Chalkbeat

Should Tennessee fully fund special education pre-K programs?

2026-08-25T19:48:10+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

A top committee of Tennessee educators wants lawmakers to include special education prekindergarten students in the state’s public school funding formula.

The recommendation follows pleas from school boards and superintendents who say they’ve been saddled with the price tag of an unfunded mandate because federal and state laws require local school districts to serve students with disabilities as young as 3.

“The problem is, they’ve legally compelled us to serve kids for whom they’re not proportionally funding us,” said Bob Nardo, the executive director at the Libertas School, a Memphis charter school, during a TISA Review Committee meeting this month.

Lawmakers established the committee last year. Made up of top education officials and public school leaders from around the state, the committee is tasked with recommending revisions to the state’s overarching K-12 funding formula and will issue its first report later this fall.

A survey completed this summer showed the majority of committee members ranked special education pre-K funding as a top priority, in addition to revising how the state identifies economically disadvantaged students.

“Early childhood education is widely recognized as an important factor in long-term academic success,” committee member Ron McPherson said in the summer survey. McPherson serves as the finance director at Knox County Schools.

Reworking TISA, the state’s funding formula, would require legislative action. The formula currently only funds Tennessee K-12 students.

“Change the rules about who we’re required to serve, or fund us for the kids we’re required to serve,” Nardo said, noting that his school has an “acute population” of special education students with “severe” needs.

It’s not clear how much weight the TISA Review Committee’s recommendations will carry with state lawmakers.

A previous legislative effort to fold these pre-K students into public school funding stalled in 2025, likely over funding concerns. The legislature estimated that fully funding the programs could cost the state more than $159 million annually.

On Thursday, state Board of Education Chairman Bob Eby sent a formal list of TISA recommendations to Gov. Bill Lee.

The pre-K funding recommendation wasn’t included in the official list, but Eby noted it at the end of the letter.

“This topic, being outside the K-12 formula, was omitted from the list, as it is not necessarily authorized by the statute creating this Committee; however, we wanted you to know of this high level of interest from the committee members,” Eby wrote.

West Tennessee school leaders said last year that they’ve encountered “fundamental” misunderstandings of how special education pre-K programs work and are funded, even among state officials responsible for education oversight.

Tennessee has an $18 million grant fund for special education pre-K costs. But district leaders say the grant program is less stable than recurring funding streams, and it’s still not enough to cover the costs of their special education pre-K classrooms.

“Yes, the grant program exists, and I’m very grateful for it,” Nardo said. “But it’s not actually proportional to the need.”

Special education costs for pre-K classes can balloon quickly, school leaders say.

Lakeland School System in Shelby County currently has 29 special education students to whom it is federally required to offer pre-K services, including specialized teachers and therapies.

But these students must also be educated alongside general education peers to meet federal and state class size and inclusivity regulations. Lakeland is serving an additional 30 general education students in those pre-K classrooms as peer models for its 29 special education students.

Lakeland’s 59 students are spread across four classrooms, each with a special education teacher and two special education assistants.

The cost to run those classrooms? More than $621,000, according to data provided by the district. The district is receiving $15,058 in federal funding and another $124,660 from the Tennessee special education preschool grant, which together cover about 22% of Lakeland’s total costs.

That means Lakeland must dip into its TISA funding — calculated and intended for K-12 students — to pay the remaining $481,282.

Other district officials said the existing funding models do not factor in the costs of peer students and the enrollment increases they bring.

“That’s where we’re getting in a bind,” said TISA Review Committee member Eddie Pruett, the director of schools at Gibson County Special School District. “We have to provide this, and don’t have the funding we need to do it with.”

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Where the 2026 Tennessee gubernatorial candidates stand on education issues

2026-08-21T11:00:01+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Where do Tennessee’s governor candidates stand on education issues?

Tennessee voters this month tapped Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Democratic Memphis City Council member Jerri Green to face off in the November general election.

In a Chalkbeat candidate survey, both candidates outlined their education platforms and positions on policies such as the state’s third grade reading retention law, teacher retention concerns, and the growing school choice landscape.

Departing Gov. Bill Lee will leave office next year after significantly altering education policy in Tennessee. A staunch school choice advocate, Lee championed earlier universal school voucher programs and created the Education Freedom Scholarship program, which now uses public funds to pay for 35,000 students to attend private schools in the state.

The school choice debate is likely to dominate education policy discussions even after Lee leaves office. Blackburn and Green both pointed to it as the biggest education issue Tennessee faces, though they offered sharply different approaches.

For Blackburn, school choice and expanding the EFS program is a top priority in Tennessee’s education system, which she said “is not built to address the unique needs of every student.” She is also considering altering charter school regulations in the state, criticizing “senseless red tape” she says is complicating charter school operation.

“Tennessee should be the best place in the country to start a school, choose a school, and go to school,” Blackburn said. “It’s my hope that my legacy is that no child is trapped in a school that doesn’t meet their needs.”

Public school funding is top of mind for Green, who pledged to defund the voucher program if elected in November. Green said she would direct that funding to Tennessee public schools to raise teacher pay and expand access to support staff such as counselors and nurses.

“As we continue to take money away from our public school system via the voucher scheme, our teachers are finding resources even more limited, students are losing access to supports they need, and the educational gap in Tennessee is widening,” Green said.

Read Blackburn and Green’s full responses to the Chalkbeat Tennessee survey here:

Should Tennessee expand school vouchers?

Blackburn pledged to expand the EFS program to all Tennessee families if elected governor. The program opened last year with 20,000 scholarships before GOP lawmakers expanded it this year to 35,000.

“Parents know best when it comes to their children’s education, and this program ensures a child’s success is not determined by their zip code,” Blackburn said. “As governor, I will fight to expand Education Freedom Scholarships until no parent has to win the lottery to give their child the education that best suits their unique needs.”

Green said continued voucher expansion makes her worry for “our next generation and rural towns.”

“I’ve been on the road and some of these rural, small towns only have one school,” Green said. “When you take money from that school, which is often the community’s biggest employer, you take money from that community’s future. We’re robbing our children of opportunities to give families who can afford private school welfare.”

With her pro-voucher platform, Blackburn bested two other Republican candidates in the August primary: U.S. Rep. John Rose and state lawmaker Monty Fritts. Fritts opposed vouchers, while Rose supported school choice but called for accountability measures to ensure programs work as intended.

School choice accountability

Students receiving vouchers are not required to take the same state assessments as public school students, making it difficult to determine if students are achieving at the same level as their public school peers.

Green called the program an “unaccountable” system that creates a “glaring, unfair double standard.”

“We are forcing our public school teachers and students to meet rigorous, often unrealistic benchmarks while handing over millions of public taxpayer dollars to private institutions with virtually zero oversight or transparency,” Green said. “If a school accepts public funding, they must be held to public standards. Period. Parents and taxpayers have a right to know exactly how their money is being spent and whether students are thriving.”

Blackburn said she is happy with how the system is set up currently, arguing there is “no greater accountability than a parent’s decision” to choose the right fit for their child.

“Data is important because it ensures accountability and transparency, and I support high standards in testing,” Blackburn said. “The private schools receiving EFS funding have to be accredited by our Department of Education or State Board of Education. That being true, the parents can hold private schools accountable, and we as a state can trust parents to hold private schools accountable.”

How should Tennessee strengthen the educator pipeline?

Tennessee districts are struggling to fill classroom positions with fully credentialed and trained teachers. While vacancies have dropped in recent years, the number of emergency credentialed educators has skyrocketed.

Green proposed creating a new fellowship to recruit young teachers into high-demand areas like special education while increasing support for veteran teachers.

“To keep our veteran teachers from burning out, we must immediately raise teacher pay and hire more support staff — like counselors and nurses — to ease their workload,” Green said. “By properly funding our classrooms, we can give educators the respect and resource-rich environments they deserve to stay in the profession long-term.”

Blackburn pledged to reconsider Tennessee’s current teacher licensure requirements to ensure the state doesn’t lose out on potential educators.

“While we need to hold our teaching professionals to the highest standard, we also need to make certain that our licensing processes aren’t causing us to miss out on individuals who would be great teachers,” Blackburn said.

Third grade reading retention law and state testing

Tennessee’s third grade reading law has sparked controversy over the high-stakes consequences tied to students’ performance on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP. The law, which requires significant interventions like summer school or even retention for students who underperform on the ELA assessment, has yielded results. Nearly 45% of Tennessee third graders met or exceeded expectations on the state’s reading assessment this year, the highest performance in nearly a decade.

Green, in response to a Chalkbeat question about whether the law is working as intended or needs reform, criticized the policy for forcing “educators to teach strictly to the test.”

“The pressure is so high that in Memphis, students — including my own son’s classmates — had to retake the exam multiple times on their last day of third grade just to meet rigid requirements,” Green said. “We need reform to eliminate single-test retention, trust our teachers’ professional judgment, and invest in early interventions like universal pre-K. True reading proficiency comes from properly funding our public schools.”

Blackburn praised the state’s “great educational progress” and said literacy interventions should be considered for students before third grade.

“The numbers prove it, programs like the third-grade retention reading law work,” Blackburn said. “Early reading and writing proficiency is essential to keep kids learning in schools and on the right track. By creating checkpoints so that no student falls through the cracks, we can make certain that all Tennessee students are receiving the world-class education they deserve. But certainly, ideally intervention would occur earlier than third grade to have the necessary fundamental literacy skills.”

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Will Tennessee’s effort to track undocumented students die in the legislature?

2026-03-27T21:58:01+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

After more than a year of back-and-forth on a controversial Republican proposal to track the immigration status of Tennessee students, two dueling versions of the bill have stalled in the General Assembly.

Lawmakers have just a few weeks to hash out their differences or the legislation will die with the end of session. But its Senate and House sponsors, both high-ranking Republicans, don’t want to yield on their separate versions.

Sen. Bo Watson, a Hixson Republican sponsoring Senate Bill 836, has for two weeks considered whether to adopt a watered-down House version that would require schools to report anonymized data on student immigration status, or stick with a more hardline Senate bill that would allow public schools to charge undocumented students tuition.

On Thursday, Watson deferred that decision by sending the measure back to a calendar committee, a procedural move that puts the legislation in a holding pattern.

When asked Thursday if he thinks either version will pass this session, Watson said “I wouldn’t say that.”

“This is a team sport, and I’m trying to figure out what the best path forward is for the Senate,” Watson said. “But again, the Senate passed a bill, so obviously the Senate likes its bill. The Senate should jealously guard the decisions we make, as should the House.”

Watson eked out a 19-13 vote on the Senate bill last year, with some Republicans crossing the aisle to oppose the measure with Democrats. He has also faced growing pushback from educators and leaders from his district.

“Children should not carry the weight of adult policy decisions when they walk through our doors,” said Dr. Jill Levine, principal of the Chattanooga High School Center for Creative Arts principal and vice president of the Hamilton County Principal’s Association. “Our job is to protect them, teach them, and support them, without conditions that could create fear or uncertainty in their daily school experience.

Watson and the House sponsor, Majority Leader William Lamberth, rolled out a press release in 2025 to announce the legislation, which originally would have allowed schools to block undocumented students from enrolling altogether.

They were explicit about their intent of the bill: challenging the longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent guaranteeing a right to free public education to all children in the country.

But after months of heated debate and hundreds of protestors rallying against the measure, they’ve softened that language.

“My intent is, as it has always been, to allow local governments to look at their financial situation and make a decision about tuition for students who are undocumented or not here legally,” Watson said Thursday. “That’s been the reason for the bill from the very, very beginning.”

The House sponsor, Majority Leader William Lamberth, amended HB 793 last year after a fiscal review found it might endanger more than $1 billion in federal education money. There were also questions if the House Republican caucus had the votes to pass a more extreme version of the bill after the Senate bill squeaked by.

It’s also not clear if the House version of the bill, which asks schools to collect immigration or citizenship documents but doesn’t have an enforcement mechanism, would rise to a Plyler constitutional challenge at this point.

“I want to take some time to talk to my members about whether they think it’s worth moving forward, if the juice is worth the squeeze on that bill,” Watson said earlier this month.

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee AG won’t intervene for Knox County school board in religious charter lawsuit

2026-02-27T12:00:01+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti will not intervene in an ongoing lawsuit over the state’s religious charter school ban, leaving the Knox County Board of Education to defend a state policy against claims of religious discrimination.

The Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville, represented by an attorney currently working for Skrmetti’s office in a different case, sued the school district late last year in federal court.

The case could bring a fresh challenge to the religious charter issue that deadlocked the U.S. Supreme Court in 2025.

Though Wilberforce is not suing the state of Tennessee, it is challenging the constitutionality of Tennessee’s longstanding charter school law. Under federal regulations, state attorneys general must be notified and given the option to intervene in lawsuits with constitutional challenges.

Skrmetti declined to intervene earlier this month, according to court filings. His office did not comment on the filing but pointed to a November legal opinion Skrmetti wrote that questioned the constitutionality of Tennessee’s own law.

Skrmetti argued there was “no compelling interest” in excluding religious charter schools from participating in a “public benefit.”

In its lawsuit, Wilberforce focuses in part on Tennessee’s new voucher program, essentially arguing that the public education funds now flowing to private religious schools support the case that religious charters should be included in public funding.

“This enshrined hostility to religious charter schools stands in marked contrast to Tennessee’s recent support of religious schools through its Education Freedom Scholarship Program,” a Wilberforce attorney argued in court documents last year.

Gov. Bill Lee, who pushed for the voucher program to allow private religious schools to receive public dollars, demurred on Thursday when asked if he believes state law should be changed to allow religious charters.

“The Attorney General has the role in determining what’s constitutional, what should be law in the state,” Lee said. “I’d defer to him on that.”

Nonprofit sued days after registering with the state

Days after Skrmetti’s November legal opinion was published, Wilberforce sued the Knox County Board of Education in federal court, alleging explicit religious discrimination over local and state rules banning religious charter schools.

On Nov. 25, just four days after it registered as a nonprofit with the state, Wilberforce submitted a letter of intent to the Knox County Board of Education to indicate interest in opening an “explicitly Christian school” in 2027.

The board would not accept the letter, according to court documents, because Wilberforce would not affirm the state requirement that it be a nonsectarian and non-religious school.

Knox County attorneys say Wilberforce never completed a charter application, and therefore they haven’t been denied anything.

Last week, a federal judge denied Wilberforce’s request for a ruling that would immediately block the Knox County board from enforcing the state ban on religious charters. A trial on the issue is scheduled for January 2027.

Despite Skrmetti’s hands-off approach to the lawsuit, an attorney working with the attorney general’s office is currently representing Wilberforce in its lawsuit against the Tennessee school district.

In 2023, Lee appointed Cameron Norris, a Virginia-based attorney with the conservative law firm Consovoy McCarthy, to help defend Tennessee in a lawsuit over the state law banning gender transition treatments for minors.

Skrmetti’s office has continued to hire Norris as outside counsel in two cases since, according to records reviewed by Chalkbeat Tennessee. Norris currently earns $400 per hour, paid by public funds, to help Tennessee defend its criminal abortion ban against ongoing legal challenges.

A group of Knox County parents have joined the Knox County board to oppose Wilberforce’s lawsuit.

“I believe that public education is part of the common good and that maintaining the integrity of public education ensures that public schools remain appropriate for and welcoming to students of all faiths and backgrounds,” said Amanda Collins, a retired school psychologist whose three children either attend or attended Knox County public schools. “These fundamental tenets are at odds with a religious school.”

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Immigration trigger bill would require Tennessee schools to track, report student status

2026-02-17T23:30:09+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

A controversial proposed law that would require public schools to track and report the immigration status of their students advanced in the Tennessee House on Tuesday despite pushback from educators and immigrant advocates.

House Bill 1711 is the second piece of legislation currently in the Tennessee General Assembly that could require educators to report the legal status of public school students in the state.

It is not yet clear how the bills could be implemented without running afoul of federal education policy and endangering the more than $1 billion in federal education funding Tennessee currently relies on to help fund its public schools.

A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case, Plyler v. Doe, established a longstanding legal precedent that it is unconstitutional to deny children access to a public education based on their immigration status.

Last year, Tennessee Senate Republicans passed Senate Bill 836, which was aimed at overturning the Plyler precedent, despite objections from Democrats and some Republicans who criticized the effort to draw children into a political debate over immigration issues.

The House companion bill stalled in committee over concerns it would jeopardize Tennessee’s federal education funding. The House sponsor, Majority Leader William Lamberth, requested further guidance from the U.S. Department of Education.

