MSCS’ Board of Education announced Marie N. Feagins as the school district’s new superintendent.

“Music is what we have in common with strangers,” said Jason Isbell, now six-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, to a near standing-room-only crowd at Rhodes College.

“Southwest is the first place that I feel like adults have looked at me and spoken to me and said, ‘OK, this person has potential. This person can do something and has good ideas'”, said Allyson Harrison.

Rep. Mark White (R-Memphis) cited prolonged frustration with the board’s locally elected leadership when explaining his plans to Chalkbeat on Tuesday.

MSCS board members are set to select a new public schools leader from a slate of three out-of-town finalists.

For nearly 50 years, the U of M had taught engineering from the Herff facilities, which were completed in the early 1970s when engineering was taught in classrooms and laboratories and largely did not include research.

Six months after Tennessee hired its first leader to manage school improvement work statewide, the position is now vacant.

Germantown Board of Education’s meeting Tuesday was full of celebrations for students, the board and its superintendent.

Collierville’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen has chosen eight people to interview for school board. The person will serve until November.

The details of the Education Freedom Scholarship Act draft — which was filed and quickly withdrawn on Monday — conform to those Gov. Bill Lee laid out when he announced the proposal in late November.

Collierville had 19 people apply for the vacant school board position following Keri Blair’s resignation. The board hopes to appoint its member in mid-May.

In all, nearly half of the district’s buildings, and their communities, could be affected if the district follows through on the plan.

This week’s announcement that Collierville Schools will close its Virtual Academy at the end of the academic year indicates there are still problems to address before the district takes another run at the idea.

Free courses in nine career fields will begin this winter on all Southwest Tennessee campuses for residents of Shelby and Fayette counties. 

Arlington High students will soon have a new device to replicate the human anatomy in a virtual platform.

Collierville Virtual Academy will cease operations at the end of the academic year. The suburb’s Board of Education approved the closure Tuesday evening.

Jeff Jones, interim superintendent, made it clear the decision was not to rescind rezoning elementary schools but to delay until the 2025-26 school year.

“She was very disappointed in Memphis about how the so-called Black children were allowed to falter because it allowed different subsets of schools,” said Aaron L. Lewis Jr., Lewis’s son.

Students were dismissed at 10:30 a.m., according to the school district.

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Area schools to open Tuesday as snow, ice melt

Shelby County’s six suburban school districts and most Memphis-Shelby County Schools will welcome students back to school on Tuesday. Students were last in school on Friday, Jan. 12.

Lizzette Reynolds has no teacher’s license or experience leading a classroom, in apparent violation of a century-old state law outlining the job’s requirements, Democrats say.

Catholic education leaders believe the Jubilee Schools wouldn’t have closed if the state government had paid a portion of the families’ tuition. That’s why they support Gov. Bill Lee’s proposed Education Freedom Scholarship Act, which would make private school vouchers much more widely available.

All six suburban school districts, Memphis-Shelby County Schools and Immaculate Conception Cathedral School made the decision to close schools Monday, Jan. 22. 

University of Memphis responded Saturday to the city’s ongoing water crisis, as both U of M, Christian Brother University and LeMoyne-Owen campuses will remain closed Monday, Jan. 22.

The University of Memphis’ Center for Applied Earth Science has hired a professor known for using data to guide long-term planning for infrastructure.