A much talked about bill that would ban the display of pride flags in Tennessee public schools passed the full House on Monday following another heated debate.The 70-24 vote went mostly along party lines with every present Democrat opposing the bill and all but two Republicans voting to support it.Representative Gino Bulso, R-Brentwood, proposed the bill to ensure only certain types of flags are displayed in schools. Bulso said he brought the legislation to the Tennessee General Assembly after parents and a school board member in his district came to him about the issue.

State Representative Justin Jones, D-Nashville, represents a district that touches four school clusters with some of the highest performing public charter schools in Nashville.Those charters in east and southeast Nashville include a dozen that outscored the average grade district run public schools received in their cluster on the state’s School Letter Grades assessment. The remaining public charter schools scored equal to the cluster average and 40 percent of the Reward schools in these four clusters are charters.

Tennessee Democrats continued their push for the resignation of Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds Monday, announcing a bill that would allow lawmakers to impeach her for failing to met the necessary qualifications.Representative Caleb Hemmer, D-Nashville, and Senator Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, are co-sponsoring a bill that would require a Commissioner of Education in Tennessee to reside in the state and provide a process for the legislature to impeach a commissioner for cause.

Three school voucher proposals now before Tennessee lawmakers would create a new statewide program that eventually could open eligibility to all K-12 students, regardless of family income.But the similarities end there.The latest version, filed Monday by House Majority Leader William Lamberth, of Portland, has no testing requirements for students who accept public funding to attend private schools. Gov. Bill Lee’s version doesn’t either, but Senate leaders say that approach is a non-starter.

The Rutherford County Board of Education is joining a national lawsuit against social media companies for alleged damages to students.School board members unanimously voted Thursday evening to join the suit against multiple companies including Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Snapchat and YouTube.Multiple lawsuits across the nation are currently arguing that social media is contributing to the teen mental health crisis due to the lack of adequate age verification measures, insufficient parental control, and how the platforms endless scrolling is designed to lure and attract teens and expose them to harmful content.

A few months ago, I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania attending a wedding. Whenever I find myself in a capital city, I always make a point to visit the capitol building. After a brief tour, I walked around the city and wandered into a small indoor mall a few blocks away.The building had clearly seen better days. Most of the commercial spaces were vacant, and the walls displayed hallmarks of vandalism that the city had attempted to paint over. Fake plants coated with a thick layer of dust dotted the interior, and a few presumably unhoused persons were sleeping in an area that was once a food court.

Independence High School student Elaina Reed told Williamson County School Board members that she was scared when one of her classmates bullied her for her race.Reed says that classmate called her a racial slur and said he was going to shoot up every black person in the school. She immediately spoke to the principal following the student’s threats.

A bill that would ban pride flags in Tennessee classrooms narrowly managed to advance on a 5-4 vote in the Senate Education Committee Wednesday afternoon following questions from members of both political parties about its potential consequences.Senator Joey HensleySenator Joey Hensley’s, R-Hohenwald, bill would only allow certain flags to be displayed in the classroom. The bill’s House counterpart sponsored by Representative Gino Bulso, R-Brentwood, advanced through key House committees and faces a vote on the House floor next week.

LaKendra Butler moved to Nashville a decade ago with the goal of starting a public charter school.At the time Butler was the principal of a middle school in Dallas and she saw an opportunity to help put students in the Donelson and Hermitage communities of Davidson County on the path to become college-ready high school graduates.

Jose Martinez, a senior at Senn High School in Chicago, wants to teach someday — maybe English. He’s applied to several top colleges in Illinois, but for now, he’s in limbo, unable to complete the financial aid forms he’ll need to attend.

Interim Memphis-Shelby County Schools Superintendent Toni Williams says her mother Shirley Yvette Green was a strong woman and a warrior as she battled sickle cell disease.Williams says her mother told her the pain from the disease was like a stabbing sensation all over her body. Despite that, Williams says her mother would often hide her struggles so others wouldn’t worry.“As a sickle warrior, you’re born into this life. It’s a life that gives you many limitations. A life where at any moment, a sickle cell crisis can happen,” said Williams.

A bill that would change the age cutoff date for children enrolling in enrolling in kindergarten failed to advance out of the House K-12 Subcommittee Tuesday.Representative Jody Barrett, R-Dickson, says he initially sponsored the bill following a request from a director of schools in his district who wanted to change the cutoff date for when a child must be five years old to start kindergarten.

As the Memphis community embraces change with open arms, we stand on the threshold of a new era, welcoming Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) newly appointed superintendent Dr. Marie Feagins with enthusiasm and hope.Dr. Feagins takes over the mantle of leadership for a school district that needs innovation, collaboration, and a steadfast commitment to excellence. The families she will soon serve are entrusting their children’s future in her hands.We offered three of those mothers an opportunity to express what they’re expecting and where they hope Dr. Feagins leads the school district in the coming years.

Proposed legislation that requires firearm safety to be taught in schools advanced from the House Education Instruction Committee Tuesday morning.Representative Chris Todd, R-Madison County, says he created the bill with the hope that it would save lives by teaching kids what to do when they encounter a firearm.“It’s certainly not about how to handle a firearm or proper techniques or anything like that. This is literally going to be more on the lines of ‘if you see a gun, tell an adult.’ And that’s the general concept that I think all of these type courses are going to have,” said Todd. “I think this is definitely going to save some lives.”

Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, logged on to social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, at 10 PM Friday night to produce a multi tweet attack on proposed legislation designed to improve the school facilities economically disadvantaged and students of color attend.Her followers received a host of misleading information about not only the bill but also public charter schools in general.

Tennessee Department of Education Assistant Commissioner David Laird told the State Board of Education Friday that school districts may not know until July 1 what fourth-grade students will need to be retained under new state reading requirements.The state’s new Third-Grade Retention law allows third-graders who fail to show reading proficiency on state tests in the spring of their third-grade year to advance to the fourth grade through summer school and/or tutoring in their fourth-grade year.  Those children who receive tutoring still need to show “adequate growth” on spring testing to advance to the fifth-grade.Laird said the complex adequate growth determination that will need to be made for each impacted student likely won’t be finished in time to provide districts with the results until more than a month after school is over.

A group of Westview Elementary School students found a unique way to show off the fruits of the school’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) curriculum.Students designed personalized drink coasters for each member of the Hamilton County School Board. Students presented the coasters at Thursday night’s meeting.“At Westview Elementary, we inspire our students to be thinkers and problem solvers who are ready for college, career, and citizenship,” said Westview principal Deborah Coddle. “I am a believer that if we equip students with knowledge and resources and allow them to design and build solutions to solve problems, then they will thrive and reach their fullest potential.”

Abby McLean’s children are among those who survived last March’s Covenant school shooting that claimed the lives of three children and three staff members.McLean read a letter from Erin Kinney, the mother of Covenant victim William Kinney, to members of the Senate Education Committee in support of Senator Ferrell Haile’s, R-Gallatin, bill to change fire alarm policies in schools.The bill would require each school district, public charter school, private school, and church-related school to create a policy for how students, teachers, faulty, staff, and substitute faculty should respond when a fire alarm is activated outside of scheduled drills.

Tennessee’s comprehensive pandemic-era literacy law, which last year provided several interventions to help struggling third grade readers advance to the fourth grade, offers no such escape hatches for those same students to avoid retention this year if they don’t show “adequate growth” under the 2021 law.Now, as the State Board of Education prepares to vote Friday on what constitutes enough improvement for fourth graders who are at risk, state lawmakers are getting pushback from families whose students could be held back if they score poorly on state tests this spring, even after taking advantage of state-funded tutoring and summer learning programs.