Hamilton County Schools (HCS) appointed new leaders Monday to positions the district considers key to supporting students, teachers and school principals.

Starting this fall, students in Williamson County Schools will face significant new restrictions on personal cell phone use during the day.

Just two years ago, chronic absenteeism was a crisis at Compass Berclair school in Memphis. During the 2021-22 school year, more than half of its students — 55.5 percent —missed at least 10 percent of school days, threatening their academic progress and overall well-being.

She will join John Overton High School rising senior Hannah Nguyen as a non-voting members representing the district’s more than 81,000 students next school year.

The audit was among multiple options lawmakers considered for the district, following the controversial firing of former Superintendent Marie Feagins after less than a year on the job.

All three applicants have the ability to appeal to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission that has overturned at least one MNPS charter denial four years in a row.

Seven years ago, a group of sixth-grade boys walked through the doors of Chattanooga Preparatory School for the very first time. Last month, they returned as the school’s first-ever graduating class.

The board unexpectedly decided late last week to hold votes on amended applications from the Rock Academy, the Forge School, and Rocketship Public Schools at Tuesday night’s meeting.

Interim Superintendent Dr. Roderick Richmond continues to lead Memphis-Shelby County Schools, unveiling a 100-Day Plan and proposing a $1.85B budget focused on literacy, safety, and communication. Richmond has also reaffirmed his commitment to transparency and academic progress across the district.

Speaking before at the Rotary Club of Nashville Monday, O’Connell reaffirmed that his office has done nothing to warrant the investigations now underway in the U.S. House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, though the mayor said both are taxing vital Metro resources.

Six years ago, a young family hoping to move to Williamson County, Tennessee faced a real estate market where the median home sales price was $521 thousand dollars. Today that number has exploded to $1 million.

At Tuesday’s budget meeting, Board Member Zach Young said the district could do a better job attracting hard-to-fill specialty teaching positions if the raise was higher than 3 percent.

Lawmakers passed the legislation last month that requires each school district in the state to create a policy for a student to serve as a nonvoting school board member.

The resolution states that the district’s legal department has provided guidance to principals about how to respond to requests or visits from ICE so that “no immigration enforcement agency is permitted access” to students or confidential student records without a legal right to do so.

The new contract approved Thursday includes a 17 percent raise in the first year and 2.5 percent in each of the following three years.

The board is scheduled to vote on a resolution at its May 27 meeting to protect immigrant students who attend district schools.

Rutherford County Schools has identified 12 buses it can purchase from nearby dealers for roughly $2 million. Board members will consider approving that purchase on Thursday.

The lawsuit claims the software provider failed to implement basic cybersecurity measures that could have prevented the data breach that included information on names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and phone numbers.

Under the original plan, school bus service would have been eliminated for students in grades K-5 who live within a mile of their school and students in grades 6-12 who live within a mile and a half, forcing parents to find other ways to get their students to class.

The move coincides with existing CEO Dwayne Tucker’s decision to continue serving Tennessee State University as interim president and not return to LEAD for the 2025/26 school year.