That guidance is forthcoming, Lamberth said earlier this year, and Republican leaders want to push forward with the bill this year.

The U.S. Department of Education has not returned a Chalkbeat Tennessee request for comment, though, nor has it taken a public position on the legislation over the past year as lawmakers have discussed the issue.

House Bill 1711 is written as a trigger law, which means Tennessee public schools would not be required to track and report the immigration status of students until the Plyler precedent has been overturned. Tennessee Republicans have passed similar trigger laws on other issues in the past, such as the state’s abortion ban that was inactive until the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Rep. Elaine Davis, a Republican from Knoxville, is sponsoring the legislation. Davis on Tuesday argued that local officials need to know the immigration status of people accessing public benefits, such as public education, social services, and public medical benefits for financial accountability.

“We are a nation of laws,” Davis said. “We have a social contract with each other. Part of that duty and responsibility is to make sure we’re not ripping each other off. If people are here taking advantage of services and dollars we have specifically set aside for our citizens and our communities, that to me is a violation of our laws.”

Tennessee public schools are largely funded through sales taxes, which are paid by all consumers in a community regardless of immigration status.

A Tennessee teacher testified against the bill on Tuesday, arguing the bill would “introduce fear and distrust in our schools.”

“Do you want schools to focus on positive student academic outcomes, or do you want schools to be an instrument of immigration enforcement?” said Betsy Hobkirk, who has been an elementary school teacher in Knox County for 15 years. “How would immigrant status data be collected in an educational system that is already overtaxed? It would divert resources away from our mission of educating children.”

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee teacher suspended over Charlie Kirk social media post is reinstated

2025-11-13T20:15:58+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

A Williamson County Schools teacher who was suspended over a private social media post in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination has been reinstated to her job, though a federal lawsuit over the district’s actions is still ongoing.

The reinstatement was revealed in a federal court filing after Emily Orbison, a Franklin High School teacher, sued the Tennessee school district last month over her suspension and a subsequent “no contact” ban from district schools property that blocked her from accessing her own daughter’s school and teacher.

Orbison was reinstated on Nov. 11 and promised back pay from Sept. 15, according to the reinstatement letter. The letter states Orbison’s “actions did not justify employee discipline.”

Orbison’s attorney, Kyle Mothershead, declined to comment on Thursday.

It’s unclear if Orbison, a science teacher, will return to the classroom as her federal lawsuit continues. Williamson County Schools’ attorneys filed her reinstatement letter on Thursday as evidence in a motion to dismiss, claiming that the internal investigation into whether she violated the district’s employee code of conduct was not an infringement on her constitutional rights to political speech.

“The decision to return Plaintiff to her job does not mean that the suspension pending investigation unlawfully infringed upon Plaintiff’s protected speech — it was necessary to balance the competing interests before returning Plaintiff to a potentially volatile environment,” Lisa Carson, the district’s attorney, said in the filing. “Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s death and Plaintiff’s comments, where community reaction was volatile and the risk of disruption was highest, the balance weighed in favor of the employer’s interest in protecting students and staff and avoiding disruption.”

Orbison posted her comments on Instagram Stories after Kirk’s death on Sept. 10, and in court filings she said her account was private with limited followers. Orbison shared a quote from Kirk where he suggested it was “worth it” and “rational” to have some gun deaths “so that we can have” Second Amendment rights.

In her initial lawsuit, Orbison said she felt moved to satirize Kirk’s political positions, which she disagreed with.

“Don’t worry, y’all. It’s worth it. It’s rational,” Orbison’s post said, according to a screenshot in her initial lawsuit. “It’s prudent that I have to go through regular drills of practicing how I will save the lives of students. Practice packing gunshot wounds. Reassure kids that when we get shot at, I will be there to protect them.”

But despite being posted on her private story, the post exploded into public view as many educators across the nation faced intense scrutiny in the wake of Kirk’s shooting death.

Orbison’s comments were featured in an article from The Federalist on Sept. 13 that was shared by a Williamson County board member and Sen. Marsha Blackburn. The Tennessee Republican led the charge against multiple Tennessee educators in the wake of Kirk’s death, and Blackburn shared the Federalist report on social media with the comment, “Fire her immediately.”

Orbison was suspended two days later.

Orbison sued in federal court in October, claiming retaliation and First Amendment rights violations over her firing and a blanket no-contact order that prevented her from speaking to her 5-year-old daughter’s teacher or attend school events for her kindergarten class. A judge quickly granted an injunction allowing her access to her daughter’s education.

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis schools will give out free food boxes next Monday and Saturday

2025-11-13T18:54:27+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools will offer free food boxes next week to families in need during the holiday season.

The district’s mobile food pantry will take place on Monday, Nov. 17 at Raleigh-Egypt High School and Saturday, Nov. 22 at Douglass High School, both starting at 9:30 a.m. Families will be required to show a driver’s license or addressed bill and fill out a form to confirm eligibility.

MSCS is partnering with Mid-South Food Bank to run the drive-thru service to prepare for the holidays. Tennesseans have struggled with food insecurity in recent weeks after the weeks-long government shutdown caused delays and cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP. Over 150,000 Shelby County residents rely on SNAP each month to purchase food, with children making up an estimated 40% of recipients.

Nationwide, schools scrambled to fill the food assistance gaps. Students and staff at Winchester Elementary School prepared their weekly pantry for an influx of families.

Denise Wilson, a fourth grade math teacher who runs the pantry, said families typically show up to the school once a month to receive food boxes. By the end of October, she started seeing some show up biweekly.

Tennessee government officials say partial SNAP benefits are expected to go out in the coming days. In the meantime, MSCS will provide food boxes next Monday and Saturday on a “first-come, first-served basis” until supplies run out.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

This Tennessee school is stepping up to feed local families cut off from SNAP

2025-11-05T23:15:27+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Every Wednesday, a group of fourth graders at Winchester Elementary put on black aprons and start packing up cardboard boxes with canned vegetables and mac and cheese.

The young volunteers spend their free periods prepping weekend meal boxes for around 30 Whitehaven families who line up outside the Memphis school building each Friday afternoon. It’s a routine that’s been in place since Winchester opened its food pantry in March.

Denise Wilson, a fourth grade math teacher who runs the pantry, said families typically show up once a month for help. She expects the number of families seeking food to increase in the coming weeks because of delayed and missing SNAP benefits, which are affecting one in 10 Tennesseans as the federal government shutdown drags on.

“Last month, we started seeing more families every two weeks,” Wilson said. “And I do expect we may end up seeing families every week.”

Each family at the Winchester food pantry gets frozen meat and refrigerated staples along with pantry items. They can also ask for hygiene products like toilet paper and diapers.

“A lot of our students and families live in hotels, which makes their situation a little different than most families because they don’t have freezers, refrigerators, or stoves,” Wilson said. “They’re cooking with microwaves. So we even do special boxes just for them.”

President Donald Trump said last week that he wouldn’t give out funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, until the weeks-long government shutdown ends. But a federal court ruled that the Trump administration must use emergency funds to pay at least partial benefits to SNAP recipients in November.

It’s unclear when those funds will be distributed, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said Tuesday it could be a “very complicated” process for the state to accept and distribute partial payments.

Under political pressure from Democrats to help alleviate the shutdown funding gaps, Lee announced this week that Tennessee would give $5 million to food banks after previously declining to dip into the state’s robust rainy day fund.

Lee said the money would be distributed proportionally in the state based on SNAP recipient locations. Over 150,000 Shelby County residents rely on the monthly food assistance, and around 40% of those affected are estimated to be children.

School nutrition programs like free and reduced price breakfasts and lunches have not yet been affected, Tennessee officials say. But that could change if the shutdown, already the longest in the nation’s history, continues beyond November.

The Winchester food pantry gives each family frozen meat, refrigerated staples, and pantry items.

The governor expressed frustration with the continuing shutdown on Tuesday, noting Tennesseans have paid federal taxes that fund programs like SNAP.

“This whole federal shutdown problem has created a tremendous hardship for a lot of Tennesseans,” Lee said. “It’s disappointing that it’s happened. It’s frustrating to people, including myself, and it needs to come to an end. The government needs to open up.”

Wilson said she’s started giving out bags of snacks and pantry items to any middle or high schoolers who stop by on Fridays, “no questions asked.”

“We know if one child is struggling in the house, all children are struggling in the house,” she said. “And we all understand in this building that you can’t teach a hungry child.”

The pantry hasn’t received any additional money or donations during the government shutdown, Wilson said. But the school received enough donations in the past few months to fully stock a classroom and two freezers as backup for the expected rush.

“We’re just hoping that the shutdown doesn’t last too much longer,” she said.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

How free out-of-school therapy for Memphis teens strengthens MSCS mental health services

2025-10-21T16:16:35+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Peyton Golden said she knew she needed mental health support last spring when she started struggling to control her feelings.

“Sometimes I gather too many emotions at once, and I just start lashing out,” said Golden, 15, a sophomore at Power Center Academy High School in Memphis. “It was making me lose opportunities. It was making me look like a bad person, and I’m not a bad person.”

Golden said she was nervous to ask about starting therapy because it can be expensive. Then earlier this year, her mom found out about Youth Connect, a program run by the Shelby County Youth and Family Resource Center and local nonprofit The Braid Foundation that offers teens 12 free sessions with a Memphis-based therapist.

Golden started seeing hers in May. She and her therapist practice daily affirmations to boost self-confidence, Golden said, and work on developing skills to cope with overwhelming situations at school.

“I’m so proud of how far I’ve come,” Golden said. “Now, I can express my feelings, and I can say, ‘Wait, can we come back to this conversation when I calm down?’”

Youth Connect has provided free therapy outside of school to 345 young people in the Memphis area since it launched in May 2024. That is far fewer than Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ own mental health services, which serve over 6,000 students in group or individual therapy each year. But those who work in schools and with young people say Youth Connect is filling an important need, especially since a 2024 state law restricted certain kinds of mental health help schools can provide.

Youth Connect’s teenage clients, many of whom are MSCS students, say the program also offers more autonomy and privacy than in-school services.

Donna Goings, director of MSCS’ mental health centers, said the school system and Youth Connect work closely together. They often refer clients to each other, she said, and can share information about mutual clients if given permission from the student or their guardian.

“I know there’s a belief out there that a child shouldn’t have more than one therapist,” Goings said. “But we communicate with [Youth Connect] to ensure that we’re both on the same page, and helping that child to really be the best person that they can be.”

A program designed with teen choice in mind

Youth Connect started as a response to rising mental health needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. But it’s become more about addressing persistent issues in accessing youth mental health care locally and statewide.

Tennessee ranks as one of the worst states in the country for youth mental health, with high rates of mental health conditions and low access to care. In 2021, for example, more than half of 12-to-17-year-olds struggling with depression in Tennessee did not receive help. Nearly a quarter of Shelby County high schoolers reported seriously considering suicide that year.

To sign up for Youth Connect, teens and their families fill out an online form, and then choose a provider from a list of over 20 vetted therapists using their personalized video introductions.

“I am not a person that trusts off the bat,” Golden said. “But I felt very secure going into this,” she added, because she chose a therapist that best matched her experience and needs.

Right now, Youth Connect clients complete around six free therapy sessions on average, program leaders said. But some, like Golden, use all 12 free appointments and then continue working with their therapist.

Cathy Emerson, co-founder of the Braid Foundation and one of three Youth Connect leaders, said they designed the program with teen autonomy in mind. Before launching, Emerson said her team talked to over 300 young people about how they wanted free mental health support to look.

The responses were clear, she said: Young people want to choose their own therapists. And they want mental health care outside of school.

“In so many spaces, youth don’t have that autonomy of choice in their therapist,” Emerson said. “It’s either whoever’s assigned to their school, whoever their insurance covers, or whoever their parent or legal guardian is picking.”

With only a little over a year of service under their belt, Youth Connect leaders are already facing a funding deadline. The program is entirely reliant on federal pandemic aid, which is set to expire by the end of 2026. Emerson said they’re already looking for outside grants to replace that money.

The program takes about $350,000 to run per year, but Emerson says she’s seeking some $650,000 to expand their services, including to 18- to 24-year-olds.

“We absolutely hope our local leaders continue to invest in youth and community wellness,” she said. “At the same time, we know sustainability means diversifying funding.”

Youth Connect fills gaps in Memphis mental health care

In 2020, a group of nearly 80 Memphis-area nonprofits and practitioners started pushing the local government to fund targeted mental health support for young people. The Shelby County Commission responded in June 2021 by setting aside a little over $1 million in federal pandemic relief money for what would become Youth Connect.

Unlike some other free services, Youth Connect is also universal for teens ages 13-18, said Braid Foundation co-founder Shaneika Smith. That means families don’t need to prove their income level or insurance status to access it.

Smith said program leaders also insist on paying local therapists a sustainable wage, at close to $140 per session.

From left to right, Youth Connect program leaders Shaneika Smith, Cathy Emerson and Kache Brooks at the Youth Connect Launch Party May 31, 2024 at the Shelby County Youth & Family Resource Center. It has now been renamed to be A. C. Wharton Youth & Family Resource Center

Brandi Rhoden, one of the Youth Connect therapists, said families used to turn down her help because they couldn’t afford therapy while reliant on Medicaid or without health insurance. Now, she can help them sign up for Youth Connect.

As an out-of-school option, Youth Connect is smaller but more flexible in some ways than in-school MSCS services. The program is also able to provide therapy to clients 16 and older, who can sign up without parent consent.

While Youth Connect leaders say very few teens sign up without parent permission, the option differs from school requirements for explicit parent consent on student mental health services. The 2024 Tennessee Families’ Rights and Responsibilities Act expanded that active permission requirement to school-wide assemblies on suicide prevention and bullying, following a nationwide push for more parent oversight in public education.

But the district currently has over 80 therapists and social workers on staff that can diagnose and treat students with mental health conditions on an individual or group therapy basis, she said, which not all school systems are equipped to do.

Most MSCS clinicians work in two schools, Goings said, and they can sometimes have waitlists for therapy services. That comes with the challenges of working in a time-constrained school environment, she added.

“We can’t take them out of a certain class, so we have to work around their academic schedule,” Goings said. “And we definitely try to include the parents in everything, because we are a school setting. We do not want to alienate parents.”

Emerson said Youth Connect leaders are still working to expand their own client numbers. This school year, she said, they started working with six local student volunteers to spread the word.

Dulce Ordonez is a 17-year-old student at Middle College High School. She said addressing stigma around mental health care, especially in Latino communities, is one of her main goals as a Youth Connect Ambassador.

“A lot of Latino people would often say that mental health is not important, or ‘you’re just crazy,’ or mental health is not real,” Ordonez said. “But some parents don’t really realize the importance of mental health within their families, their relationships, or their children.”

Clients like Golden offer valuable testimonies, too.

“People my age have our guard up with trust and everything, but it’s okay to let that wall down,” Golden said. “There’s a lot of suicide going on our generation. With the world that we live in, we need more trusted adults around us.”

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s where Shelby County families can find free meals and snacks this summer

2025-06-16T21:43:26+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

For the first time in five years, many Shelby County families are missing out on supplemental grocery cash this summer after Tennessee stopped participating in a federal program that served the entire state.

In Shelby County, a network of organizations with the Memphis-Shelby County Schools s ummer feeding program are serving meals and offering food pick-ups for students who are without school meals during the summer break. But the dates those sites are up and running, their opening times, and the meals offered vary widely.

Chalkbeat Tennessee built this map to help you find convenient food pickup locations this summer. Be sure to click the blue dot on the map to confirm a location’s opening and closing times.

Tennessee launches its summer food benefits this week. Most students in the state will miss out.

2025-06-10T20:28:48+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

For the first time in five years, the majority of low-income students across Tennessee will not receive supplemental grocery funds this summer to help bridge the months when they aren’t receiving school meals.

Tennessee this week will send one-time $120 payments to an estimated 25,000 low-income students in 15 counties to help pay for summer grocery costs. Tennessee’s largest counties, include Shelby and Davidson, are excluded from the program.

The program is a significant rollback of Tennessee’s previous summer food benefits initiative, which served an estimated 700,000 students across the state each summer since 2020 with the help of a state-federal partnership.

That program, known as summer EBT or SUN Bucks, ended this year when Gov. Bill Lee declined to continue the partnership, effectively rejecting an estimated $75 million in federal funds that provided the summer grocery benefits.

