Memphis parent advocate Sarah Carpenter is joining a diverse mix of parents, legislators, state education leaders, and Tennessee Teachers of the Year Kim Inglish, Melissa Collins, and Missy Testerman on a new working group created to design the state’s new A through F school grading system, known as the School Letter Grades.That group is hosting meetings this month to review the nearly 300 written public comments along with information presented at town hall meetings across the state to recommend how letter grades will be calculated for each school.“This next phase of work brings us one step closer to fulfilling the state’s promise to its citizens to create a letter grade calculation for schools that is transparent, meaningful and easy to understand,” said Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds. “This group will move forward with those goals in mind to help create calculations to clearly show how Tennessee’s schools are performing so they can target student academic needs.”

Springs Empower Academy students now have a picture of what their future school will look like.School leaders unveiled renderings Monday for the new K-8 public charter school that will open in fall of 2024 and serve up to 480 students in Smyrna. Rutherford County School Board members approved the K-8 public charter school last year and Springs Empower Academy is now in the process of purchasing land on Enon Springs road to build the school.

The Tennessee Public Charter School Commission provided a mixed bag for supporters of two public charter schools vying to transfer into the Memphis-Shelby County School (MSCS) district.Commissioners unanimously upheld the transfer appeal from Cornerstone Prep Lester Friday but denied Fairley High School. The decision means Cornerstone Prep will continue to operate as a public charter school as it transitions to MSCS while Fairley faces an unknown future with Green Dot Public Schools no longer serving as its operator.Cornerstone Prep and Fairley are in the final year of a ten-year contract with the state-run Achievement School District (ASD), an intervention that serves the lowest achieving schools. Both schools applied to transfer into the district in hopes of continuing the turnaround work as public charter schools.

Students at Memphis’s Peabody Elementary School will continue to attend classes elsewhere for the remainder of the school year.Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) announced Friday that it plans to keep Peabody closed until the fall to continue mold remediation and other improvements.  Peabody students have been attending classes at nearby Middle College High School since last month when repairs began.

Dr. Brenda Jones made Nashville education history Friday by not just becoming the first Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) graduate to open a public charter school, but also the first former district teacher to do so.Members of the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission voted unanimously to approve Jones’ appeal to open Invictus Nashville Charter School.  The vote overturns a July decision by the MNPS Board of Education to deny Invictus.

The Tennessee Public Charter School Commission unanimously cleared the way Friday for Memphis educator Muna Olaniyi’s dream of disrupting the cycle of poverty in Orange Mound and South Memphis through education.Olaniyi’s Empower Memphis Career and College Prep will serve K-8 students in the communities with a career technical education (CTE) model that’s designed to provide students with academic and technical skills through hands-on training and experience. The school will also provide a “two-generation’ approach that serves the needs of students and their families struggling with poverty.

Downtown Memphis Commission leader Paul Young will be Memphis’ next mayor, a position that gives him no formal authority over Memphis-Shelby County Schools, but could allow him to revive the relationship between city and district if he follows through on his campaign plans.Such a change would come at a pivotal time, bringing additional dollars to the district as it faces hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance projects and seeks to develop a facility plan that better supports academic improvement.

Members of the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission unanimously overturned a decision by the Jackson-Madison County School Board Thursday and questioned how “serious” district leaders were taking the process.Those comments came during Thursday’s successful appeal by American Classical Education to open the first public charter school in Madison County. School board members initially rejected ACE’s application to open American Classical Academy – Jackson-Madison (ACAJM) in July citing 74 deficiencies.The district didn’t send anyone to attend Thursday’s appeal hearing in Nashville and Commissioner Alan Levine criticized that decision, saying it makes it look as though the district isn’t taking the process seriously.

A Stanford University researcher says public charter schools in Tennessee aren’t just outperforming their traditional school counterparts, they’re doing so with students who come from significantly more challenging backgrounds.Stanford’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO) director Mache Raymond presented her research to Tennessee education leaders at a forum Thursday morning hosted by the Tennessee State Collaboration on Education (SCORE).

Tennessee Public Charter School Commission Executive Director Tess Stovall is providing mixed recommendations for two public charter schools seeking to transfer out of the state-run Achievement School District (ASD) and into Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS).Stovall is recommending commissioners approve the appeal from Cornerstone Prep Lester (CPL) and deny the appeal from Fairley High School at a hearing Friday morning.

Jackson-Madison County Schools made the unusual move Wednesday to publicly attack a recommendation by the Executive Director of the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission to approve what would be the county’s first public charter school.This week Tess Stovall recommended approving an appeal by American Classical Education (ACE), finding its academic, financial, and operations plans for American Classical Academy Jackson - Madison all meet state requirements. Stovall recommended denying ACE’s other appeal for a sister school in Maury County.

The Knox County Schools (KCS) Department of School Culture is aiming to make stronger connections with students who access the district’s mental health resources.The department is receiving the Stronger Connections Grant (SCG) to put together structures within district schools that further support mental health and expand on the current mental health services students are receiving.

The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) announced the dates for this year’s free fall ACT Senior Retake opportunities.Traditionally, Tennessee high-school students take the ACT test during the spring of their junior year and then have the option of retaking the test in the fall of their senior year during normal school hours for free.

The Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) released a report this month that found two school districts may offer important lessons for how leaders can strengthen efforts to improve literacy and make assistance more accessible to students that need it the most.SCORE says both have adopted an “instructionally coherent” approach to literacy.“Rather than offering students something different in an academic support setting, it adheres to a principle that students who are academically behind should receive additional time and support with the foundational literacy skills, texts, and tasks that align to core instruction,” wrote SCORE.

Four proposed public charter schools in Memphis, Nashville, and Jackson are all receiving new support from a key state board leader.Tennessee Public Charter School Commission Executive Director Tess Stovall recommended commissioners approve those schools’ appeals at two meetings later this week.

Tennessee ranked No. 6 nationally with a grade of B in the ALEC Index of State Education Freedom.Grades were scored overall from tabulating funding and financing programs; charter schools; homeschooling; virtual schooling; and open enrollment. The overall score was 71.5 points, which trailed only Florida (95), Arkansas (92), Indiana (86.6), Arizona (84) and Iowa (78)

The Metro Nashville School Board indefinitely deferred a proposed major change to the district’s magnet school policy Tuesday to allow for more discussion on how to make two highly sought after high schools more representative of the district’s diversity.Board member Emily Masters proposed eliminating the priority students who attend one of the four feeder middle school magnets receive for a direct pathway into Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School or Hume-Fogg Academic High School.The change would ensure all qualified students are subject to the same lottery selection process at these two schools.

More than 30 parents in Donelson and Hermitage wrote the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission to urge members to overturn a decision by the Metro Nashville Public School Board.Last July board members denied Invictus Nashville Charter School’s application open a Montessori based K-8 public charter for students in the Donelson and Hermitage communities. Invictus supporters appealed to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission whose members have the option of overturning local district denials.

The ongoing search for a new leader of the state’s largest school district is once again seeing another key date moved back.At Tuesday night’s Memphis-Shelby County School Board meeting, Vice Chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman told board members the search process now aims to have five to eight candidates to interview by early December. Originally, the goal was to start board interviews in November.Dorse-Coleman says the process is targeting having a new superintendent ready to start by July 1, 2024.The district has been searching for a new superintendent since former superintendent Joris Ray resigned in July 2022.