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.

In the middle of night, students at Utah’s Kings Peak High School are wide awake — taking mandatory exams.At this online-only school, which opened during the pandemic and has seen its enrollment boom ever since, students take tests from their homes at times that work best with their schedules. Principal Ammon Wiemers says it’s this flexibility that attracts students — including athletes and teens with part-time jobs — from across the state.Any student who feels compelled to cheat while their teacher is sound asleep, however, should know they’re still being watched.

In an rare move of bipartisanship, the State Senate sent legislation to Governor Lee’s desk Wednesday that should ease some of the concerns parents have about their children repeating the fourth grade.The state estimates roughly 6 to 10 thousand fourth-graders are at risk for retention under a provision of the state’s Third-Grade Retention law.

House Democrats continued their push for the removal of Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds Tuesday during a discussion about a temporary teaching license bill.Representative Kirk Haston, R-Lobelville, sponsored the bill to allow Tennessee’s Education Commissioner to issue temporary teaching permits for courses that require end-of-course testing. The permits would only be applied for and granted as a last resort for filling vacancies.

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.

Governor Lee’s signature education proposal this year appears to be on life support.Tuesday afternoon both the Senate Finance, Ways, and Means Committee and the House Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee passed the state’s budget without taking up legislation to create the Education Freedom Scholarship plan. It would allow parents across the state to use public tax dollars to send their children to private school.

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.

Missy Testerman has enjoyed a teaching career that is decades longer than most, spending more than 30 years in first- and second-grade classrooms.But when she saw that her K-8 school district in rural Appalachia was quietly becoming a refuge for families from Mexico, Central America and Asia, she shifted gears and became an English as a second language teacher, pushing to smooth her students’ — and their families’ — transition to life in the U.S.

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

Mental health is a growing concern for children across the country and a new report shows Tennessee is no exception.Earlier this month the Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE), NashvilleHealth, and the Belmont Data Collaborative joined together to release a report called “Connecting the Dots: Mental Health and Student Success in Tennessee” that explores the mental health challenges facing Tennessee youth.

Two State Representatives who’ve played a big role in education legislation this session were among the nine Republicans who declined to vote on a bill Thursday that would ban marriage between first cousins. State Representatives Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, and John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, didn’t speak for or against the bill but joined Representatives Tandy Darby, R-Greenfield; Bud Hulsey, R-Kingsport; Chris Hurt, R-Halls; Brock Martin, R-Huntingdon; Jay Reedy, R-Erin; Tim Rudd, R-Murfreesboro; and Iris Rudder, R-Winchester in opting against voting on it.

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.

The Tennessee State Senate passed a bill allowing teachers to be armed in the classroom following a chaotic discussion that included state troopers clearing spectators from the gallery above.Demonstrators in the crowd shouted their opposition to the legislation and one woman could be heard saying, “We’re all Covenant mothers,” referring to last year’s school shooting in Nashville that killed six people.

The mastery-based approach Encompass Community School program wants to bring to Nashville 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.

Members of the Rutherford County School Board narrowly voted 4 to 3 to extend the contract of Director James “Jimmy” Sullivan during Thursday night’s board meeting.Dr. Sullivan became the Director of Schools for Rutherford County Schools (RCS) in 2022 under a four-year contract. Prior to becoming the director of schools, he served as the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction from 2019 and served as the founding principal of Rocky Ford Middle School in Smyrna.

Members of the House Government Operations Committee unanimously advanced legislation Monday that’s designed to help the state do a better job connecting students with the jobs that are available in their communities.That so-called “data bill,” sponsored by Representative Chris Hurt, R-Halls, would require the state to create a publicly available dashboard that includes data employers and students could use to see how well various instructional programs are working in Tennessee.

Tennessee lawmakers face a choice: embrace innovation in public education by supporting charter schools or continue resisting change. Public charter schools present an opportunity, not a threat, to Tennessee’s education system.

A common set of problems are keeping education leaders up at night: Will there be enough teachers to staff America’s schools? Can artificial intelligence enhance learning without deepening inequality? How can educators address the mental health crisis among young people? None of these have easy answers.New data confirm that these issues are top of mind for school leaders, and that education innovators are working to find solutions.