Signe Anderson, senior director of nutrition advocacy at the Tennessee Justice Center, called the decision to discontinue the federal EBT program “devastating” for food insecure families.

“Tennessee’s decision to serve fewer than 25,000 children in just 15 counties leaves vulnerable families with fewer options at a time when hunger is on the rise for Tennessee families,” Anderson said. “We have already started hearing from families who will not have the support this summer.”

Though many Tennessee school systems have other summer feeding programs to reach students when class is out of session, advocates in the state argue the programs can be restrictive or inaccessible for families with scheduling conflicts or transportation issues.

In Memphis, for example, around 100 different sites are serving meals and snacks at some point in the summer. However, the sites offer a patchwork of availability, with hours varying by location and some offering only a few days of meals.

Other providers are more flexible, like the dozens of YMCA locations across the state offering meal packs for pick up with a week’s worth of breakfast and lunch food. Still, advocates raise concerns about rural families who may live miles from a meal location.

The decision to end the federal EBT program sparked heated pushback from a Tennessee congressman and child advocates earlier this year who argued the federal dollars were an important tool to address food insecurity, a particularly concerning issue during summer months when some students lose access to the regular meals provided during a school day.

Amid questions from lawmakers about giving up the federal funds, Lee’s office announced a new, state-funded program to provide payments to a limited number of counties, which the administration said were selected due to the lack of summer feeding partners like the YMCA.

Tennessee Department of Human Services Commissioner Clarence Carter has referred to the scaled-back state program as a “fiscally responsible” approach. Lee’s administration cited the state’s share of administrative costs as one reason to discontinue the state-federal partnership first launched under the Biden administration in 2020.

However, it’s now costing Tennessee $3 million to distribute benefits in 15 counties, while under the federal program Tennessee was responsible for around $5 million in administrative costs to serve 95 counties.

“This is cruel to Tennessee families and fiscally irresponsible when the state could have served 700,000 children for less money if they had run the federal S-EBT option,” Anderson said.

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Governor says Tennessee has money for both Hurricane Helene recovery and universal school vouchers

2024-10-11T19:24:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Gov. Bill Lee said Hurricane Helene’s massive destruction in northeast Tennessee, plus a growing backlog of public infrastructure needs statewide, won’t prevent his administration from pursuing a universal private school voucher program during his final two years in office.

He also suggested that there’s no need to tap into the $144 million set aside for his Education Freedom Scholarship Act to beef up the state’s disaster response. That money currently is not being used, because his proposal stalled in the legislature this year.

“We don’t have to choose one or the other,” Lee said Thursday during a media briefing about the state’s emergency response and recovery work.

Ongoing and potential new initiatives like statewide vouchers remain possible, he said, because of strong fiscal management by the state in the last 20 years.

“We have resources. We have an economy. We have the ability to invest in … infrastructure and education both,” Lee added.

The governor sought to quell suggestions from some lawmakers that state leaders rethink Tennessee’s budget priorities, not only to help northeast Tennessee recover from potentially $1 billion-plus in damage to its public infrastructure, but also to address a growing backlog of at least $68 billion needed statewide to improve roads, bridges, water systems, schools, firehouses, and more, according to the state’s latest assessment.

One of his administration’s top priorities is to give public funding to any family across Tennessee who wants to send their children to private school. This summer, Lee said his office was crafting a new bill after his 2024 proposal stumbled in legislative committees this spring due to disagreements among Republicans.

Last week, Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican and voucher supporter who chairs a House education committee, said the state’s new first priority should be “taking care of our neighbors in East Tennessee” and helping them recover from the deadly storm.

“Can we do universal vouchers, too? I don’t know,” White continued. “But East Tennessee has got to be our top focus.”

On Thursday, Lee said his administration is already prioritizing recovery and rebuilding for the region.

He announced a $100 million fund to help 13 hurricane-ravaged counties remove debris and repair water and wastewater systems immediately. Those counties eventually can seek reimbursements from the federal government to repay the fund, but need no-interest loans up front, Lee said.

On Friday, the chairperson of the House Democratic caucus issued a scathing critique of the governor’s plan to loan counties money, instead of providing state funding outright to supplement federal assistance. He also criticized Lee for tapping shared state-federal Medicaid funding to provide the loans.

“Gov. Lee has established a solid reputation for fiscal mismanagement and callous decision-making during his term, but this loan program beats anything I’ve ever seen,” said Rep. John Ray Clemmons, of Nashville.

Clemmons said the state should be pulling from its reserves, or the unused $144 million voucher allocation, to provide disaster assistance.

Schools have been closed since the storm flooded the rural, mountainous region in late September, washing out roads and bridges, damaging drinking water and wastewater systems, and battering school campuses.

In addition to overseeing repairs, school officials have been revamping bus routes for the return of students, many of whom already had fall breaks planned for October. Daily bus commutes likely will lengthen to more than an hour for many children. At a Carter County high school that’s expected to be declared a total loss, students will be relocated to a former school building that houses district offices.

Meanwhile, officials with the state education department said they are working with local school leaders to provide flexibility and assistance to school systems affected by Helene.

That may involve granting waivers so schools can provide more instruction remotely than normally allowed, or to reduce the required number of instructional days. The state also will work with districts as needed regarding fall high school and ACT testing, a spokesperson said.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a response from House Democrats.

Tennessee’s at-risk youth could see a new education option under charter school bill

2024-04-10T14:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

A proposal to create new education options for at-risk youth in Tennessee is drawing interest from charter school networks, both inside and outside the state.

Labeled “opportunity” charter schools, the campuses would serve middle and high schoolers dealing with a range of challenges, such as substance abuse and juvenile crime, chronic absenteeism, teen pregnancy, getting held back in several grades, or being at risk of dropping out.

“We’re very interested in the proposal, because it’s directed at a lot of students we already serve,” said Jocquell Rodgers, executive director of Green Dot Public Schools in Memphis, which views the network’s Hillcrest High School campus as a good candidate to become an opportunity charter school. Green Dot’s charter contract to run Hillcrest ends in 2026 under the state’s Achievement School District, or ASD, which appears to be on its way out.

Rodgers likes that the Republican-sponsored bill calls for the state education department to develop different expectations for opportunity charter schools. Those measures likely would focus on college and career readiness instead of academic proficiency.

“It’s very hard to get some of our students to proficiency, which was the promise of the ASD. But we can give them job training and workforce development and make sure they’re on track to graduate, get a job, or go to college or a trade school,” Rodgers said.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools views alternative education programs — for students who are struggling to attend and succeed in traditional public schools — as a growth area for the sector, especially if accountability expectations are adjusted. Nationally, charter schools already serve 42% of students who are enrolled in alternative education campuses.

Under the legislation by House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Sen. Ferrell Haile of Gallatin, enrolling in an opportunity charter school would be a matter of choice. At least 75% of the school’s students would have to be classified as at risk, and the school also could include a residential setting.

That would be significantly different from most of Tennessee’s current alternative education schools, which were created as mandatory short-term learning programs for students who were suspended or expelled from their traditional public school.

“It has worked in some other states,” Sexton told reporters recently about his charter school proposal. “We think it gives us another public option that could help kids in bad situations.”

Not everyone is on board with the idea.

Even some Republicans are wary of the prospect of opening the door to residential charter schools — a new type of publicly funded but independently run school of choice — or the potential of commingling at-risk student populations on one campus.

And leaders of traditional public schools say they’d prefer to meet the needs of at-risk students in existing local settings. They just need additional money to hire more teachers, counselors, behavior specialists, and social workers, they say, not new programs that divert funding from their school systems.

“We’ve said time and again that districts want to provide our students with more behavioral and mental health supports,” said Gary Lilly, executive director of the state superintendents organization.

Despite those tensions, the opportunity charter school legislation has advanced quickly since sponsors introduced it last month.

Last week, it passed the full Senate 19-7 along mostly partisan lines. It’s scheduled to be taken up Wednesday by the House’s finance subcommittee.

Sexton’s bill is narrower in scope than his 2023 charter proposal

A longtime charter school advocate, Sexton introduced a much broader charter bill last year that riled up the home school community and quickly stalled. That legislation proposed charter schools to serve home school students, in addition to a charter boarding school component.

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican from Crossville, answers reporters questions on April 4, 2024, at the state Capitol.

It also would have allowed operators to apply directly to the state-appointed charter commission without going through local school boards, prompting pushback from leaders of traditional public schools.

This year, Sexton’s proposal removed any reference to home schools. And operators would have to apply directly to the local district for authorization. As under current law, they could appeal to the state charter commission if their application is rejected locally.

“We’re hopeful,” Sexton said last week when asked about the prospects for this year’s bill. “We tried to pass it last year. We had some opposition. We worked through some issues, and I think now we’re in a pretty good place on the House side.”

Proposal goes beyond temporary placement

Tennessee already has hundreds of alternative education schools and programs, mostly through local public school systems.

State law requires at least one alternative school or program for grades 7-12 in each district to serve students who are suspended or expelled, until they can return to a regular school setting. School systems have the option of creating alternative programs for students in grades 1-6. And some districts also have choice-based schools or programs to provide an alternative path for students who, for whatever reason, don’t fit well into a traditional school environment.

Sexton’s opportunity school legislation takes cues from charter school laws in dozens of other states, including California, Florida, New York, and Texas.

“It’s not a temporary placement like under Tennessee law, where students are mandated to attend for a period of time. It’s a choice, where the school becomes a student’s new home school to try to go and learn,” said Greg Lippman, a former California charter leader who recently founded the New York-based Groundswell Network to support local work on alternative education models across the nation.

Last fall, Lippman was in Memphis to talk with educators and nonprofit and community groups during a gathering organized by Bobby White, founder and CEO of the Frayser Community Schools charter network.

And next month, Groundswell will convene a national conversation at Nashville’s Belmont University to discuss school models to serve youths who are overaged and undereducated, involved in the juvenile justice system, foster kids, or facing other educational barriers.

Lippman said that his group is not the source of Sexton’s legislation but that he supports it, as does the Tennessee Charter School Center.

“Many states have a more expansive definition of alternative schools than under Tennessee’s current model,” he said. “It’s not surprising that the speaker’s office would find interested partners with expertise in this area.”

Funding would come through TISA

Under the bill, opportunity charter schools would receive funding through Tennessee’s new K-12 education formula known as the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA. The formula allocates more funding for students with higher needs, and the money follows the student to the school where they’re enrolled.

That’s a concern for the bill’s detractors, who say that dividing a finite amount of funding and resources for the same population of students won’t lead to better outcomes.

“Diverting funds to charter schools only rips funding from educational institutions that are constantly exploring ways to meet the needs of all students,” said Mary Jo Holmes, board president for the Tennessee Alternative Education Association.

“What will a charter school do that is better serving than current practices?” she asked, noting that Tennessee’s alternative education approach is based on collaboration among parents, educators, and disciplinarians.

“It is a team decision, not a menu item,” Holmes said.

Connor Grady, a spokesman for Sexton, said that, in addition to TISA funding, opportunity charter operators could partner with philanthropists or apply for federal grants, just as traditional schools and districts can.

Asked for examples of potential opportunity charter operators, Grady listed Goodwill’s Excel Center and groups in Colorado and Massachusetts.

Haile, the bill’s sponsor in the Senate, has said he doesn’t expect many opportunity charter operators to create residential schools due to the cost of such an endeavor. But it’s an option under the bill.

For Rodgers, the Green Dot charter operator in Memphis, the goal is to continue to do “transformation work” in a city with a large number of at-risk youth.

“Memphis-Shelby County Schools doesn’t have enough alternative schools to serve its own population, so maybe this could be a win-win,” Rodgers said. “It’s an opportunity for us to work together to address a big challenge in our community.”

You can track the bill’s status on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Too many Memphis students in juvenile detention aren’t attending school, advocates warn

2024-04-05T10:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Memphis-Shelby County Schools and statewide education policy.

Shelby County officials are coming under fresh pressure to deal with education deficiencies in the juvenile-justice system, where advocates say not enough young people who are detained are regularly attending school or learning what they need to graduate.

A group of those advocates sent a letter this week to Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner warning about the low rates of school attendance and demanding improved conditions for youth in detention beyond just their education.

The county’s Juvenile Court has known about the issues at the county’s Youth Justice and Education Center, and at the school inside, called Hope Academy. A consultant it worked with to identify issues facing youth in the facilities reported that just half of them were attending school each day, and that course offerings weren’t comprehensive enough to give students the classes they need to graduate, according to Stephanie Hill, the court’s chief administrative officer.

The findings were also shared with the Countywide Juvenile Justice Consortium last fall.

But the problems raised by the consultants, from BreakFree Education, can’t easily be solved without collaboration between the sheriff’s office, which oversees the detention center, and Memphis-Shelby County Schools, which operates the school.

Youth crime has been at the center of public discussion in Memphis and across Tennessee. Arrests of young people are down over the past decade, but more of them involve gun-related crimes that draw added law enforcement attention.

Meanwhile, detention facilities in Tennessee have faced intense scrutiny for failing to provide appropriate care to young people. In detention centers like Shelby County’s, where detainees have not yet been tried, missed school days put students who are already facing challenges outside of class at a greater disadvantage for long-term success.

Cardell Orrin, who leads Stand for Children Tennessee, one of the organizations that signed the letter, said part of the issue with improving youth attendance at school is knowing which agency to approach.

“Whose responsibility is it, and then how are they held accountable?” Orrin told Chalkbeat.

In a reply to the organizations, Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon said that staffing issues at the facility have contributed to low school attendance rates of 50% to 60%, much lower than the court’s goal of 90%.

Bonner wrote in his own response that the 110 youth currently there were “far more than we had ever expected or planned for.” Instead, he said, 40 to 60 youth were expected to be in the facility.

Sugarmon called that “erroneous,” pointing out that the facility was newly built to accommodate some 140 youth. “It appears there are no physical facilities limits to school attendance,” he wrote.

The young people detained at the center are awaiting trial, and the number of students can vary day-to-day as trials progress.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools told Chalkbeat that it plans to keep working with the court and sheriff’s office to address concerns about Hope Academy. Marie Feagins, who took over as MSCS superintendent on Monday, toured the school last week, and said in a video interview that leaders should consider strengthening rehabilitative programs and expanding opportunities within the facility.

“When I think about education and the power thereof, it’s important to make sure that education, a quality education and experience, to the degree possible, is happening in all of our spaces and places,” she said, pledging to return often to speak with Hope Academy students.

Marie Feagins, center, toured the Youth Justice and Education Center in Memphis, the week before she took over as superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Beyond the education issues, the advocacy groups said they wanted the sheriff to address complaints that youth aren’t allowed outdoors, and parents are being denied in-person visits with their children in detention.

They also said efforts to collect research that would improve programming for youth have been stymied by the sheriff’s office.

Shirley Bondon, the executive director of the Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis, is hoping to conduct research with the youth at the facility to help improve their access to effective diversion programs, as an alternative to detention, and also get a better understanding of what youth need.

“Part of that research requires me to talk to youth in detention and have them complete a survey and get their perspective about why crime occurs, and what resources they need to keep them out of trouble,” Bondon told Chalkbeat.

“We need to scale those programs, and those programs need more funding,” she added. “We also found that the programs often aren’t evidence-based and don’t collect the correct data.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Most Memphis students set to return to school after storm forces five-day closure

2024-01-23T04:29:06+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Memphis-Shelby County Schools and statewide education policy.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools said most of its schools would reopen Tuesday after a week of weather-related closures. But the wait isn’t over yet for students at one school, Hamilton K-8, which still has building issues.

A storm that blasted the region over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day long weekend heaped 3 to 5 inches of snow across Memphis and knocked temperatures close to zero degrees, snarling city streets and cracking water pipelines. The resulting low water pressure prompted a citywide boil-water advisory and impeded a return to school for students, especially at schools that rely on boilers for heat. Some child care centers also closed, forcing parents to miss out on work and wages.

As the school closures stretched into a second week Monday, parents had to adapt.

By Day 5, Raven Brown was ready to be out of the house.

For the sake of getting some learning done, she and her third grader, Genesis Pegues, set out for the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library to work on a cereal box school project for Black History Month.

At the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, third grader Genesis Pegues worked with her mom, Raven Brown, on a Black History Month project for school. They and several other families spent part of the day in the children's section of the library.

“I could have printed, and copied, and did all of this stuff at home, but we’ve been there so long that it felt good to just come out and see different people,” Brown said, wrapping red construction paper around a box of Frosted Flakes.

