Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, logged on to social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, at 10 PM Friday night to produce a multi tweet attack on proposed legislation designed to improve the school facilities economically disadvantaged and students of color attend.Her followers received a host of misleading information about not only the bill but also public charter schools in general.

Tennessee Department of Education Assistant Commissioner David Laird told the State Board of Education Friday that school districts may not know until July 1 what fourth-grade students will need to be retained under new state reading requirements.The state’s new Third-Grade Retention law allows third-graders who fail to show reading proficiency on state tests in the spring of their third-grade year to advance to the fourth grade through summer school and/or tutoring in their fourth-grade year.  Those children who receive tutoring still need to show “adequate growth” on spring testing to advance to the fifth-grade.Laird said the complex adequate growth determination that will need to be made for each impacted student likely won’t be finished in time to provide districts with the results until more than a month after school is over.

A group of Westview Elementary School students found a unique way to show off the fruits of the school’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) curriculum.Students designed personalized drink coasters for each member of the Hamilton County School Board. Students presented the coasters at Thursday night’s meeting.“At Westview Elementary, we inspire our students to be thinkers and problem solvers who are ready for college, career, and citizenship,” said Westview principal Deborah Coddle. “I am a believer that if we equip students with knowledge and resources and allow them to design and build solutions to solve problems, then they will thrive and reach their fullest potential.”

Abby McLean’s children are among those who survived last March’s Covenant school shooting that claimed the lives of three children and three staff members.McLean read a letter from Erin Kinney, the mother of Covenant victim William Kinney, to members of the Senate Education Committee in support of Senator Ferrell Haile’s, R-Gallatin, bill to change fire alarm policies in schools.The bill would require each school district, public charter school, private school, and church-related school to create a policy for how students, teachers, faulty, staff, and substitute faculty should respond when a fire alarm is activated outside of scheduled drills.

Tennessee’s comprehensive pandemic-era literacy law, which last year provided several interventions to help struggling third grade readers advance to the fourth grade, offers no such escape hatches for those same students to avoid retention this year if they don’t show “adequate growth” under the 2021 law.Now, as the State Board of Education prepares to vote Friday on what constitutes enough improvement for fourth graders who are at risk, state lawmakers are getting pushback from families whose students could be held back if they score poorly on state tests this spring, even after taking advantage of state-funded tutoring and summer learning programs.

A key House committee voted 12 to 4 to advance a controversial bill that would effectively ban pride flags in Tennessee classrooms Wednesday. That vote followed a vocal debate that even involved questions of whether the bill would allow Nazi and Confederate flags in classrooms.Representative Gino Bulso’s, R-Brentwood, says he’s proposing the bill to ensure children aren’t exposed to values in the classroom that their parents oppose.“(This bill) really addresses one issue, which is whether parents should be the ones who decide what values their children are exposed to when they go to school. Prior to filing this bill, I received complaints from parents in my county and other counties about the presence of different political flags in classrooms across the state,” said Bulso.

Two-thirds of U.S. teachers have limited discussions of political and social issues in their classrooms, even in places where there is no law or policy prohibiting instruction on race, gender identity, sexual orientation or other hot-button topics, according to a new survey conducted by the RAND Corp.

When the American Federation of Teachers, America’s second-largest teachers’ union, officially called for a cessation of hostilities in Gaza on January 30, its language was clear, but careful.The resolution listed the conditions necessary for a bilateral ceasefire, including the release of Israeli hostages and the provision of more humanitarian aid. It excoriated Hamas, both for its Oct. 7 terrorist assault and the brutal repression suffered by Gazans under its control, as well as the Netanyahu government for obstructing the possibility of a two-state solution.

Vanderbilt professor and researcher Jason Grissom told members of the Metro Nashville Board of Education that the nationwide recognition the district is getting for how students recovered from the pandemic didn’t come by accident.Grissom said thinking on two levels is what made it work. That includes the direct instructional intervention district leaders spearheaded, like investing in high-dosage tutoring, and the indirect building systems to support instruction, including mental health and family engagement.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools may have gained a new superintendent this month but the district is losing its Chief of Business Operations.Julius Muse announced his intention to resign at the end of March following the recent passing of his mother.

School nurses may be one solution to the growing problem of chronic absenteeism in Tennessee.Chronic absenteeism has been an ongoing issue nationwide that only increased following the pandemic.During the 2022-2023 school year, more than 20 percent of Tennessee students were chronically absent and those rates are higher with high school and economically disadvantaged students.

A new report produced by Harvard and Stanford Universities known as the Education Recovery Scorecard, credits MNPS for surpassing national trends for pandemic recovery.The research found MNPS ranked third among the top 100 districts in math growth from 2022 to 2023 and the district is ranked sixth among the top 100 districts in reading (English language arts) growth during that same period. The district was one of just two large urban school districts to rank in the top ten for both subjects.

Knox County School Board members failed to pass a resolution Thursday night that would have denounced Governor Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act. The tie 4 to 4 vote followed a debate from the board’s work session earlier in the week when board member Jennifer Owens proposed the resolution.

Every March, my North Star Academy Lincoln Park High School students anxiously await financial aid offers from colleges and universities. But this year, they may not know how much financial assistance they will receive until May or June. That’s a devastating timeline for students from the low-income communities my school serves — they’ll have less than a month to figure out the next four years as they get ready to make the biggest decision of their young lives.

The more than yearlong search for a new leader of the state’s largest school district is officially over. Members of the Memphis-Shelby County School Board unanimously picked Detroit Public Schools Chief of Leadership and High School Dr. Marie Feagins to be the district’s next superintendent Friday afternoon.Six board members initially provided the necessary three-fourths majority to approve Feagins, but the remaining three members chose to change their vote to ensure the final tally is unanimous.

Paige Hodge admitted to being a little nervous before speaking to the Tennessee Senate Education Committee Wednesday, but the topic was one the Nashville School of the Arts senior feels passionately about.Hodge serves as a youth assembly leader for the Southern Movement Committee, an organization that fights the school to prison pipeline. She told senators that she and hundreds of fellow students she’s worked with all believe conflict resolution needs to be taught in schools.

Members of the House Education Administration Committee advanced proposed legislation Wednesday to help public charter schools access school buildings that are sitting unused by local districts.The legislation would require local school districts that have public charter schools in them to provide a list of vacant and underutilized buildings on an annual basis. Under the bill, school districts would additionally be required to make those properties available to public charter schools at a fair market value and give charters a first right of refusal for either purchase or lease.

Representative Gino Bulso’s, R-Brentwood, bill that would prohibit pride flags in classrooms advanced from a House Subcommittee Tuesday, but not without vocal opposition from Representative Sam McKenzie, D-Knoxville.That bill would only allow the Tennessee State Flag, the United States Flag, and other flags representing a country or political subdivision to be displayed. Representative McKenzie called the bill dangerous.