Empower Memphis Career and College Prep will begin serving Orange Mound and South Memphis students a year later than planned.Chief Executive Officer Muna Olaniyi announced to supporters this week that the public charter school’s opening has been postponed until August 2025 because of facility-related challenges.

When E’Janay Reynolds was eight years old, she, her mother, and two younger sisters found themselves living in the Chattanooga Homeless Shelter for roughly seven months.Though her mother was eventually able to get federal Section 8 assistance to move the family into housing, this drastic change gave Reynolds a push to focus on school.“Academically, it just gave me a push to be better and do better. Because, if I didn’t do it, who else would have (done) it?” said Reynolds. “I just had to push to ‘okay, go in school, be the best you can be because you’re going to need that to get somewhere in life’.”

Daniela Castro Pu says the University of Tennessee Knoxville (UTK) felt like home almost immediately.Castro Pu is now weeks away from finishing her sophomore year at UT and she says the experience has been everything she’d hoped for but the ideal university match wasn’t always in the cards.Castro Pu says she might never have even considered the University of Tennessee if KIPP hadn’t offered a specific scholarship created for students like her.

New Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) Superintendent Dr. Marie Feagins is planning to listen to a diverse set of voices as she charts the path forward for the state’s largest school district.Last week Feagins announced the transition team that will help craft and execute the district’s next strategic plan and over the weekend she joined the co-chairs of that team at a retreat involving education leaders from across the country.

It’s a classic American story: Someone moves to the big city with nothing to their name but a dream. Maybe, with good timing and some luck, they can turn that dream into something tangible. Social media appears to have made finding stardom and success in the music business as easy as posting some TikTok videos. The reality, though, is that it’s difficult to go viral online, and it’s even harder to leverage a few million views on a catchy song into a lasting career.Navigating the music business can be challenging. A recording industry degree can make it easier to build a sustainable career by providing connections, skills and credibility. The same is true for any competitive industry.

Members of the Tennessee General Assembly adjourned the legislative session Thursday following more than three months of sometimes contentious and challenging educational debate.Headlining the list of challenges was Governor Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act that failed to reach either the House or Senate Floor.

Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) announced a $5 million investment in three elementary schools made possible through a fundraising drive led by parents.Former Percy Priest Elementary School PTO President Katie Agnew and Percy Priest parent Sharon Martin led the fundraising effort that will help improve construction projects already in place to build larger gymnasiums at Percy Priest and Lakeview Elementary along with an expanded cafeteria and playtorium at Paragon Mills Elementary.

Three proposed new public charter schools in Memphis may have a challenging road finding approval from school board members next week.Tuesday night the Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ (MSCS) charter review team recommended a denial for all three including Blueprint College and Career Prep, Journey Northeast Academy, and the Memphis Grizzlies Prep STEAM School for Girls.Board members are scheduled to vote on each application at its meeting next Tuesday.

Metro Nashville Public Schools Board of Education turns down expansion of a Nashville charter network that's outperforming comparable schools.

Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) announced a partnership with Vanderbilt Peabody College to create a new education program at John Early Middle School. The collaboration will create a lab school that provides students with education pathways that help bridging the gap between K-12 and higher education.The lab school will focus on STEAM programming and preparing students for success beyond John Early Middle School.

A controversial bill that would ban pride flags in Tennessee classrooms failed to receive the necessary 17 votes needed to reach a constitutional majority for passage in the Senate Tuesday.The vote included a rare show of bipartisanship with Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, joining the five Democrats in voting against the bill. Eight other Republicans skipped the vote altogether, ensuring that it’s done for the legislative session.

The Tennessee House chamber once again turned into chaos Tuesday following debate on legislation involving guns.House members voted 68-28 vote to pass a bill allowing teachers and school staff to carry firearms on school grounds and in classrooms. Immediately after the vote, spectators above began shouting, “Blood on your hands,” prompting House Republican leaders to call on state troopers to escort demonstrators out.

LEAD runs six public charter schools in Nashville, including four in the Metro-Nashville Public School district serving families in South Nashville and Antioch. What the charter operator believes it’s lacking though, are elementary schools to feed students into those existing middle and high schools.

Members of the Rutherford County School Board unanimously rejected what could be the district’s fourth public charter school Thursday but not without offering a gleam of hope for its supporters.The board provided more than a dozen stipulations for leaders of Novus SMART Academy (K-8) to address if they choose to file an amended application.

For more than a decade the Memphis Grizzlies Preparatory Charter School has provided middle-school aged boys with a science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) focused education in Memphis and last year school leaders proposed creating a similar school for girls.The Memphis-Shelby County School Board denied that application in 2023 but the proposal is back with some changes to address the concerns board members had.

The turbulent rollout of a new federal financial aid application could mean thousands of low-income students miss out on college this fall.But one person feels especially perturbed by the botched implementation of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA.Lamar Alexander — former governor of Tennessee, U.S. education secretary and Republican leader of the Senate education committee — thought the FAFSA Simplification Act would be his legacy.

Governor Bill Lee conceded that there’s no pathway for his signature education bill to pass this session and vowed to bring back the Education Freedom Scholarship plan next year.On social media Monday morning the Governor expressed his gratitude to supporters of the plan to allow parents to utilize taxpayer dollars to send their children to private school and his disappointment in pulling the plug on it.

Families who live in the Sycamore View community in Northeast Memphis don’t have easy access to a public elementary or middle school. The two closest public schools are currently overenrolled, forcing students to either take a long bus ride or their parents to drive them outside of Sycamore View.It’s one of the reasons why Journey Community Schools chose Sycamore View for a proposed new public charter school. If approved by the Memphis-Shelby County School Board, Journey Northeast Academy would eventually serve more than 500 kindergarten through eighth graders with a similar education model that’s in place at one of the organization’s other schools.

As the job market in the greater Memphis area continues to expand, more schools that focus on career and technical education (CTE) and college prep will be in demand. This is especially true for low-income neighborhoods where students face barriers entering the workforce.It’s one reason why the founders of Blueprint College and Career Prep (BCCP) chose the Southeast Memphis communities of Oakhaven and Parkway Village as the location for their proposed public charter school. They say families there want a high-quality public education option that addresses each community’s needs.