Memphis water pressure returned to normal levels on Monday, but ensuring that water quality is good enough to lift the boil-water advisory could take another day, according to city utility Memphis Light, Gas and Water. The district said late Monday that the water at Hamilton K-8 “is not at an operable level.”

When MSCS students return to schools Tuesday, they will have meals that don’t require water, the district said. Hand washing is safe under the advisory, MSCS said, pointing to health department guidance.

Memphis district officials repeated appeals for resources to upgrade old buildings. The district has been working for months on a plan to close and invest in buildings so students have better learning environments, but the proposed updates will need much more financial support than the district has recently received.

As of now, the Memphis district has no plans to extend the school year to offset the missed days, MSCS told Chalkbeat.

Brown said she agreed with the extended closures, in part because of the hazardous road conditions. But she wished there had been some kind of online option available for students who could access it. At home, she had Genesis do some kind of learning each day, reading books and doing practice school work on the i-Ready computer program.

A pandemic-era law governing remote learning restricts Tennessee districts to two days of online classes per semester each school year, with requirements for attendance, student meals, and special education services.

For Rickesha Williams, who balances her own classes at the University of Memphis with work while her children are at school and day care, the past week has brought added challenges. She works as a rideshare driver, and wasn’t able to drive because of the road conditions last week.

Closing school, she said, “was the right thing to do” to minimize car crashes.

By Monday, she was driving again, but took a break at the library so she could log into a class she’s taking toward a degree in criminal justice. The university was closed last week and switched to remote learning this week.

The weather interrupted emergency-services training for Rashard Jones, who drove to the library with his 6- and 4-year-old boys from Bartlett, a Memphis suburb that remained out of school Monday.

The 6-year-old has been reading to his brother, whose day care has been closed, too.

“I try to make education entertainment, not make it a chore — find the joy in learning,” said Jones, adding that he’s valued the slower pace for family time during the last week.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with information about Hamilton K-8 School.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Student homelessness in Memphis-Shelby County Schools more than doubles

2022-11-15T22:22:12+00:00

Homelessness among Memphis-Shelby County Schools students has hit its highest level in at least four years, more than doubling from the same time last year.

New district data shows 1,504 students were identified as homeless as of Oct. 7, the end of the first quarter of the school year. That’s a nearly 180% increase from last fall, when the number of homeless students stood at 538.

And the problem is only getting worse, said Shawn Page, the district’s chief of academic operations and school support. So far this school year, Page said MSCS has identified and provided services to over 1,600 homeless students and their families — already topping the total number of homeless families the district supported all last school year.

“That is significant, and just shows the extreme need in our communities for homelessness services,” Page told the school board during Monday committee meetings.

Page estimates there are thousands more MSCS students experiencing housing insecurity whom the district has not been able to identify or support. The district largely relies on school counselors, social workers, and teachers to gather data on homeless students and support those families through individual schools, but sometimes, families can slip through the cracks.

The likely undercount is part of a nationwide pattern: A recent Center for Public Integrity analysis suggests 300,000 students entitled to essential rights reserved for homeless students were not identified by their school districts, which are required to help them. Some 2,400 districts did not report having even one homeless student, despite levels of economic hardship that make those figures improbable, according to the analysis, and many more are likely undercounting the number of homeless students they do identify.

In nearly half of states, tallies of student homelessness “bear no relationship with poverty, a sign of how inconsistent the identification of kids with unstable housing can be,” the report said.

MSCS officials said the uptick in homelessness is likely the result of a lack of affordable housing, a longstanding problem in Memphis made worse by rising inflation. Rents in Memphis, for example, have risen by nearly 30% since before the pandemic, according to the November 2022 Apartment List National Rent Report.

Last year’s 36% jump to 538 homeless students appeared to be a near return to pre-pandemic levels, after virtual learning limited the district’s ability to get an accurate count of students without stable housing. The district’s latest report suggests that administrators are still struggling with the count.

The district is working to help students and families experiencing housing insecurity, Page said, from providing transportation, school supplies, and uniforms, to offering tutoring in homeless shelters and hotels and ensuring immigrant families without housing get translation services. MSCS also refers families to other community organizations that provide temporary housing to families at risk of homelessness.

But many challenges remain as homelessness continues to skyrocket, Page said, including tracking families who have fluid housing situations and having enough resources to provide them with clothing and household supplies. Page said many of the community agencies the district works with are also overwhelmed.

Page called on the community to address the issue collectively, drawing a link between homelessness and the district’s rising chronic absenteeism.

District data released in May showed nearly 30% of MSCS students were considered chronically absent from school last year, meaning they missed 10% of school days or more. In September, district officials clashed with Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland over his comments linking rising truancy to juvenile crime and criticizing MSCS for terminating its relationship with the district attorney’s office to enforce truancy laws.

“Every time a family has to change residence, they miss school, and that’s no fault of the family. That’s no fault of the child,” Page said. “We cannot criminalize poverty, and we cannot criminalize our families, because there’s a difference between missing school and legitimate reasons for not sending your child to school. Housing instability is a community problem that’s causing our children not to come to school.”

During Monday’s committee meetings, several MSCS board members said the new data aligns with what they’re hearing from families.

Board member Stephanie Love said that earlier in the day, a woman from her district called to tell her she’d become homeless after her landlord sold the house she’d been renting.

Board member Amber Huett-Garcia called the data a “gut punch,” and asked the community to cooperate with the district to battle homelessness.

“We don’t need to be overly political here to say that housing is a human right,” Huett-Garcia said. “Anything we can do, let’s get committed. If you’re listening and you think you can help, come step up.”

Samantha West is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Connect with Samantha at swest@chalkbeat.org.

Lawmakers scrap Tennessee governor’s $200M plan to relocate 14 flood-prone schools

2022-04-20T23:25:49+00:00

Two key legislative committees voted Wednesday to strip away $200 million proposed by Gov. Bill Lee to relocate 14 Tennessee schools built in floodplains, including three in Shelby County.

The amended spending bill, which will soon head to the full House and Senate, appears to shift that money instead into the state’s rainy day fund, which would grow to a record $1.8 billion.

The Republican governor trumpeted his school relocation plan during his January state address, but in voting it down, GOP leaders in both the House and Senate pointed to confusion over the list of schools identified as being at high risk of flooding.

“At the end of the day, the two chambers negotiating with each other decided that we would not get into that kind of policy of building schools locally,” said Sen. Bo Watson, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

The change to the state’s 2022-23 budget plan comes as hundreds of students in Humphreys County attend school in a repurposed warehouse after surging floodwaters destroyed their elementary and middle schools last August in Waverly, a rural town west of Nashville. The disaster, which killed 20 people and destroyed hundreds of homes, was the impetus for the governor’s proposal “to ensure that no student in Tennessee attends a public school located in a flood zone.”

Lee’s press secretary, Casey Black, said the governor was “aware and monitoring” legislative changes to his spending plan but she declined to comment further.

Flood control advocates expressed shock.

“We can only imagine how many more lives would have been lost in Waverly if the flooding had happened during school hours instead of on the weekend,” said Dwain Land, the former mayor of Dunlap, who spoke with Chalkbeat on behalf of Flood Ready Tennessee, a coalition of local officials, homeowners, and first responders.

“This investment is important because we know this kind of thing will happen again and again, and it’s not worth losing more lives,” Land said. “We can’t predict where a tornado is going to hit, but we can predict where it’s going to flood.”

Some legislators and local officials were confused by the list of 14 schools the governor identified.

For one thing, the two Humphreys County schools wrecked in August weren’t on the list, frustrating officials trying to rebuild after the flooding, said Rep. Jay Reedy, a Republican whose district includes the Waverly area. (The amended budget provides up to $20 million to help Humphreys County Schools if insurance and federal disaster relief funds don’t cover the full cost.)

Multiple different lists of flood-prone schools have also floated around, including one that showed 25 Tennessee schools at risk of flooding.

In Memphis, where Wooddale Middle School was slated for relocation under the governor’s plan, administrators said they did not realize the state-run school was in a flood plain and have yet to be contacted by the governor’s office.

“This has all been news to us,” said Jocquell Rodgers, chief external affairs officer for Green Dot Public Schools, a charter network that operates Wooddale on a campus owned by Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

“We also didn’t understand how Wooddale Middle is in the flood zone but Wooddale High is not, because they’re essentially on the same block,” Rodgers said.

Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, who chairs the House Finance Committee, called the list of schools a “moving target” and said “there were just a lot of questions about that.”

GOP leaders didn’t specify where the $200 million removed for school relocation would go, but the budget amendment showed a $200 million addition to the rainy day fund, an emergency account the state can use to keep the government operating in case of a revenue shortfall.

“There were a few things we moved around in order to provide funding for non-recurring (expenses.)” Watson told the Senate panel.

That decision left other lawmakers questioning the state’s priorities.

“If your school’s in a flood plain, you’d probably prefer spending money to move before the next big rain rather than pumping money into the rainy day fund,” Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro, a Nashville Democrat, said after the committee votes.

Marta W. Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

As gun violence strikes, this Memphis teacher makes space to grieve

2022-03-30T13:41:40+00:00

On one of the toughest days of his teaching career, there was tenacity, transparency, and tears.

“Today has been heavy,” admitted Adrian Hampton.

Hampton, 41, has spent half of his life as a math teacher at Booker T. Washington Middle and High School, known as BTW. During his time at the Memphis school, he’s lost multiple students to gun violence, including 15-year-old Damien Smith, Jr., who was shot the day before Hampton’s interview with Chalkbeat.

The police charged 38-year-old Marcus Orr with the fatal shooting, and videographer Twan Freeman filmed Smith’s vigil a few days later. Since the beginning of the school year, at least 23 children have died by homicide in Memphis, according to police data.

Scheduled days before the shooting, the interview was initially set as a time to chat about Hampton’s legendary teaching career, which was shaped by two former teachers, Snowden School science teacher Clarence Estes and Central High School math teacher Rick Yates. In 2021, Hampton was a finalist for the district’s teacher of the year award, a nod to both his talent and his longstanding commitment to working in a school where children need extraordinary support. About 90 percent of BTW students are economically disadvantaged, according to the state.

Hampton has served the BTW community for 20 years — or 22 years if you count his two years there as a student teacher. He has now taught math to two generations of families at the school. Just over a decade ago, he and the senior Class of 2011 got a backstage meeting with then-President Barack Obama who served as the school’s commencement speaker.

“The first Black president, and he’s at BTW,” said Hampton.

“The kids cried. The toughest guys were in the back crying when he walked behind the curtain. It was amazing,” he added.

But mixed into a career of incredible highlights are the devastating lows of losing a student, which Hampton discussed, as he reflected on how he teaches while facing sorrowful young faces and an eerily empty desk.

How are you doing today?

Today’s been different. I’ve taught here for so long that I’ve lost a lot of kids, so you don’t ever want that to become normal. Yeah, today’s been heavy.

You could have taken the day off, and you didn’t. You came back to school today. Why?

We got a job to do. We tell kids not to make excuses. And not saying that this would be an excuse, because you got to take care of you first, because if you’re not taking care of you first, then, of course, you can’t take care of everybody else, but you lead by example. You show the kids that it’s OK to corporately come together and grieve.

How do you approach such a heavy time with your students?

It was solemn in the class. I was able to still get in some instruction but not hover over them. We had grief counselors in the building today, so I just kind of let them be to themselves. If somebody had their head down, I didn’t bother them today.

We don’t hear enough Black men discussing and expressing grief, and I just want to acknowledge that and applaud you for that. How do you take care of yourself at this moment?

I think you just helped me in making me talk about it just then. I really hadn’t talked about it for real until you just asked me that question, so that just allowed me to get out some emotions that I didn’t even know that I needed to get out.

So many teachers move around. Why have you stayed at Booker T. Washington?

The relationships — not only with the kids, but some of the other teachers have served just as long as me. The Algebra I teacher has been here 21 years. The guidance counselor, she’s been here 21 years. If you can deal with the neighborhood and working in this environment, our teachers really don’t leave. So you build relationships with your coworkers, and you build relationships with families.

Some of my former students are my parents now. So, I wouldn’t leave at this point. It’s ingrained, and kids know kind of what to expect because I’ve taught so many of their family members that, honestly, it makes it easier every year. I don’t have to adjust. The kids know my reputation.

You have a reputation for being relatable. How do you create such a strong connection with your students?

I let them know that I care from day one. If they play sports, I’m going to their sporting events. If they’re in the choir or in the band, I support them in things that they do. I let them know that I care about them as a person and that they’re not just a student in my class. I bring my kids up here, and they know my kids. My wife used to work here.

What has it been like connecting with and teaching students during a pandemic?

The biggest thing is that the attention span isn’t as high as I saw with those kids two years ago. You have to constantly be doing something to keep their attention and making sure that everything isn’t the same for that full 75 minutes that they’re in class with you. You have to have things in place that are going to allow kids to move around a little bit as much as we can. We don’t want anybody getting COVID or anything, but keeping them moving a little bit. Giving them brain breaks at certain points. Those are things that were talked about before the pandemic, but they’re absolutely necessary now.

As far as socialization, some of our kids never really stopped being around each other to a certain extent, but they weren’t around grown people. Discipline has been something that we’ve had to refocus on. That’s something that we’ve had to hone in on to make sure that they understand how they’re supposed to act when they’re in the building. We teach code-switching, making sure that you know how to act when you’re around your friends, but also knowing how to act when you’re around grown people.

Do you guys actually call it code-switching?

Yeah, we call it code-switching for sure.

As we emerge from the pandemic, what gives you hope at this moment?

What gives me hope is that kids see when you’re genuine. My dad’s a preacher, and he says all the time, all you can do is plant and water. You may not see the increase, but you know that you planted and watered, and that’s what teachers do. We give them instruction. We give them the tools to make them, hopefully, be the best they can be, and you may not see the fruits of your labor during that school year, but you sleep well at night knowing that you did your best.

And do you know that you did your best with Damien?

I regret not saying something to him yesterday. That goes back to what I said earlier, you can’t waste time. You always think, “OK, let me go ahead and get through this lesson, and I’ll talk to him at some other point when I get him by himself.” But, I know he knows — wow, I know he knew that we cared about him.

Bureau Chief Cathryn Stout, Ph.D. oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s coverage. Contact Cathryn at cstout@chalkbeat.org

Celebrate Women’s History Month with stories of Tennessee women

2022-03-29T12:58:50+00:00

Tennessee women have been at the heart of major historical and cultural events in the United States — abolition, the Trail of Tears, women’s suffrage, and civil rights, as well as triumphs in music and athletics.

During the last days of Women’s History Month, and year-round, educators and readers can celebrate stories written by women and accounts of heroines that illuminate the richness of Tennessee culture and history. Here are some books by Tennessee female writers or about Tennessee women that readers of all ages can enjoy.

Early childhood readers

Ali Manning, author of the children’s book “Can I Play with my Food?”, pauses for a photo with two young fans, Blake (left) and Brooke Royston.

“Can I Play with My Food?”: Ali Manning (writer), Taylor Bou (illustrator)

Ali Manning is a food scientist and entrepreneur based in Memphis. Her early-reader picture book, “Can I Play with My Food?” encourages children’s curiosity and experimentation about what they eat. The story focuses on two sisters, Nema and Lexi, and their journey of discovery. Where does their food come from? What is the science involved in cooking? Along the way, the sisters also learn the importance of empathy and accepting people of varying abilities.

“Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free: The True Story of the Grandmother of Juneteenth”: Alice Faye Duncan (writer), Keturah A. Bobo (illustrator)

Children’s book author Alice Faye Duncan has been a Memphis staple for more than thirty years. Her stories take crucial moments in Black history and bring them to life for young readers. Her most recent work, Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free: The True Story of the Grandmother of Juneteenth, is one of the first biographies of Opal Lee, the woman who tirelessly advocated to make Juneteenth our newest federal holiday. Through Duncan’s research and Keturah Bobo’s illustrations, children learn about a living legend. Lee continues to give speeches and spread her universal message of freedom.

Elementary readers

“Coat of Many Colors”: Dolly Parton (writer), Brooke Boynton (illustrator)

Dolly Parton is one of Tennessee’s most celebrated daughters. The multitalented singer, author, humanitarian, and entrepreneur was born in Pittman Center, Tennessee. “Coat of Many Colors” is an early-reader picture book that illustrates the lyrics of her famous song of that name. Parton had humble beginnings as the fourth of twelve children in the Smoky Mountains. The book depicts her mother’s love and labor stitching a garment out of hand-me-down rags. The author encourages young people to show gratitude for what they’re given and to prevent bullies from stealing their pride.

