Joris Ray, Shelby County Schools superintendent, says he wants to change the school district's approach to educating black male students, in order to "change the face of SCS and change the face of Shelby County and Memphis." 

A suit filed by the LeMoyne-Owen College Faculty Organization against the college and its board of trustees reveals the mistrust that existed between the administration and faculty before the college president was fired.

The state-run district took over low-performing schools in Memphis and Nashville with a goal of vaulting them out of the state’s bottom 5% and into the top 25% academically. The schools – 28 in Memphis and two in Nashville – have performed no better or worse than comparable struggling schools outside of the district.

Gov. Bill Lee said the state, which began its new fiscal year on July 1, has enough money to start the education savings account program for the 2020-21 school year. His decision to work toward an early rollout caught even some staff members in his education department off guard. 

State lawmakers are concerned rushing the Education Savings Account program could cause problems in delivery of state funds to student to enroll in private schools.

Political support for the Tennessee achievement district could be waning. After the district’s high profile leader Sharon Griffin left this month, some state lawmakers are calling for hearings on its future.

Lin Johnson is leaving after a four-year tenure with Shelby County Schools as deputy director for finance, human resources and information technologies. He hopes his legacy reaches beyond the numbers. 

Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn named Amity Schuyler voucher project manager. “She believes in education savings accounts. And to take the lead on this project, I need someone who believes in it,” Schwinn said.

The push is alarming voucher opponents, who worry that an accelerated rollout will be more prone to fraud in how the accounts, which will be loaded with an average of $7,300 a year, are used.

Katherine Causey, chair of LeMoyne-Owen’s Division of Business and Economic Development, said the college’s business programs are the largest and most popular majors at the college. 

The old middle-school standards had varying guidelines on addressing the six world religions taught in world history courses — Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Shintoism. Now, teaching of the six creeds follows the exact same formula: origins, key people, sacred texts and basic beliefs.

Freedom Preparatory Academy, a 10-year-old charter network, will move its Westwood neighborhood elementary school to Shelby County Schools oversight — rolling back the 2014 state takeover of the school.

The federal guidance removes the final hurdle for Compass Community Schools to open its six campuses across Memphis on July 31 in former Catholic school buildings.

Read to be Ready camps first opened in 2016, and Tennessee has expanded the program annually with funding from the U.S. Department of Human Services. But state officials learned in January that the federal grant now has to be used for child care programs.

British-based Pearson took over the student testing program July 1. The contract runs through June 30, 2021, and the state has the option to renew terms annually for up to three years through 2024. The five-year cost would be $93.1 million.

School districts will have to follow (or be aware of) many new laws that didn’t grab headlines. Here are 10 such measures that become effective with the new fiscal year.

Jamiyah Brown, an 11-year-old rising sixth-grader and rugby team captain at Believe Memphis Academy, will deliver the game ball when the U.S. takes on France in a Rugby World Cup match Oct. 2 in Japan. 

Shelby County School's $1.4 billion budget was approved Thursday by the County Commission. The district had asked for a $7.5 million funding increase, but the commission did not increase its maintenance of effort funding to the schools.

“The state has pretty clear criteria for what an academic plan should look like, what an operational plan should look like and what a financial plan should look like. None of those schools really met that criteria,” said Bradley Leon, Shelby County Schools chief of strategy and performance management. 

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.

Ray was interim superintendent for about three months before the school board abandoned a national search and unanimously voted to give him the permanent position in late April.

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.

Inside the homey classrooms at Libertas, there are no desks lined up in neat rows. Instead, students and teachers sit at scattered chairs and tables — or on the floor if they prefer. 

DeAnna McClendon oversaw the expansion of preschool classrooms as Shelby County seeks to make early childhood education available to all low-income families.

Parents and teachers at Winchester Elementary were largely critical of the Memphis Teacher Residency partnership — saying the teachers would be less experienced, the model hasn’t been tested, and the school had recently undergone a lot of leadership changes.