Chalkbeat Tennessee
There are 18 articles by Jacinthia Jones :
Gov. Bill Lee said his proposed education savings accounts would not siphon money from public schools: “For every dollar that goes with a child that leaves a school or a district, that district will receive a fill-in-the-gap amount of equal amount.”
Gov. Bill Lee had campaigned on giving more educational choices to low-income families in districts with failing schools. But the original income cap was criticized for being well above what’s considered low-income in Tennessee.
Nearly half of the 35 longtime providers from around the state lost their state contracts in the latest award period in the Tennessee Early Intervention System, which provides educational services for children under the age of 3 with disabilities or developmental delays.
The pre-K funding will come from the county’s reserves and are expected to be replenished once a court case has been resolved, said commission chairman Van Turner, who did not say what case he was referencing.
More than 40% of elementary and middle school students met the state’s proficiency standards in math, compared to 36.5% in 2018.
A joint commitment to fund early education and prekindergarten services, including money for the first time from the city of Memphis, seeks to save thousands of prekindergarten seats that were in jeopardy when federal funding ended June 30.
The sales tax will fund pension and healthcare benefits for police and firefighters, but prekindergarten is also a beneficiary of the referendum. Just how much money is likely to go toward early education efforts in the city is unknown.
Kandace Thomas, who was with the Irving Harris Foundation in Chicago for the last 13 years, will start work April 1 at the Memphis organization that oversees funding for early education initiatives.
The meeting behind (virtual) closed doors appears to violate a state statute governing how public business should be conducted, according to a letter sent to the Shelby County Schools district from a lawyer representing Chalkbeat.
Mayor Lee Harris recommended maintaining the $427 million the county allocated this year for the operating budgets for all seven of Shelby County’s school systems.
KIPP officials say they will continue remote learning plans through the end of the school year, but the closings will mean hundreds of students will have to find new schools this fall.
Board members also approved a $65 million capital improvement budget — more than double the $25 million that the county mayor has proposed for school building needs.
Should classes resume in school buildings, officials are considering the logistics necessary for social distancing, such as staggered school days where certain grades would go on certain days, splitting classes into half-day sessions and running more bus routes.
Shelby County Schools’ plan addresses every aspect of the school day starting with bus rides and ending with after-school care and extracurricular activities.
But citing the need for districts to adhere to social distancing guidelines, the board granted 56 requests to waive duty-free lunch breaks for teachers.
Lee was twice asked to address the lack of confidence in Schwinn among some of his own party’s lawmakers. At least one Republican legislator has suggested holding a no-confidence vote on the education chief.
The move back to school buildings would make KIPP one of the first public schools in the city to reopen after starting all remote. The return to in-person learning is outlined in a letter from the charter network’s CEO Kendra Ferguson.
Tennessee’s online database to inform students and parents about the prevalence of COVID-19 cases on school campuses gives an incomplete picture because of privacy concerns and limited reporting by districts.
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