The public charter school operator opened its first school, KIPP Academy, with one fifth-grade class in 2005. Today KIPP Nashville operates nine schools serving 3,417 students and employing a staff of more than 450.

The Rutherford County Bus Contractors Organization slammed the school district’s 17 percent pay raise, calling it a poverty wage.

Leaders of Rocketship Public Schools and Novus SMART Academy (K-8) have the option of submitting an amended application for approval this summer.

The board voted down applications from the Rock Academy, the Forge School, and Rocketship Public Schools Tuesday.

The apology from board member Towanna Murphy comes after messages she sent to a 2023 MSCS graduate threatening to have her deported were made public.

District leaders say the program has been such a success they’re now eyeing two expansions, beginning with the new North River Future Ready Center set to open at the current location of Sequoyah High School in the 2025-26 school year.

The Metro Nashville Public Schools Board of Education is scheduled to vote on applications from Forge School, the Rock Academy, and Rocketship Public Schools Tuesday night.

Members of the Hamilton County School Board unanimously voted the Tennessee Wildflower’s application down on Thursday, along with a proposal for the Little Kings and Queens Charter Academy.

The Tennessee House passed legislation proposed by students Wednesday that requires each school district in the state to create a policy for a student to serve as a nonvoting school board member.

If each chamber passes its version, the final details of one of the most talked about pieces of legislation this session would be decided in a conference committee.

Members of the Tennessee House sent a sign of increased support for innovative education options Monday by voting 70 to 19 in favor of legislation that supporters say will improve the approval process for public charter schools.

The TCAP is a statewide standardized testing program that includes assessments in English language arts (ELA), math, science, and social studies.

The school’s principal Jason Webster submitted the nomination, along with an announcement that Wallen wants to make a $1.2 million dollar donation to enhance the athletic facilities at the school.

The board voted Thursday to pull more than a dozen titles from library shelves, despite receiving a report that the district’s libraries aren’t meeting state standards when it comes to the number of books available.

State Representatives John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, and Antonio Parkinson, D-Memphis, both serve districts where multiple public charter schools are outperforming traditional public schools nearby.  Still both lawmakers openly questioned the performance of those schools during debate over new charter legislation Monday morning in the House Government Operations Committee.

It received a positive recommendation on a narrow 8-7 margin, with Representative Jeremy Faison, R- Cosby, joining six Democrats on the committee voting against the legislation.

The bill from Senator Paul Rose would extend existing pronoun policy to students and prohibit teachers from asking students to call them by a name or pronoun inconsistent with their biological sex.

Legislation that supporters say will help ensure public charter schools are approved timely and without political bias advanced from the House Education Committee Tuesday, but not without multiple misleading statements by Knoxville-based opponents.

Watson told committee members his bill is meant to help gather information and ease what he calls a financial burden placed on local districts with English language learnerprograms, pointing to a steady rise in the costs of those programs over the past eight years.

The committee found several factors are making it more challenging to recruit career and technology (CTE) teachers, including money.  The report said teacher salaries remain significantly lower than wages in many CTE industries.