditional approach that uses a predetermined schedule.

More than 15 hundred elementary, middle, and high school students attend one of four Memphis Schools of Excellence in Shelby County.The organization that runs the public charter schools is now hoping to expand the school model to students in south Nashville.The Read Foundation is proposing to serve more than 800 sixth through twelfth-grade students with a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) based education that helps students develop the ability to make good decisions and encourages them to become contributing members of society.