Culleoka Representative Scott Cepicky drew cheers from public school teachers when he proposed legislation this year to provide them with $500 for classroom supplies.Tuesday Cepicky walked that number back in the House K-12 Subcommittee, by amending his bill to offer less assistance.

The Tennessee Senate approved a bill to include Hamilton County in the state’s ESA voucher program. The bill now moves to the House for discussion.

When House Speaker Cameron Sexton recently floated the idea of Tennessee rejecting U.S. education dollars to free its schools from federal rules and restrictions, he made the pivot sound as simple as making up the difference with $1.8 billion in state funds.“I don’t think the legislation would be too hard to do,” he said last week after publicly declaring his desire to “do things the Tennessee way” at a Tennessee Farm Bureau reception on Feb. 7.

Lee stated he will propose an additional investment of $350 million into TISA which would include $125 million for teacher pay raises.

Like many school districts across the country, Elizabethton City Schools entered the 2020/2021 school year with a new hybrid schedule that allowed students to split time learning remotely and in the classroom.The schedule was designed to address COVID-19 concerns and for elementary school students, it meant virtual learning every Wednesday.Dr. Tammy Markland says teachers at her Westside Elementary School quickly noticed challenges.

Few educational issues have generated more disagreement this year than Tennessee’s Third-Grade Retention Law.The legislation was designed in 2021 to ensure that students who a need additional help in reading would receive it before being promoted to the fourth grade.Wednesday afternoon Reginald Nash with advocate organization the Education Trust told members of the State House Education Instruction Committee that any tweaks need to include an emphasis on building the literacy foundations both at the start of third grade and much earlier.

The Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) cleared an important hurdle Monday morning that ensures its eventual implementation for school districts across the state next school year.The Tennessee General Assembly’s Joint Government Operations Committee provided a positive recommendation to new rules that will govern TISA when it replaces the Basic Education Program (BEP) in the 2023/2024 school year.

Memphis schools Hawkins Mill Elementary and Trezevant High have been on the state’s priority list since the list’s formation in the 2011-12 school year. This means their students are consistently in the bottom 5% of state tests or have less than 67% graduation rate.

There may not have been a single piece of legislation that was more impactful in 2022 than the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act.TISA as it was called, invested a billion dollars into K-12 education and fundamentally changed the way public schools are funded to be based on individual student needs.Still, the chair of the Tennessee Senate Education Committee says he wasn’t entirely sold on TISA at first.

Memphis-Shelby County School Board members received a clearer picture of the priorities parents want the next superintendent to have Wednesday night and two of the biggest are a focus on diversity and the ability to create change.The board held the second of three public input sessions this month to give parents and community members a chance to weigh in on the search that began when former Superintendent Joris Ray resigned last August.

The search for a new superintendent to lead Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) is seeing disagreement over whether the ideal candidate is already on the job.At last Thursday’s community input session on the superintendent search, some pushed for the permanent instatement of interim superintendent, Tutonial “Toni” Williams, rather than continue the nationwide search.

A new report from the State Comptroller’s Office found nearly $60 thousand in inappropriate fuel card spending by employees of the Cheatham County School District transportation department.Auditors didn’t specify how the cards were misspent or when the alleged spending occurred, but they do believe the misuse occurred because of deficient policies.

Newly elected Republican Representatives William Slater and Kevin Raper don’t even have their pictures posted yet on the Tennessee General Assembly website, but both are now occupying leadership positions in key House Committees.Tennessee Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton appointed Slater as the Vice-Chair of the House Education Administration Committee Thursday and assigned Raper to be the House Education Instruction Committee Vice-Chair.

State Senator Dawn White was always going to make an impact on education. The Murfreesboro legislator says even as a young child growing up in Eagleville Tennessee, she was attracted to teaching. “I mean my mother will tell you the stories of when my sister and I would play when we were little kids, I would always be the teacher so it’s just something that I always had a passion for and a heart for,” said Sen. White.