“Wilma Rudolph: Track and Field Champion” by Adrianna Morganelli

“Wilma Rudolph: Track and Field Champion”: Adrianna Morganelli

Adrianna Morganelli is a prolific biographer writing for young audiences. “Wilma Rudolph: Track and Field Champion” details the life of one of Tennessee’s most revered athletes. Born in Saint Bethlehem, Tennessee, Rudolph faced many challenges. She suffered from pneumonia, scarlet fever, and polio-related paralysis all by the age of 5. Nevertheless, she persisted and went on to win three gold medals at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. Rudolph’s story serves as an inspiration for all girls, African American children, and young people with disabilities.

Middle school readers

“Last in a Long Line of Rebels”: Lisa Lewis Tyre

Tennessee native Lisa Lewis Tyre connects the past and present in her debut novel, “Last in a Long Line of Rebels.” The protagonist is Lou, a 12-year-old girl. Initially, Lou is on a quest to save her condemned Civil War-era house. As she digs further into her history, she learns more about her ancestors — enslavers, abolitionists and everyone in between. The book illustrates a young girl’s adventure to save her home and right the wrongs of the past.

“Summer of My German Soldier”: Bette Greene

Bette Greene was born in Memphis. For part of her childhood, her family moved to Parkin, Arkansas, where they ran a general store, and then back to Memphis for her preteen and high school years. Her years in Memphis influenced her novel, which tells the story of Patty Bergen, a young Jewish girl in Arkansas during World War II. She befriends Anton, an escaped prisoner of war from Germany. The story chronicles Patty’s empathy as she harbors Anton in her family’s garage, and Anton’s attempt to bolster her self-esteem.

Secondary and post-secondary Readers

“The Foreign Student” by Susan Choi

“The Foreign Student”: Susan Choi

Susan Choi’s novel is set in 1955 at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. It details the unlikely romance between Chang, a 25-year-old student from Korea, and Katherine, a 28-year-old white American. The novel moves between events in the American South and South Korea, depicting the trauma and obstacles of race and class the characters must overcome to be together.

“Bloodroot”: Amy Greene

Amy Greene grew up in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Whitesburg, Tennessee, and lives in Morristown. Her debut novel follows four generations of women in the Lamb family as they navigate desire and disaster. The novel interrogates generational blessings and curses through magical realism. The author renders a realistic and complex portrait of legacy in Appalachia.

“How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe”: Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

Mexican American writer Raquel Vasquez Gilliland lives in Tennessee with her family. Her second novel, “How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe,” chronicles Moon’s coming- of-age story as she goes on a road trip with her twin sister, Star. Star becomes popular as a social media influencer and Moon agrees to act as her cameraperson and merchandiser. Over the course of the novel, Moon learns to defy expectations and has a budding romance. This eventful summer turns her world upside down.

“When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky”: Margaret Verble

Margaret Verble mines her Cherokee heritage for the novel, “When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky.” The tale, set in 1926 Nashville, depicts the life of Two Feathers, a young horse-diver who sets out to solve a mystery. Two Feathers and her friends want to discover why their zoo is plagued by curses and the specter of World War I. The novel invites the reader to contemplate what happens when we confront history instead of burying it.

Drop in routine childhood vaccinations during pandemic raises risk of outbreaks in a fourth of Tennessee counties

2021-12-22T22:24:52+00:00

At least a fourth of Tennessee counties risk outbreaks of diseases like measles, mumps, and whooping cough because more children missed their routine vaccinations during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, data shows.

They include urban counties based in Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga, as well as a large swath of rural counties, especially in East Tennessee.

Memphis-based Shelby County was the only urban area to achieve at least a 95% kindergarten vaccination rate, the international threshold for preventing outbreaks of vaccine-preventable communicable diseases that also include diphtheria, hepatitis A and B, and chicken pox.

The concerning trend was highlighted to county health directors this fall in a communication from Dr. Paul Peterson, director of emergency preparedness for the Tennessee Department of Health.

In an Oct. 7 email, which Chalkbeat obtained through a public records request, Peterson encouraged health officers to examine the state’s latest report on kindergarten immunizations “so that we can work together to catch up on immunizations and help minimize vaccine preventable diseases.”

The report is the most complete data thus far about the status of Tennessee’s routine childhood vaccinations during the pandemic, when the number of shots dropped dramatically nationwide as regular doctor’s appointments and preventative health care were derailed to avoid coronavirus exposure.

Tennessee also trails most of the United States to get shots against COVID in the arms of children, teens, and adults. And the divide is especially wide for kids ages 5 to 11, with less than 7% in that age group fully vaccinated.

For routine vaccinations, Tennessee requires that children be immunized when enrolling in kindergarten. Other vaccinations are mandatory when enrolling in child care, pre-school, or pre-K, as well as the seventh grade.

The state’s immunization report for the 2020-21 school year shows 95.2% of all public and private school kindergartners were fully vaccinated.

However, the state’s analysis of county-by-county data showed that only 72 of Tennessee’s 95 counties reached the rate needed to achieve herd immunity in public schools, 15 fewer counties than the prior year.

Even fewer counties achieved herd immunity when factoring in kindergartners from private schools, which last year added more students and went from 4% to 5.2% of the state’s total kindergarten enrollment.

Dr. Morgan McDonald, deputy commissioner for population health for the department, said Tennesseans should be concerned about the vaccination lag.

“When a community drops below a 95% vaccination rate, we know their risk for outbreaks is significant,” McDonald said in an interview with Chalkbeat.

“These vaccine-preventable diseases are highly contagious. A case of measles can spread incredibly rapidly among individuals who are not vaccinated,” she said.

Measles was declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000 thanks to widespread vaccination, but outbreaks have occurred in recent years in pockets of unvaccinated people.

In 2016 in Memphis, a measles outbreak infected seven people, six of whom had not been vaccinated. A 2017 outbreak in Minnesota sickened 79 people.

Measles is especially dangerous for young children and can lead to pneumonia, swelling of the brain, and death.

While vaccine hesitancy has been a national issue in the fight to tame COVID, the latest data on routine vaccinations suggests pandemic-related disruptions to preventative health care is the bigger issue, McDonald said.

Last school year among students who were not fully immunized, less than one-tenth of 1 percent received a medical exemption. Religious exemptions, which nearly doubled to 1.8% from 2015 to 2018, have hovered at that rate over the last three years.

Public health officials hoped for a rebound in routine vaccinations as most children returned to in-person classes this fall. In June, the American Academy of Pediatrics called on parents to get their children up-to-date.

However, in Tennessee, vaccination outreach was dialed back during the critical summer months over pushback from conservative GOP lawmakers about the state’s public health role during the pandemic. Fewer school systems offered back-to-school vaccination events in the aftermath, and the state has yet to replace its top vaccination official who was fired by Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey during the controversy. Peterson is the state’s interim director over immunization work.

Piercey has maintained the state’s immunization program was not disrupted — and that children have access to their routine vaccinations through their local health departments.

McDonald said the state has been working with the Tennessee Academy of Pediatrics, the state education department, and other community partners to ensure vaccine availability and to get the word out.

School nurses are part of that process.

In rural Haywood County near Memphis, district nurse supervisor Julie Taylor sent letters last week telling 19 families to get their kindergartners vaccinated over the holidays. If the families do not submit documentation showing vaccination, the children won’t be allowed to return to school, she said.

With 84% of its kindergarteners vaccinated last school year, Haywood County logged the state’s lowest kindergarten immunization rate.

Taylor is hopeful for improvement this year, but acknowledged the challenge.

“It all points back to COVID. It was a difficult year,” she said.

“We had a lot of COVID in households in Haywood County, and it was all-consuming for school nurses as we worked with our local health departments to provide contract tracing. We were just trying to hold on and keep our students safe and healthy from the pandemic,” Taylor said.

This year, there’s been a more concerted effort to catch students up on shots they may have missed, which Taylor said was more about pandemic-related logistical challenges than vaccine hesitancy.

“These parents aren’t bad parents. Things just fell through the cracks,” she said.

Use our table below to look up your county’s kindergarten vaccination rate.

County	% fully immunized	Total kindergarten students
ANDERSON	96.70%	828
BEDFORD	95.00%	624
BENTON	98.00%	153
BLEDSOE	97.20%	106
BLOUNT	94.30%	1,362
BRADLEY	91.30%	1,114
CAMPBELL	95.50%	374
CANNON	97.80%	134
CARROLL	96.80%	316
CARTER	94.70%	550
CHEATHAM	96.70%	459
CHESTER	93.20%	207
CLAIBORNE	97.30%	329
CLAY	92.50%	80
COCKE	98.40%	387
COFFEE	96.50%	636
CROCKETT	99.10%	214
CUMBERLAND	97.10%	488
DAVIDSON	94.00%	6,907
DECATUR	96.50%	114
DEKALB	95.60%	228
DICKSON	97.30%	562
DYER	98.30%	460
FAYETTE	95.00%	278
FENTRESS	90.70%	172
FRANKLIN	97.30%	400
GIBSON	95.40%	669
GILES	92.10%	290
GRAINGER	98.10%	209
GREENE	98.20%	609
GRUNDY	94.70%	131
HAMBLEN	95.10%	771
HAMILTON	91.60%	3,689
HANCOCK	91.70%	60
HARDEMAN	98.40%	257
HARDIN	99.30%	276
HAWKINS	96.90%	482
HAYWOOD	84.00%	194
HENDERSON	97.20%	326
HENRY	97.30%	296
HICKMAN	95.70%	230
HOUSTON	94.30%	87
HUMPHREYS	95.50%	220
JACKSON	88.80%	107
JEFFERSON	95.80%	481
JOHNSON	93.80%	129
KNOX	94.70%	4,716
LAKE	97.00%	66
LAUDERDALE	100.00%	237
LAWRENCE	93.90%	477
LEWIS	96.40%	137
LINCOLN	96.90%	327
LOUDON	96.50%	372
MACON	97.40%	386
MADISON	96.40%	995
MARION	98.10%	316
MARSHALL	98.90%	278
MAURY	93.00%	1,104
MCMINN	96.20%	526
MCNAIRY	96.90%	290
MEIGS	95.90%	123
MONROE	93.00%	471
MONTGOMERY	94.70%	2,820
MOORE	93.20%	59
MORGAN	93.00%	200
OBION	95.80%	385
OVERTON	96.10%	205
PERRY	90.00%	70
PICKETT	92.00%	50
POLK	92.30%	130
PUTNAM	92.60%	797
RHEA	94.80%	386
ROANE	92.60%	433
ROBERTSON	95.00%	906
RUTHERFORD	96.10%	4,257
SCOTT	99.00%	296
SEQUATCHIE	98.40%	124
SEVIER	96.90%	1,048
SHELBY	96.10%	11,465
SMITH	99.50%	213
STEWART	93.00%	128
SULLIVAN	96.10%	1,337
SUMNER	96.00%	2,123
TIPTON	97.90%	761
TROUSDALE	97.90%	97
UNICOI	97.70%	132
UNION	85.30%	401
VAN BUREN	84.70%	59
WARREN	97.20%	425
WASHINGTON	96.40%	1,197
WAYNE	96.90%	159
WEAKLEY	96.40%	278
WHITE	89.40%	302
WILLIAMSON	95.10%	3,035
WILSON	96.50%	1,734

Percentage of Tennessee public and private school kindergarten students fully immunized by county

After Quad-State Tornado, Tennessee teachers comfort students and each other

2021-12-15T21:39:01+00:00

As Dresden children returned to class on Wednesday morning, five days after tornadoes crashed through several states, scenes of devastation filled the drive to school: Mangled homes, debris-blocked roads, twisted trees.

In the wake of the Dec. 10 tornadoes, school buildings in the town about 130 miles north of Memphis stand largely undamaged, but educators and students are suffering. There has been widespread displacement of families, which forced schools to close on Monday and Tuesday.

So multiplication, sight words, and typical lesson plans were low on Wednesday’s agenda at the Tennessee schools most affected by the storm. Instead, the objective was to help students feel safe, secure, and loved, said local teachers as a school year already burdened by a pandemic adds another daunting disruption: rebuilding after the storm.

And with the number of tornadoes increasing east of the Mississippi River, according to weather experts, it’s a disruption that some educators are facing more frequently.

“This has been a very difficult year,” said Debbie Moran, a special education teacher at Dresden Elementary School in the Weakley County Schools district.

“I think everybody thought this year was going to be normal after last year, and it wasn’t as normal as we thought it was going to be,” she added Tuesday afternoon while helping a fellow teacher sort through items spared and damaged by the storm.

The tornadoes or tornado — meteorologists are still investigating — that ripped through the West Tennessee town was a “historic long-track tornado,” according to the National Weather Service. The cell spanned about 200 miles with wind speeds over 130 miles per hour. If weather experts confirm that it was a single funnel, it will be one of the longest tornadoes on record.

The Quad-State Tornado, as the weather community has named it, affected thousands of students in Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri, and half-dozen or more districts announced closures in its aftermath.

Although school was out in the Weakley County towns of Dresden and Sharon, Monday and Tuesday were not days off for Britne Mansfield, a first grade teacher at Dresden Elementary. She spent those days reaching out to her students and connecting their families with relief efforts.

“I sent messages to my class asking what are your needs,” said Mansfield. “I want to know who’s alright, whose homes are damaged? Where are you staying? Do you need this? Do you need a shower? And any messages I got back, I just tried to direct them to where they needed to go.”

And through their parents, her students sent messages back.

“Remi told me to tell you that she loves you. Caleb said he was worried about you,” she said on Tuesday afternoon while recalling some of the texts.

Mansfield cherished the words because she also needed support. As she prepared to return to school, she accepted the possibility that she may cry in front of her students.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing for them, necessarily, to see me cry because crying is a natural emotion for something like this, and I want them to know that if they need to cry it’s alright. It’s okay to get it out,” she said. “We’ve never had anything like this affect our town, and it’s a lot. It’s a lot to take in.”

As she stood in her parents’ front yard with Moran and a crew of roofers Tuesday afternoon, she recalled the terror she felt late Friday night when she huddled in her parents’ basement with seven other relatives.

“Can I be frank? I thought we were going to die. I literally thought … ,” Mansfield said, unable to finish the sentence as tears overcame her, and Moran leaned in for a hug.

As of Tuesday evening, Dresden had not recorded a single fatality, quite miraculous given the destruction, said Mayor Jeff Washburn, who is also Mansfield’s father. As of Tuesday evening, the national death toll for the Quad-State Tornado had reached 88, with more than 100 people still missing, according to reports.

Yet even with no local fatalities, the aftermath has been difficult.

“It is a traumatic experience, particularly for children, and even adults, alike, even sometimes for 67-year-old mayors of a city,” he added.

His faith and the goodwill of neighbors have sustained him as people have donated equipment, food, and Christmas gifts for local children.

A few blocks away from where the mayor was working Tuesday afternoon, Kinetha and Kevin West had a smoker running in front of their gun shop and pulled off pieces of steaming hot chicken to serve to families without power.

Kinetha and Kevin West served meals to hungry families in front of their gun shop. Kevin West, who is also an industrial engineer at Tyson Foods, got his company to donate the smoker, a cooking team, and food. By Tuesday evening, they had cooked 600 pieces of chicken, 50 pounds of pot roast, 20 pounds of hot dogs, 10 packs of chicken wings, eight logs of Italian sausage, and four packs of ribs.

Kevin West, who is also an industrial engineer at Tyson Foods, got his company to donate the smoker, a cooking team, and food. By Tuesday evening, they had cooked 600 pieces of chicken, 50 pounds of pot roast, 20 pounds of hot dogs, 10 packs of chicken wings, eight logs of Italian sausage, and four packs of ribs.

The biggest needs right now for the families they’re serving are toiletries, temporary housing, and donations to the Rotary Club fund, the Wests said.

Freddie Brasfield, who sat outside beside the couple, added that more tarps and dumpsters are also needed. Brasfield owns a moving company, and he’s been working from dusk to curfew helping families haul away rubble.

Despite efforts by residents and work crews, by Tuesday afternoon, much debris still remained — haunting remnants of the devastating storm. There may be other unsettling reminders Mansfield said as she imagined the days ahead.

“Thunder is going to be a scary thing for kids for a long time,” she said. “And we’ve got thunderstorms coming in again on Friday.”

