Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) released new details this week for what the district’s school board will be looking for in the search for a new superintendent.Board members have said they’re aiming to appoint a leader who will accelerate ongoing operational reforms and academic gains, in addition to being a “dynamic, visionary, and adaptable leader.”

In 2010 the future looked anything but bright for the Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy (CGLA).The new public charter school had just finished its first year of operation and the school was in danger of not making it to a second.

Students who take part in career and technical education (CTE) programs are seeing more success graduating high school.That’s among the finding in a new report by the Tennessee Comptroller. According to the report, the four-year graduation rates of CTE students in school year 2020/2021 was eight percent higher than all Tennessee students.“Over the past several years, Tennessee has introduced multiple initiatives to promote career and technical education (CTE) for students across the state. In order to measure the success of CTE programs, data is collected at the state level and federal level through narrative reports, financial records, and performance data,” wrote Comptroller Research Analyst Allison Pams.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools teachers will get salary raises and be able to move up the district’s salary schedule faster under an agreement with the two teachers unions.The new schedule is one part of $78 million in new funds the district is putting toward salaries and bonuses, which officials hope will encourage teacher retention and entice new teachers to fill hard-to-staff roles.

The Tennessee Department of Education is encouraging families to keep track of their children’s testing results through an online portal.The department launched the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) Family Portal in 2020 to provide families with on-demand access to their student’s TCAP and end-of-course assessments results. The portal also provides resources, including specific questions from previous assessments, historical data, and sample questions for families to ask educators about their students’ academic progress.

Tennessee’s new law banning unions from deducting dues from teacher paychecks is clear to go into effect.A panel of three Davidson County Chancery Court judges issued an order Friday denying the Tennessee Education Association’s (TEA) request for a temporary injunction of the new law.

The Metro Nashville School Board approved new changes to the district safety policy Tuesday night in response to school safety legislation signed into law by Governor Bill Lee last May.The biggest change is the formal establishment of district “existence of threat” assessment teams to develop intervention-based approaches to prevent violence and manage reporting of potential threats.“This is a new policy for MNPS, even though we do have threat assessment teams,” said Director of Board of Education Relations and Management David Sevier. “It just codifies having threat assessment teams at a district level. We also have other threat assessment teams that assemble, when necessary, at school levels.”The director of schools will appoint each member of the team. Those members will also document behaviors and incidents that pose a risk to school safety or resulted in intervention.

Members of the Maury County Public Schools Board of Education narrowly voted down a much talked about application by American Classical Education (ACE) to open the county’s first public charter school.

A middle school and improved financial education are among the improvement’s residents in Memphis’ Orange Mound community say are desperately needed to improve the area’s challenges with racial inequity and generation poverty.Those suggestions came Wednesday evening during a community forum in Orange Mound for the More for Memphis initiative.

Leaders of American Classical Education (ACE) didn’t hold back their criticism of Jackson-Madison County school board members who voted down a proposal to establish the county’s first public charter school.Following the board’s 5-1 vote to deny Tuesday, ACE board member Dolores Gresham released a scathing press release that claimed the board ignored the voices of local families who want more school options.

Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) District 5 school board member Christiane Buggs listed public charter school demographics as one reason why she planned to vote against an application to open Invictus Nashville Charter School. Any parents listening to her comments during Tuesday's board meeting came away with an inaccurate view of who public charter schools are actually serving.

Five public school teachers joined the Tennessee Education Association (TEA) to file a lawsuit challenging the state’s so-called “prohibited concepts” law, restricting what can be taught on race, gender, and unconscious bias in public classrooms.The lawsuit asks for the court to declare the law unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment.“There is no group of individuals more passionate and committed to ensuring Tennessee students receive a high-quality education than public school educators,” said Knox County Educator and Tennessee Education Association President Tanya T. Coats. “This law interferes with Tennessee teachers’ job to provide a fact-based, well-rounded education to their students.”

As August gets closer, Tennessee school districts are preparing for the new school year by providing families with the information and assistance they need to start that first day on the right track.Several of the state’s largest districts are offering resources online to families.

Public charter schools haven’t exactly received the warmest of welcomes from the Metro Nashville Public Schools Board of Education in recent years, but Dr. Brenda Jones hopes to change that Tuesday night.Dr. Jones’ proposed Invictus Nashville Charter School is one of three charter applications board members will be deciding whether to approve. The board denied all three in the initial round of the approval process last April. That vote followed a similar denial of every proposed public charter school the year before.Jones hopes Invictus Nashville will find an easier path with its education model that focuses not just on academic outcomes, but social and emotional outcomes, opportunities for students to direct their education, and help students figure out what they want to do and what they can do to pursue their goals.

Three weeks into her job as Tennessee’s education chief, Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds says her charge from Gov. Bill Lee is to implement existing major policy changes — from how reading is taught to the continued rollout of private school vouchers — not to craft new initiatives.

The halls of Cheatham County’s middle and high schools will look a bit different when students return August 7.  Students will no longer be carrying backpacks to class.

Members of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) Board of Education voted to deny four out of five applications Tuesday night from public charter schools vying to transition from the state’s Achievement School District (ASD) and into MSCS.The vote means an uncertain future for Humes Middle School, Martin Luther King Jr. College Preparatory High School, Cornerstone Prep Lester, and Fairley High School in the 2024/2025 school year. Each school could face closure, a merger into the district’s Izone turnaround school model, or potentially even remain open as public charter schools if leaders successfully appeal to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission.Each of the five schools applying for transition to MSCS is doing so because the school is in the last year of a ten-year term with the Achievement School District. The ASD is an intervention run by the state to serve schools that are in the lowest five percent of schools, or a low achieving school across the state.

The number of third-grade students approved to advance to the fourth-grade by appeal grew by 5 percent over the last three weeks of June.The Tennessee Department of Education released final data Wednesday of the appeals process that ended last month for the state’s new Third-Grade Retention Law. The department says 7,812 of the 9,054 students who filed appeals were successful. That 86 percent is higher than the initial data the department released last month, showing an 81 percent successful appeals rate.

Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) selected Christine Tran to represent her fellow MNPS students on the school board next year. Tran is a rising junior at the soon-to-open James Lawson High and former student of the recently closed Hillwood High School.

A short-handed Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) Board of Education chose an unexpected path in the public charter school approval process Tuesday night. With several members absent, the board voted to support a proposed public charter school that failed to pass multiple reviews while denying others the district itself rated higher.