There are 78 article(s) tagged Joris Ray:
On The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, the County Commission chairman says the differences between the two don't appear to extend to the rest of the commission. Mark Billingsley also said he hopes to move to lift the county hiring budget freeze once there is a reconciliation of the budget approved by the commission last month after rejecting Mayor Lee Harris's original proposal.
The Shelby County Schools superintendent said on “Behind The Headlines” that the school system is ready with a flexible plan and two teams of teachers for each school – virtual teachers and in-person teachers.
The district plans to present a proposal to the school board on Tuesday, and estimates a longer school year would cost between $25 million and $30 million.
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Shelby County Schools will begin distributing meals to students who need them Monday, March 23. The program will start with lunch but could be extended to breakfast depending on response.
Lori Gilbert, the president of Treadwell Elementary’s parent group, said some Spanish-speaking parents did not get the district’s robocall about a quarantined employee in Spanish until after school started.
Though Superintendent Joris Ray decided to exclude union leadership to “give other people an opportunity to lead too,” at least 10 schools voted for a union leader to represent them on the council anyway.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris sees Frayser as a good place to start expanding educational opportunities for students.
Brad Leon is the seventh SCS leader to resign since Joris Ray took the district helm last January.
Student enrollment at the district’s 57 charter schools is up nearly 14%, to about 18,250 students. That means the share of Shelby County Schools students attending a charter school rose to 16%.
Superintendent Joris Ray believes Shelby County Schools will be able to more effectively control the behavior of officers if they report directly to the district.
This week, when temperatures in Memphis dipped to an unseasonably chilly 20 degrees, some classrooms at Kingsbury High had no heat. The problem was partially caused by a gas leak that led to an early dismissal Tuesday, but a student says cold classrooms are common.
First 8 Memphis was formed earlier this year to financially support and advocate for more early childhood programming in Shelby County.
The retention policy takes effect during the 2021-22 school year. This year’s kindergarten students will be the first class of second graders impacted by the new policy, which could hold back students with lagging literacy skills.
Some Shelby County Schools board members initially rejected the remote teaching idea in a committee meeting, but support mounted last week as district leaders explained the dire teacher vacancy situation.
The most significant jump in student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, was in eighth-grade math where the average score increased by about eight points.
Superintendent Joris Ray named four to top leadership posts for Shelby County Schools, leaving open the chief of schools position vacated by Sharon Griffin in 2018 when she became head of the state-run Achievement School District.
Of the 10 cabinet members who remain from the previous administration, six received raises since the beginning of the calendar year — increases ranging from about 4% to 31%, according to district data. The other four did not receive raises.
Superintendent Joris Ray said the district’s promise to allocate a 3% pay increase to all teachers and licensed school professionals in the Memphis district will go into effect next month and be retroactive to the beginning of the school year.
Shelby County Schools' CFO is resigning this week. Toni Williams will rejoin the district as interim CFO.
Fewer than 5% of Geeter students scored proficient or higher in English this past spring on the state’s annual exam known as TNReady. In math, 6% of students scored proficient or higher.
The district’s students did not make as much progress as other students across the state, earning Shelby County Schools the lowest score on the state’s 5-point growth scale.
Special Report: Memphis' Reading Test PART 1: Meeting goals for third-grade reading proficiency in Tennessee is a daunting task unless dramatic improvements occur in Shelby County, where the hurdles are high and the challenges complex. And in Memphis, a city where nearly four in five children in public schools aren't reading on grade level, the undertaking is monumental.
On the literacy front, the district is adding teacher assistants in second grade and implementing a phonics curriculum this year to ramp up a plan to hold back students in second grade if they don’t meet certain reading benchmarks in the 2021-22 school year.
Poverty, crime and implicit bias have a devastating effect on black male students. Researchers found the educational achievement gap between black and white students amounted to "the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.”