Memphis students challenge the politics of mourning as cultures clash

2021-12-07T21:42:56+00:00

As the sun set across Memphis Monday night, dozens of grieving students gathered at Hamilton High School for a vigil to mourn the life of 15-year-old shooting victim Phillexus Buchanan, but their grief turned to frustration as police officers ordered them off the campus.

Instead of honoring their classmate with a balloon release on the grounds of her high school, the students, banned from campus after hours, left the large empty parking lot and huddled across the street on a small sidewalk.

The moment, coming in the aftermath of a tragedy, illustrates how the politics of mourning can be complicated for Black children as their grief traditions clash with a litany of rules and regulations.

Donning a “rest in peace” T-shirt violates the dress code in schools with uniforms, a common requirement in Shelby County Schools, a majority Black district. Creating a TikTok tribute with classmates at lunch runs afoul of the district’s cell phone policy that warns that administrators may confiscate phones if they are visible during the school day. Planning a vigil means navigating the city’s park permit application or the district’s procedures.

“As part of district protocol, we require all requested use of facilities or school property to be submitted through our facilities portal which is reviewed by facilities, security, and school leadership,” said school spokesperson Jerica Phillips Monday night. “Unfortunately, we did not receive ample notification for this request to be reviewed.”

Gathering more than 100 shares on social media, posts about the vigil began circulating midday Sunday, two days after Buchanan was killed.

The Hamilton student, known as Lexus, was killed on Friday night after a high school basketball game when the car that she and other students were riding in was ambushed at a gas station, according to police reports. Also killed in the shooting was 16-year-old Breunna Woods, a cheerleader at Wooddale High School.

Family members have announced a vigil and purple balloon release for Woods on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. on Riverfront Drive near Bass Pro Shop.

A young mother and her infant were also wounded in the shooting, with the mother publicly sharing on social media that the “strong” baby boy is recovering from surgery. “Mommy [is] sorry Jr. I tried taking every bullet for you,” she wrote in a post that has been shared more than 2,000 times.

Lexus and Breunna’s deaths are the 28th and 29th youth homicides in Memphis this year, according to the Memphis Police Department. To their loved ones, they were much more than numbers. Lexus loved fashion and selfies and was a devoted friend, her family said. She went out on Friday to support Breunna, who was cheering at the game.

Breunna was a rising hairstylist who aspired to be a brand ambassador.

“Breunna was a gentle individual that performed exceptionally well within the classroom and on the court. Everyday, she embraced us with her smile and fashion,” Wooddale school administrators said in a statement posted on the school’s Facebook page.

Hamilton did not post a statement about Lexus on Monday, an oversight that some students at the vigil took as a slight.

“Hamilton is not doing their job,” said 15-year-old Morgan Dandridge, who attended both middle school and high school with Lexus. “They didn’t even have a moment of silence for her.”

Morgan said the school provided grief counselors, and the counselors coached the students through relaxation techniques. “They say, take a deep breath, take a deep breath. I get tired of taking deep breaths,” she said. “I’m weary.”

Hamilton High proceeded with classes as usual Monday, added Morgan.

The school’s approach is in stark contrast to the path Rhodes College took in October following the shooting death of one of its students. Campus leaders invited classmates to share public tributes to victim Andrew Rainer in the school newspaper, and the administration canceled classes to give students time to mourn. Rhodes is a $51,000-a-year liberal arts college with a majority white student body. Hamilton is a majority Black historic high school in a ZIP code where the median household income is less than Rhodes’ tuition.

Wanting to do something on campus to remember Lexus, determined Hamilton students created and circulated a memorial poster for classmates to sign, a gesture that received mixed reactions from staff but that the principal ultimately allowed, Morgan said. Many students also promoted the vigil on Monday and came carrying balloons in Lexus’ favorite color, pink. No one at the vigil identified themselves to Chalkbeat as Hamilton High School staff.

Parents and older relatives on hand calmed and reassured frustrated students as they were forced off of their school parking lot.

“I feel that it really made the kids feel as though the school was not concerned with the death of one of their fellow classmates,” said mom Melanie Harris, whose 15-year-old daughter had attended school with Lexus since middle school.

Just before 6 p.m. as the crowd size peaked, spilling over from the sidewalk to the street, mourners gathered around Lexus’ aunt Tanya Dockins to hear her tearful plea to “stop killing these babies who ain’t had a chance to find their way in life.”

The flashing blue lights of multiple police cars both protected attendants from drivers on the busy street and served as a reminder of how Black students are banned, policed, and surveilled, even while mourning.

Students who had stood strong all night broke down.

Classmates who were still composed comforted those around them.

And a Memphis police officer got on his loudspeaker and admonished the crowd for standing in the street, ordering them back on the overcrowded sidewalk.

Some booed the police while releasing their pink balloons to float freely in the air, and in the background, the flashing blue lights of police cars both protected attendants from drivers on the busy street and served as a reminder of how Black students are banned, policed, and surveilled, even while mourning.

After Memphis students witness shooting near Kingsbury, parents demand changes

2021-10-27T23:48:41+00:00

One student was standing outside when she saw the gunman and raced back into the building. The other heard the gunshots from a block away and rushed to the scene to find her little brother, who was safe. The third sat in shock inside the building and watched the chaos erupt through a window.

The three middle schoolers shared their stories during a Monday night vigil after four people were shot earlier in the day outside of Streets Ministries near Kingsbury Middle School.

With the support of about three dozen relatives and community members, students gathered at the scene to grieve, reflect, and organize against the violence strangling their neighborhood and schools.

According to the police, the incident occurred Monday at 2:43 p.m., just after school dismissal. A botched drug deal and an argument over a gun led to the shooting in front of Streets Ministries, a faith-based educational nonprofit. Two teens and one adult were transported to area hospitals in noncritical condition. A third teen, who was shot in the chest, was transported to Regional One Health in critical condition and by Tuesday afternoon had been upgraded to serious condition, according to a Regional One spokesperson.

The police have charged Erik Sandoval, 19, with two counts of attempted second-degree murder; Steven Austin, 18, who was also shot during the conflict, with five counts of attempted second-degree murder; and a 17-year-old with attempted second-degree murder. Chalkbeat does not publish the names of alleged youth offenders.

Monday’s shooting was the latest brush with violence to rock the cluster of Berclair schools: Kingsbury Elementary, Kingsbury Middle, and Kingsbury High. On Oct. 8, Kingsbury High went on lockdown following an unspecified threat. Police later determined that the threat was not credible and did not find any guns on campus.

Parents, already on high alert following the shooting at Cummings K-12 Optional School about a week earlier, were angry that they first learned about the Kingsbury lockdown via friends’ social media pages and their children instead of from the district.

“We find out through social media all the time. Anything that happens in these schools, we find out through social media,” said mom Amanda Hernandez during Monday’s vigil. “Our kids are the ones that communicate with us.”

Shelby County Schools regularly sends text messages and robocalls to parents following campus incidents, but sharing vetted updates before a school full of cellphone-savvy students proves a challenge for the district.

District officials said in a statement on Tuesday that social-emotional support was available for students and staff at Kingsbury schools.

During Monday’s vigil, community activist Jose Salazar called for more police patrols after school. Salazar said that when trouble arises, it’s often after dismissal and during the walk home. His observations align with data from the U.S. Department of Justice showing that youth crime peaks at 3 p.m., occurring “most frequently in the hours immediately following the close of school on school days.” Officials said that more officers would be on campus this week as an extra precaution.

To address what some have called youth crime prime time, this summer Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney launched Safe Corridors, a neighborhood watch program to help increase community vigilance in the hours just before and after school. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a similar program on Monday.

Salazar, who graduated from all three Kingsbury schools and helped organize Monday’s vigil, said that some fights and violence could be prevented if school resource and police officers would walk the neighborhood more between 2 and 5 p.m.

“After school, they’re going to have to hire more security because the security they have is not enough,” he said. “We want to see changes.”

A spokesperson for the Memphis Police Department said that officials are working to provide the necessary coverage across the city. The department is currently about 400 officers short of its goal of 2,500 officers and is offering $15,000 signing bonuses for new recruits.

Reducing youth crime is one of the top concerns for local law enforcement officials. As of Sept. 30, Shelby County suspects under the age of 18 have allegedly committed four murders this year, six sexual assaults of minors, and 19 incidents involving the threat or use of a deadly weapon, according to Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich.

New Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis, who is also focused on reducing youth crime, recently told reporters that she is open to new initiatives to improve safety in and around schools.

Salazar said the community is going to continue to push for changes beyond Monday. Concerned citizens met Tuesday night at La Guadalupana restaurant on Summer Ave. to organize. On Nov. 2, el Día de los Muertos, Black and Latino activists are planning a public demonstration to remember those lost to violence and demand change.

“We’re tired of the violence,” added Salazar. “We don’t want our kids exposed to this kind of thing.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to note a second arrest in the case.

New Tennessee laws increase access to school sports and college for children in foster care

2021-08-23T22:31:42+00:00

He was looking forward to playing football at a Tipton County high school and building a sense of belonging through sports, said state Rep. Torrey Harris, recalling the teenager in foster care who served as inspiration for a new state law.

The high school student, said Harris, had recently moved to Tipton County to join a new foster family, and was excited to bond with his teammates. But after a few practices he was informed that he couldn’t play.

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association requires students to live in a district for a year before being eligible to play a sport, a rule intended to keep powerhouse programs from recruiting unethically. Now, thanks to a new law sponsored by Harris, and signed into law in May by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, the one-year rule is waived for all students in foster care.

Harris, a Memphis Democrat, said that the one-year rule kept a lot of students in foster care from being able to play sports, and he added that the student who inspired the bill was “absolutely devastated” when he had to leave the team.

“An opportunity to do something that he loves, to continue to gain social skills — his motivation to want to be involved — and to get denied playing a sport because of the length of time he had been placed — at no fault of his own,” said Harris, “you can only imagine how damaging this could be for someone like” him.

The state sports association supported waiving the one-year rule for students in foster care. Bernard Childress, executive director of the association, said members of his organization met with legislators shortly after the bill was proposed. Childress added that children in foster care were never the intended target of the 12-month eligibility requirement.

“It protects kids from just jumping from one place to another — who are not in foster care — just to play for coaches,” Childress explained.

Harris said the student who inspired the law is excited that other students in similar situations will be allowed to play. The student has since moved from West Tennessee to East Tennessee, and the lawmaker plans to cross the state to watch him this fall.

“Foster care and adoption are really, really important to me,” said Harris, who also sponsored a new law that requires foster care agencies to provide children with contact information for each of their siblings.

Progress continues after landmark Brian A. settlement

Tennessee has made progress in providing more equitable education for children in foster care over the past two decades. Harris’ bills are examples of the gains that have been made during the 20 years since the settlement of the landmark Brian A. case, a class-action lawsuit that put a spotlight on education for students in the foster care system.

Settled in July 2001, the complaint filed by the advocacy group Children’s Rights alleged that students in foster care were receiving inadequate services including education.

Describing one scene, the complaint said, “‘School’ consists of two classrooms in which all 20 boys, ages 6 to 16, are taught together by two instructors, and where meaningful and legally required educational services are impossible, because the classrooms are designed only to keep a high number of children of widely different ages and abilities busy during their very short stays.”

As part of the settlement, the state Department of Children’s Services agreed to add an education attorney to its staff, and it agreed to help hire educational specialists to serve as liaisons between the department and local schools to facilitate educational planning for students in foster care.

According to a report by the Center for the Study of Social Policy, the educational specialists were essential in closing several schools run by group homes and shifting students to traditional public schools.

Department spokesman Rob Johnson said today 86% of foster children are in traditional public schools, and that it’s rare for them to live and learn in large groups at on-site schools in group homes. All public schools now have a foster care point of contact, Johnson said.

“Over nearly two decades, the department has drastically changed its approach,” Johnson said in an email. “Only those with the most severe treatment needs attend on-site schools.”

Yet work remains to ensure that the workers who support students in foster care also feel supported themselves. In the department’s 2021 culture and climate survey, 46% of respondents reported feeling some emotional exhaustion and most reported that they work more than 40 hours a week.

New law also helps college students formerly in foster care

In addition to the law sponsored by Harris which helps student athletes in foster care, another bill passed during this year’s legislative session makes college more accessible for this vulnerable population and helps students who have aged out of the system stay enrolled in college.

State Rep. William Lamberth of Portland ushered through a new law that creates a pilot program to establish liaisons at five universities to support college students after they’ve aged out of state custody.

“Many of these children have already suffered a significant setback in life by losing their parents or other circumstances that put them in foster care, and this gives them a leg up,” said the Republican lawmaker at a committee meeting earlier this year.

By serving as mentors, the liaisons will hopefully increase graduation and retention rates for students who have aged out of foster care. According to the National Foster Youth Institute, less than 3% of individuals who were formerly in foster care earn a bachelor’s degree.

Any support to keep students in school and connected to campus is welcomed, said Mike Stempkovski, clinical services director at Youth Villages, a Memphis-based foster care provider operating in 20 states.

Stempkovski said that it’s important to keep some continuity as a young person transitions into or beyond foster care. Many of them “feel like a burden,” he said. Staying in the same school or participating in team sports can give them a sense of belonging.

“School is a protective factor for children in foster care,” Stempkovski said. “If a child is well established in a school, there are relationships there.”

I founded Magic Dads mentor program because gun violence is traumatizing Memphis students

2021-07-15T10:00:00+00:00

At Magic Hands Barbershop in Memphis, boys fill the parking lot each summer day and often throughout the school year, too. They come to get haircuts or shop at the nearby convenience store. From time to time, they stand in front of the store, offering to do odd jobs so they can get something to eat at the Magic Wings next door. Sometimes parents leave their children in the parking lot, using them as bait to panhandle.

When boys congregate, too often, the impulse is to force them to leave, but shop owner Jason Bobo, and the men who run and visit the barbershop took a different approach. We decided to meet the kids where they are, literally; five years ago, in that parking lot, we started a boys mentoring program called Magic Dads.

Long before Shelby County School Board members issued their call to action to curb gun violence and youth violence on Monday, I have been working with my organization Magic Dads to do just that. As a special education teaching assistant, I know that everything children experience in their communities follows them through the schoolhouse doors.

Dedrick Ford

Every day, children are walking to school and summer camp carrying the weight of bookbags and trauma. As a graphic artist, I saw their pain firsthand when I owned a custom T-shirt shop, and about 65-70% of my income was from RIP tees. These shirts, commonly worn at funerals and memorials, feature the name and image of the deceased, and about half the time, the faces staring back at me on shirts were young victims of gun violence, teens, and young adults who never saw their 30th birthdays. Some young boys had an entire collection of these shirts because they had lost so many friends, cousins, and classmates.

I saw how death’s repeated blows disturbed them. The academic struggles. The unhealthy relationships. The compulsive and unexplained misbehavior. The anxiety-driven fears. The depression. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 3.2% of children ages 3-17 have been diagnosed with depression, and 7.1% have been diagnosed with anxiety.

We need our elected officials from the local level to the national level to take immediate action to aid distressed families. Yet our General Assembly has yet to pass a measure that would increase funding for school counselors and lower the counselor-to-student ratio.

Now more than ever, we need additional counselors in our schools because homicides have spiked in Memphis, and virtual learning has created a distance in student-teacher interaction. In the fall, we’ll have the added challenge of returning to school during a pandemic that has led to increases in depression, trauma, and crime. Counselors and educators are the real frontline heroes and, simply put, we need more heroes in our schools.

Until then, the men of Magic Dads will continue our parking lot ministry. Personally, I am dedicated to this work because, in 2009, my cousin was shot and killed during a robbery, and I want to reach our Whitehaven youth before they’re staring at or holding a gun.

Each year, Magic Dads host a back-to-school block parties where they provided free haircuts, free food, and more than 100 backpacks filled with school supplies.

We want to expand our outreach to include tutoring and anti-gang, anti-drug, and anti-bullying initiatives, but all of us who do hands-on work in our communities need more support from local politicians, pastors, and parents. Because a lot of the distress stems from poverty, we need more job placement programs for adults and teens, and we need more financial literacy programs that are easily accessible.

We also need more foot soldiers to join us in the field as we do the gritty day-to-day work of coaching, counseling, and sometimes consoling children. With fewer press conferences and additional community collaborations, we can create more safe spaces for children in the classroom — and out of it, too.

Dedrick Ford is an artist, special education teaching assistant, father of three, and the founder of Magic Dads youth mentoring program.

Tennessee’s governor has a novel idea to fund more student mental health services. Will it pay off?

