Report: Tennessee children face a myriad of challenges
Crumbling schools, along with poor mental health, poverty and gun violence are the issues facing Tennessee children. Peabody Elementary School was closed by Memphis-Shelby County Schools last fall due to issues with mold. (Google Maps)
In the past year, 53% of Tennessee’s high school girls and 30% of high school boys reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks, which represents a 63% increase since 2011.
Topics
children and youth Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth Kylie Graves gun violence PovertyAisling Mäki
Aisling Mäki covers health care, banking and finance, technology and professions. After launching her career in news two decades ago, she worked in public relations for almost a decade before returning to journalism in 2022.
As a health care reporter, she’s collaborated with The Carter Center, earned awards from the Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalists and won a 2024 Tennessee Press Association first-place prize for her series on discrepancies in Shelby County life expectancy by ZIP code.
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