2021-04-23T21:05:39+00:00

Gov. Bill Lee’s proposed $250 million trust fund for student mental health is generating accolades for its magnitude, but new questions are emerging about the plan’s unconventional funding approach.

The one-time amount, pulled from better-than-expected tax revenues, would establish an endowment that dedicates annual investment income toward mental health needs. Those could include clinical services in K-12 schools, trauma-informed training for educators, mental health awareness campaigns, and initiatives to quell bullying, violence, and suicide.

But projections released this week suggest the endowment initially would generate only about 2%, or $4.5 million annually — a third of what was expected when the governor first proposed the idea last year.

The lower projections have added fuel to arguments that a trust fund might not be the best approach to tend to needs that have become more acute and widespread during the pandemic, as students have become more socially isolated.

And the proposed fund does nothing toward moving quickly to hire more counselors, social workers, psychologists, and nurses for Tennessee schools, where provider-to-student ratios fall far short of national recommendations.

Sen. Joey Hensley, who serves on legislative panels overseeing education and finances, summed up the concerns of naysayers during discussions this week in the Senate Finance Committee.

“Why would we choose to [address] mental health problems by tying up $250 million? Why don’t we just fund what we need every year?” he asked. The Lewis County lawmaker was the only Republican to join a few Democrats voting against the GOP governor’s proposal in committees.

Even so, a bill to create the trust fund has advanced steadily and is on track for final votes by the full legislature before lawmakers recess in May. Members of the House Finance Committee are scheduled to take up the matter next week.

Years of stagnant funding

Historically, Tennessee has given more lip service than funding to mental health services for both children and adults, while its budget for prisons and correctional programs have increased by more than 40% in the last decade.

Lee has vowed to step up the state’s commitment to children and adolescents struggling with anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.

Gov. Bill Lee reintroduces his mental health trust fund proposal on March 29, 2021, at the state Capitol. Marie Williams (right) will help oversee the fund’s use as Tennessee’s commissioner of mental health services.

Last month, when the governor reintroduced the trust fund idea that he had put on hold a year earlier, he called mental health a “complicated issue” that is “often under-discussed” and shared that one of his daughters tried to take her life at age 15 as a result of depression. Before the pandemic hit, his education chief, Penny Schwinn, called student mental health the No. 1 concern she heard from educators when touring schools.

But in his proposed budget and recent revisions, the governor didn’t set aside new recurring money to hire more mental health specialists in schools through the state’s education funding formula. That decision came despite proposals from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers to address the need.

On Friday in Memphis, Lee said the trust fund would especially help children from uninsured families. And his press secretary, Casey Black, called it a “fiscally conservative approach to ensure Tennessee students have access to critical resources in the long term.”

The governor’s plan would place $225 million in an untouchable endowment, with a $25 million reserve available for short-term needs. As the endowment generates interest, the money could be deployed by the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, in consultation with the Department of Education.

But the low rate of projected return is troubling lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who have seen the state’s 35-year-old endowment for higher education serve as a boon to Tennessee colleges and universities. One key difference, according to state officials, is that the mental health trust fund would be completely state-funded, while the higher ed endowment receives private and corporate donations.

“The impression was we would get 5-6% yield on these kinds of trust funds. We have learned within the last couple of few weeks that that’s really not what the return will be,” said Sen. Bo Watson, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which reviewed the mental health bill this week. “Is that amount of revenue enough to satisfy?”

Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro said he was conflicted because the low yield may not keep pace with inflation.

“I believe in investing in mental health and want to see that investment made desperately,” said Yarbro, a Nashville Democrat. “But I think this is a very odd fit — to have a need that we know is recurring and not funding it at the level that all of our schools would like and need. I don’t think that we’re setting up a scenario that is actually capable of filling the needs here.”

Sen. Todd Gardenhire, a Chattanooga Republican, supported the governor’s proposal, though, and urged his colleagues to take the long view. “If you throw $250 million at a problem all at once, it will be spent all at once and you’ll set up a bureaucracy that we just can’t keep funding each year,” he said.

Ultimately, the panel voted 9-2 to recommend the bill to the full Senate.

Strengthening the student safety net

Schools provide the main safety net for Tennessee students in crisis. The state reports that more than 60% of children who receive mental health services do so through their school. But while rates of depression have increased among adolescents in recent years, state funding for mental health services has been stagnant. According to the most recent national data, Tennessee ranks 34th in mental health services and access for youth.

“Until our state addresses the lack of counselors, psychologists and social workers in schools, we’re not going to scratch the surface of what’s happening inside of our classrooms,” said Lauren Baker, director of legislation and public policy for the Tennessee School Counselor Association.

School Specialist	Tennessee-funded ratio	Nationally recommended ratio
Counselor	1:426 students	1:250 students
Psychologist	1:2,500 students	1:700 students
Social worker	1:2,000 students	1:250 students
Nurse	1:3,000 students	1 per school

School Staffing for Mental Health: By the Numbers

Source: Education Law Center

“It’s great that we’re having conversations about mental health and that the governor is reducing the stigma by talking about his daughter’s story,” Baker told Chalkbeat. “But the truth is, there’s just not enough trained mental health professionals in our schools, and we’re totally overwhelmed. Kids are falling through the cracks because it’s not humanly possible to meet the needs when you’re one person to 800 children, which is the ratio in some of our Tennessee schools.”

Beyond the trust fund, the state has other plans and options available to bolster student mental health.

Legislative leaders and the governor still could negotiate an increase in Tennessee’s final budget so that school districts can hire more specialists.

Tennessee also is receiving a historic infusion of cash for K-12 education — about $4.5 billion in all — from three federal stimulus and pandemic-recovery packages, and some of that money can be spent on student mental health. But because the one-time cash must be allocated by September 2024, districts likely won’t want to use it for salaries of long-term employees.

Schwinn said her department plans to invest nearly $18 million on mental health using federal recovery funds. That would pay for a comprehensive needs assessment for every school district in Tennessee, plus offer mental health grants that districts could seek to fund new or existing programs.

Baker, who represents the school counselors association and works as a counselor at Collierville Elementary School near Memphis, said a needs assessment could be helpful if the state surveys specialists who are already doing the work in schools. She’s less enthusiastic about grants for new initiatives.

“I’ve not met a counselor yet who wants another program. There are already a lot of strong programs out there. We just can’t deliver the programs we have with fidelity because of our large caseloads,” she said.

In the meantime, the governor’s trust fund proposal is garnering enthusiasm among mental health advocacy groups, even as many stakeholders acknowledge it may be an imperfect mechanism.

“To the governor’s credit, it’s a novel idea that creates a dedicated funding stream for mental health,” said one long-time advocate who asked not to be identified. “For decades, Tennessee has thrown pennies at mental health while dollars go to tourism and other places. Frankly, we’re thrilled to see this money — and we’ll take it.”

Tennessee teachers could seek to remove unruly students under bill approved by legislature

2021-03-11T23:54:16+00:00

A bill aimed at empowering Tennessee teachers to remove chronically disruptive students from their classrooms cleared the legislature Thursday over objections that such exclusionary disciplinary practices ignore deeper problems.

The Senate’s 25-8 vote came following an 81-15 vote in the House on Monday. The House is expected to concur next week on one minor change in language and send the bill to Gov. Bill Lee for his signature.

If the governor signs the measure as expected, the Teacher’s Discipline Act will create a uniform referral process allowing teachers to petition to remove students who repeatedly or substantially interfere with classroom learning. The policy is championed by the Professional Educators of Tennessee, which says out-of-control behavior by some students is driving teachers out of the profession.

The renewed emphasis on potentially punitive discipline comes as educators brace for a wave of social and emotional challenges from students as a result of the pandemic.

Opponents argue the bill, while well-intentioned, could take Tennessee backward. In recent years, the state increasingly has embraced restorative disciplinary approaches that deal with bad behavior without punishing offenders. The tactics also take into account adverse childhood experiences such as physical or mental abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction, which can lead to disruptive behaviors.

“When a teacher faces a disciplinary issue like this, removing the unruly student from the classroom isn’t the problem; the problem is getting that student the help they need so they can be reinstated into the classroom and achieve academically and behaviorally,” said Sen. Page Walley, one of two Senate Republicans who voted against the bill.

Walley, a psychologist who is a former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, said the bigger issue is funding schools adequately to support student mental health and well-being. Currently, Tennessee does not provide enough money for districts to hire the nationally recommended numbers of school-based counselors, social workers, and nurses.

Sen. Joey Hensley, the Hohenwald Republican who co-sponsored the bill with Rep. Scott Cepicky, argued Tennessee needs to strengthen the authority of teachers to manage their classrooms, which ultimately will help all students.

Among the proposal’s six steps: Teachers must document actions taken to address the student’s behavior, speak with the student’s parent or guardian, and seek to involve a school counselor or other professional to help.

When all steps are exhausted, the school principal would take action based on the district’s discipline policies or student code of conduct. That could include placement in another classroom, in-school suspension, referral to an alternative education program, or denying the teacher’s petition and finding support to help the teacher.

“It provides for a formalized response that pays attention to the student’s rights, provides opportunities for counseling to find out what the cause of that disruption is, and it also backs up the teacher,” said Sen. Ken Yager, a Kingsport Republican and former teacher, who voted for the plan.

Others raised concerns that Black or disabled students could bear the brunt of the discipline, based on decades of research that schools disproportionately discipline students who are Black or have special needs.

“At a time when students in our country are encountering both a reckoning with racial injustice and a pandemic that has caused massive instructional loss and trauma, it is disturbing to see Tennessee lawmakers focus on legislation that would punish students rather than devote resources to addressing their social and emotional needs,” said Wendy Tucker, senior policy director for the Center for Learner Equity.

While federal law prevents removing students with disabilities from classrooms, several student advocacy groups worried the legislation will lead to the removal of those who haven’t yet been identified as having a disability. Other advocates said the bill doesn’t align with Tennessee’s efforts to understand and address traumatic childhood experiences.

“When it comes to trauma, you cannot discipline trauma out of the child,” said Rikki Harris, chief executive officer of Tennessee Voices, a coalition promoting mental health services for children.

“My concern about [the bill] really is that it advances the pathway to alternative school, and that could be a real setback for our state,” Harris told the Senate Education Committee in testimony last week.

JC Bowman, leader of Professional Educators of Tennessee, said the goal is to create a more objective, methodical, and supportive blueprint for discipline so teachers can teach and students can learn.

“We hope it’s going to be a rare occurrence that a child is removed from a classroom,” Bowman said. “But we live in a civil society, and rules matter. If we don’t have consequences for continued bad behavior, we’ll have more bad behavior.”

As online learning continues in Tennessee, coronavirus relief money renews free child care for essential workers

2021-01-05T18:41:44+00:00

Tennessee essential workers will continue to have access to free child care for their children who are learning remotely.

The new federal coronavirus relief bill will cover the cost of supervising children in virtual learning centers through the end of March. The bill, signed four days before the program was scheduled to end on Dec. 31, is especially important for parents of students in Shelby County Schools. The state’s largest district doesn’t plan to reopen classrooms until at least Feb. 8.

Students resumed gathering in groups at virtual learning centers on Monday to log into their online classes, including those run by the YMCA of Memphis & the Mid-South. Brian McLaughlin, the YMCA’s chief operating officer, said the bill’s approval produced a “sigh of relief” among staff and families who were waiting to see if funding would dry up.

Within days after the bill was signed by President Donald Trump, the YMCA blitzed participating families with emails and social media messages to deliver the good news that virtual learning centers would continue.

“This funding was so critical,” McLaughlin said. “There really aren’t any other options available right now.”

Parents who are eligible for the program include employees at schools, airports, grocery stores, funeral homes, restaurants, hospitals, and more. Essential workers tend to have lower wages and less flexible job hours, making child care during remote learning both critical and harder to pay for.

This is the second time the state has extended its child care assistance program that began in April. As of Nov. 30, the state spent approximately $110 million for about 42,000 children statewide, including about 6,500 children in Shelby County. For this round, the state will pull from federal coronavirus relief funds for the program based on what’s needed.

The Tennessee Department of Human Services pays licensed child care centers the full cost of child supervision for parents who are essential workers. Tony Mathews, the department’s interim commissioner, said families still face “extraordinary circumstances” because of the pandemic.

“Our goal is to support parents so they can continue focusing on the ever-evolving needs of their community,” Mathews said in a statement.

Tennessee lawmakers want answers from Schwinn after fallout over plan to conduct child ‘well-being checks’

2020-08-28T00:15:07+00:00

When Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn unveiled her plan this month to use $1 million in federal funds to support “well-being checks” on Tennessee children, the goal was to make sure kids were safe, fed, and healthy, despite schooling disruptions created by the coronavirus pandemic.

Within days, Schwinn walked back her plan and apologized to state lawmakers dealing with public uproar about the prospect of families receiving phone calls, emails, or a knock at the door through a new government initiative. “Although well-intentioned,” she wrote on Aug. 14, “we have missed the mark on communication and providing clarity around our role in supporting at-risk students during an unprecedented time.”

The episode highlighted the challenges of supporting children outside of their school buildings, especially in a state that is intent on parental responsibility and wary of government intrusion. It also pointed to Schwinn’s pattern of rolling out initiatives and taking administrative shortcuts without ample legislative input, review, or approval, even as the former Texas academics chief is leading Tennessee through the biggest education upheaval in modern history.

“I sincerely believe that the commissioner’s intention was good because kids have not been in school and there are issues with hunger and mental illness and domestic abuse,” said House Education Committee Chairman Mark White, a Republican from Memphis. “But when things get out without much vetting, we in the General Assembly are the ones getting calls from parents, teachers, and superintendents.”

The resulting tension between the GOP-controlled legislature and Gov. Bill Lee’s administration could hurt Schwinn and the Republican governor’s chances of providing long-neglected social and emotional health support for students at a time when the pandemic has escalated anxiety and stress for families and school communities.

“Our legislature is conservative and wants to keep government small, but some agencies get exuberant about their ability to create programs out of nowhere,” said Rep. Martin Daniel, the Knoxville Republican who chairs the legislature’s powerful Government Operations Committee.

‘Whole child’

Schwinn pinpointed student mental health as a gaping hole in Tennessee education after Lee picked her in January 2019 as one of his most important hires. In a strategic plan unveiled last November, she made “whole child” education one of three priorities and envisioned using schools to expand mental health, wellness, and social services in Tennessee’s highest-risk schools.

Commissioner Penny Schwinn jumps to her feet on Feb. 3, 2020, as Gov. Bill Lee announced new investments to K-12 education, including a $250 million trust fund to grow mental health services for Tennessee students.

But the coronavirus tanked tax revenues and the funding earmarked by the Lee administration to grow those resources. In June, Schwinn convened a 38-member child well-being task force, including four members of the legislature, to explore the challenges of extended school closures and galvanize communities “to check on our kids.”

The group produced a report, and the department created guidance for local leaders about conducting well-being checks on children from birth to age 18. Schwinn also announced that federal funding would be set aside to assist school districts and hire regional staff.

“There’s no Big Brother intent at all,” Schwinn told conservative Nashville talk show host Brian Wilson one day after her announcement created a firestorm on social media. “This is really about, ‘How do we support school-age children if they are not in school buildings?’ ”

Schwinn declined to speak this week with Chalkbeat, but her chief of staff, Chelsea Crawford, said Thursday that the well-being “toolkit” was an optional resource to guide local decision-making. She said the department is “going back to the drawing board” on how to help vulnerable students.

Meanwhile, Daniel said the Government Operations Committee has yet to receive an explanation from Schwinn saying under what authority she was acting to create what amounted to a new state program. She was scheduled to appear this week before the panel but was pulled from the agenda when Lee’s office intervened. Schwinn is now expected to testify in late September before the House Education Committee.

It wasn’t Schwinn’s first reprieve from answering lawmakers’ questions.

In February, a House subcommittee responsible for overseeing the spending of taxpayer money blasted Schwinn’s department for awarding a no-bid contract for $1.25 million a year to manage a new school voucher program that has since been put on hold. The award, for twice the budgeted amount, also bypassed the legislature’s fiscal review subcommittee. Chairman Matthew Hill, a Republican from Jonesborough, ordered Schwinn to appear with documentation showing exactly how the department decided on the award, but the governor’s office talked him down and no public hearing occurred.

A month later, members of the Senate Education Committee grilled Schwinn during back-to-back meetings about the department’s relationships with several private companies over recent textbook adoptions that prompted a lawsuit by one publisher. They also had questions about discussions with vendors over millions of dollars’ worth of anticipated contracts under a major literacy proposal that the legislature hadn’t approved. Lawmakers dropped a third round of questions when they abruptly recessed in March as the pandemic reached Tennessee.

“The whole COVID thing got us off track with addressing a pattern under Commissioner Schwinn,” said Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Republican from Maury County and a member of the House Education Committee, which had similar concerns. “I think there’s a general sense that this commissioner does what this commissioner wants and is not consulting those who have been elected by the people of Tennessee to be their voice on education policy.”

Big job

Schwinn was named to Lee’s cabinet just days before his inauguration. She had started her career in a Baltimore classroom with Teach for America and founded a charter school in her hometown of Sacramento, California, where she still serves on the board of directors. She later had brief leadership stints with education departments in Delaware and Texas, the latter of which included a controversial no-bid $4.4 million special education contract award in which an audit found Schwinn failed to follow state policies.

Lee has stood by Schwinn from the outset, even as she raised eyebrows with her very first policy initiative, which failed. Last summer, she proposed quick changes to Tennessee’s pioneering model for holding its schools accountable, then retreated after the chairs of the legislature’s two education committees told her to slow down and engage more stakeholders.

Her department also has had a revolving door, with more than 250 departures — mostly from resignations — in the first nine months of her tenure. That 19% departure rate exceeded those of her two predecessors over comparable periods. (The department has not provided updated turnover numbers as of this year, despite Chalkbeat’s multiple requests since February for that information.)

White said the turnover has hurt Schwinn’s ability to work with the legislature.

House Education Chairman Mark White speaks to the Tennessee General Assembly in 2020.

“When you lose a lot of institutional knowledge and experience, you don’t have the staff there to give you the background that you need and things get out without a lot of vetting,” White said. “I think that’s what happened with this child well-being plan. It wasn’t workable. It added more layers of government when we have two other departments who handle those responsibilities.”

Rep. Vincent Dixie, a Nashville Democrat and freshman lawmaker, has a different perspective after two years of serving on the House Education Committee.

“I think Commissioner Schwinn is stuck in a hard place,” Dixie said. “Gov. Lee has not provided clear direction and leadership during the pandemic, and the commissioner has had to make decisions that she’s not communicated clearly with the legislature. I think that’s caused a lot of confusion, miscommunication, and mistrust, but ultimately it all starts at the top.”

One upshot: Lawmakers’ confidence in the education department has deteriorated, and they’re increasingly leaning on the Tennessee State Board of Education, an 11-member body of appointed citizens that works with staff led by Executive Director Sara Morrison. Because of the emerging public health crisis and its impact on schools, the legislature voted last March to give the board emergency authority to address policy questions that crop up while lawmakers are recessed.

Digging in

Asked about legislative discontent with Schwinn’s leadership, the governor’s office pointed to a four-page list of partnerships and resources provided by the education department to support students, educators, and districts during the pandemic.

“Commissioner Schwinn is leading the department through an unprecedented crisis and the most challenging school year in the history of our state,” said Gillum Ferguson, Lee’s press secretary, adding that Schwinn is equipped for the challenge.

Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn greets students at Clay County High School on October 20, 2019, as Gov. Bill Lee watches on.

She also has earned points with superintendents for frequent communication since COVID-19 arrived. Three times a week, Schwinn holds statewide conference calls to discuss everything from federal relief funding to waiver requests to questions about staffing and data sharing during the public health emergency.

“This kind of communication and opportunity to provide feedback is extremely important for superintendents and something we have appreciated from the Commissioner during these challenging times,” said Sara Bunch, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents.

Cepicky wants that same commitment to communication and collaboration with the General Assembly.

“I think a clearing of the air is in order,” he said about meetings set for Sept. 22-23 by the House Education Committee.

Sen. Dolores Gresham, retiring chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee after 12 years at the helm, said she also wants answers after fielding numerous calls and emails from concerned constituents. She’s calling for the commissioner to testify before lawmakers this fall.

“I support the House Education Committee and other legislators’ efforts to get further details or to investigate some of these concerns,” Gresham said.

First lady Melania Trump talks with Tennessee governor about protecting the health and well-being of children

2020-06-18T21:49:39+00:00

First lady Melania Trump spoke this week with Gov. Bill Lee and his education commissioner, Penny Schwinn, about Tennessee’s efforts to address the mental and physical health needs of children and families.

The call on Wednesday came as Lee’s administration on Thursday named 38 members to its long-promised COVID-19 Child Wellbeing Task Force. The group is tasked with making sure Tennessee students are safe, fed, and supported during extended school building closures caused by the public health crisis.

The conversation between Mrs. Trump and Tennessee’s Republican governor was arranged to discuss aspects of the state’s “whole child” initiative, including how the new task force will partner with local nonprofit agencies, churches, and other organizations to check on at-risk students.

As the nation’s first lady, Mrs. Trump has spoken on issues affecting children, even as President Donald Trump has backed policies separating immigrant children from their parents. Cutting child poverty rates also has not been a focus of the Trump administration, which has slashed an array of federal programs designed to help struggling families and children get by. Still, the first lady’s interest in whole child education and well-being spotlights an approach to schooling that seeks to make students not only healthy and safe but also engaged, supported, and challenged.

“The first lady spoke about the importance of ensuring the well-being of all children, including minority children who may face additional barriers to care,” said a statement from the White House, “and Governor Lee and Commissioner Schwinn described how Tennessee is working to reduce barriers and using COVID-19 testing sites as an additional way to connect communities in need with other critical social services.”

Schwinn made educating the “whole child” one of three priorities in Tennessee’s five-year strategic plan unveiled in November. Since the pandemic hit, she has continued to emphasize the role of students’ social and emotional health in academics, although funding for a $250 million student mental health trust fund was cut from the state budget as tax revenues plummeted this spring.

After the governor urged that buildings stay closed for the school year due to the coronavirus, the commissioner announced on April 15 that she would assemble a well-being task force. Asked why its rollout is coming with six weeks left before the planned start of the new school year, a spokeswoman said the impacts of closing school buildings on students’ wellbeing “will likely continue to emerge throughout the summer, into school reopening and beyond.”

Members of the task force, which is scheduled to meet for the first time next week, are:

Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis
Naomi Asher, executive director, United Way of Anderson County
Janet Ayers, president, The Ayers Foundation
Guy Barnard, co-founder, Synchronous Health
Jared Bigham, senior adviser, Workforce and Rural Initiatives, Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Molly Blankenship, executive director, Chattanooga 2.0
Sonji Branch, CEO, Communities in Schools-Memphis
Linda Brown, board president, The ARC
Mary Nell Bryan, president, Children’s Hospital Alliance of Tennessee
Juliana Ospina Cano, executive director, Conexión Américas
Nancy Dishner, president and CEO, Niswonger Foundation
Clark Flatt, president, The Jason Foundation
Alexis Gwin-Miller, co-chair, Education Equity Taskforce, Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope
Sen. Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin
Chief Richard Hall, board president, Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police
Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, D-Chattanooga
Katie Harbison, president, Chambliss Center
Rep. Kirk Haston, R-Lobelville
Kim Henderson, president, Tennessee PTA
Melissa Hudson-Gant, CEO, Big Brothers/Big Sisters
Beth Goodner, CEO, Trust Point Hospital
Elaine Jackson, president, Rural Health Association of Tennessee
Cato Johnson, vice president, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare
David Jordan, president and CEO, Agape Memphis
Shawn Kimble, director, Lauderdale County Schools
Kati Lohr, co-founder, Synchronous Health
Amy Martin, president, Tennessee Cable and Broadband Association
Jerry Martin, president, YMCA of Memphis & the Mid-South
Johnny McDaniel, outgoing superintendent, Lawrence County Schools
Brian McLaughlin, Tennessee Teacher of the Year
Jeff Moorhouse, director, Kingsport City Schools
Chapple Osborne-Arnold, program specialist, Save the Children
Kristen Robinson, advocacy coordinator, Disability Rights Tennessee
Patrick Sheehy, president, Tennessee Business Roundtable
Flora Tydings, president, Tennessee Board of Regents
LeAndrea Ware, Tennessee Principal of the Year
Angela Webster, executive director, Association of Infant Mental Health in Tennessee
Samantha Wigand, CEO, Communities in Schools

What would this Memphis sixth-grade teacher do with a million dollars? Build a library, preschool, and community center.

2019-12-19T19:16:40+00:00

Loren Smith takes a selfie with some of his students.

In the two decades Memphis native Loren Smith has taught in his hometown, he has found that the biggest deterrent to student success is lack of reading skills.

Now a sixth-grade English teacher at Woodstock Middle School in Shelby County Schools, Smith has a plan to boost his students’ reading levels. He just needs a million dollars.

“Most of our students struggle to read very simple words,” Smith said. “If I were a millionaire, I’d provide a library, a preschool/daycare center, and a community center. I think those are the missing pieces to making our students super successful.”

But until he wins the lottery, Smith said he is making headway by encouraging his students to enjoy writing about topics they are passionate about. He gets to the grammar and punctuation later.

“I think that many people can be extremely critical about my students’ abilities to communicate,” he said. “So, the students are afraid of being judged. I take away the judgment. I build their confidence before teaching the skills.”

We spoke with Smith about an interaction with a student that he always remembers, his disdain for early school start times, and his love for chicken wings.

The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How do you get to know your students?

I’ve learned that when you open up to people and come from a place of vulnerability, they trust you easily. So, I share things about my life, and then I have them share about their own hobbies and passions.

A humorous example is my passion for chicken wings. I love to eat chicken wings. And stories about trying another chicken wing spot in town always get my students going. People love to talk about food. The minute that I tell them a chicken wing story, my students are all saying, “Let me tell my story next, please Mr. Smith.”

Tell us about a favorite lesson to teach. Where did the idea come from?

I am very fond of including life lessons in writing lessons. Little people don’t care much for writing but they do like giving oral details about their adventures, mischievous or otherwise. I love their attention to detail when telling a story, and I ask them to translate that into writing.

My feedback to them is so important. But I don’t grade for grammar or structure when doing this kind of lesson. I simply respond to their thoughts. I think that many people can be extremely critical about my students’ abilities to communicate. So, the students are afraid of being judged. I take away the judgment. I build their confidence before teaching the skills.

What object would you be helpless without during the school day?

I am helpless without my laptop. I need it for instruction, communication, looking at data, creating lessons/plans, and ordering food because my school is pretty far out of town.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your class?

Many of my students come from Northaven, an area north of the city. It is a community filled with hard-working families and approximately 5,000 people live there. But there isn’t a library or community center there. The closest ones are miles away in Frayser, a neighborhood south of Northaven.

My students don’t have access to books outside of school. They go home and literally unlearn everything that they learn during the day. Even if parents worked three jobs, a community library or community center with tutoring or engaging reading programs would boost our students’ reading abilities. Most of our students struggle to read very simple words. If I were a millionaire, I’d provide a library, a preschool/daycare center, and a community center. I think those are the missing pieces to making our students super successful.

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when a student changed your perspective or approach.

In my fourth year of teaching, I met a young lady who was very angry with the world. She was a 12-year-old in fifth grade, and she fought often. Slowly, she began to open up to me as I continuously reassured her of her ability to be great. School was starting to become a safe space for her.

I soon discovered that she was the oldest of 10 children, and they were all living in a very cramped space. She was the primary caretaker while her mom worked nights. She was simply overwhelmed. I understood. Her situation made me want to work harder for her. The young lady became one of my best students in a matter of months. She never wanted to miss a day.

One Monday, during lunch, I read the newspaper as I did every day and saw the most heart-wrenching news. I’d like to think that I have a pretty nice grip on my emotions, but at that moment, I bawled like a baby and had to leave the building. Over the weekend, my student’s mother was struck by a vehicle and died. It was a hit and run. The grandmother showed up at the end of the day. She told me that she was taking her grandchildren to Chicago. I never saw the student again.

That moment defined my career focus, it made me realize that I don’t teach for me. I teach because many of our students will have to fend for themselves. They need guidance to be able to do that. They need to know that someone cares enough about their well-being in order for them to even receive knowledge. I often ask my students, “What will you do for yourself if you find that all of the adults are gone? Will your education be relevant, then?”

What part of your job is the most difficult?

After 20 years in this business, I have to say that waking up early is the most difficult thing. Working with people is my peace. But what I can’t figure out is why schools are dedicated to this unnatural start to the school day. Geesh! My mind doesn’t wake up until at least 9 a.m. I clock in at 6:45 a.m. Really?

What was your biggest misconception that you initially brought to teaching?

This is very simple. I thought that teaching was going to be easy. My teachers made it look that way. Growing up, I attended schools within the “optional” program, kind of like a gifted program where students have to test in. They were classes for overzealous students. Those kids wanted to be there. The first time that I ever witnessed students actively avoiding school was when I started teaching.

What are you reading for enjoyment?

Currently, I am reading “The Water Dancer” by Ta-Nehisi Coates. So far, really good.

Once a student with disabilities, this Memphis educator returned to a special education classroom to empower children like her

2019-12-09T20:05:57+00:00

Here, in a feature we call How I Teach, we ask educators who’ve been recognized for their work how they approach their jobs. You can see other pieces in the series here.

Jamilyn Cole’s own experiences as a young student with disabilities put her on a long, winding path to becoming a special education teacher herself.

Jamilyn Cole

“I was surrounded by stories of Helen Keller, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, and Louis Braille,” said Cole, adding that the books on artists and leaders who had disabilities were a large inspiration to her. “By second grade I told my family that I wanted to be a preschool teacher of deaf or blind children.”

Cole – who was diagnosed with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia – first spent more than a decade after college working for museums and in youth development. At age 37, she joined Teach for America to become a teacher in Memphis, finding herself in a special education classroom once again.

She now teachers third- through fifth-grade special education at Libertas School of Memphis, a Montessori school in the Frayser neighborhood. It’s a part of the Achievement School District, a district of charter schools that took over historically low-performing schools.

Cole’s classroom is set up like a typical Montessori classroom, where students work on independent lessons and have more autonomy than in traditional schools. But it’s much smaller in size with 12 students to two teachers. Her students also spend time with the school’s speech, occupational, and physical therapists.

About a quarter of the 364 students at Libertas have a disability. About 13 percent of students in the achievement district have disabilities, which is right at the state average for all Tennessee districts.

We spoke with Cole about her own experience growing up in special education, what her Montessori classroom looks like (and why looks matter), and what she wishes people understood about teaching students with disabilities.

The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Was there a moment when you decided to become a teacher?

Growing up as a special education student myself, I was surrounded by stories of Helen Keller, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, and Louis Braille. By second grade I told my family that I wanted to be a preschool teacher of deaf or blind children. I stayed committed to that goal for many years and during my freshman year of college, I was even a deaf education major. However, shortly after that I took a detour into my second love, history. I spent the next 15 years working in museums and youth development.

At the age of 37, I had the opportunity to join Teach For America and become a teacher in a kindergarten classroom after many, many years of first declaring that was what I wanted to do with my life. At the end of that year, my assistant principal asked me if I’d consider moving into a special education role in the following year. It was one of the best moves of my career.

How did you become aware of your disability? How have your experiences shaped you in the classroom?

I’ve known my whole life. My mom always explained it to me: “I needed a little more help then some other children with some things, but that’s OK because we all have strengths and weaknesses.”

I remember bits and pieces of my preschool experience, where I was exclusively with other kids with disabilities. I still have fond memories of getting to be in the Special Olympics and a therapeutic riding program. By kindergarten, I was mainstreamed – that’s the language we used in the 80s to mean I was put in a traditional classroom setting. While I certainly didn’t know that language at 5 years old, I did know that I left my classroom for speech and physical therapy weekly. I continued in physical and speech therapy for the next five years. By third grade my learning disabilities were diagnosed and I was now leaving the room with a special education teacher to work on math, writing, and spelling skills due to my dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia diagnosis.

As a young child, Jamilyn Cole was part of a therapeutic riding program.

I started going to my own meetings for my special education plans in middle school and shortly after was advocating for my own accommodations, which I continued into college and the workforce. It wasn’t until I was an adult working at my first job out of graduate school, struggling to manage my workflow and stay organized, that I was finally diagnosed with adult ADHD. Learning disabilities don’t go away when you finish school.

As an adult I’m very transparent about my struggles in school to staff, parents and students. It’s helped me help soothe a parents’ concerns or fears when a child is first being diagnosed and they don’t know what the future might hold for them. I remember how hard my mom, teachers, and I had to advocate for accommodations that I needed like additional time on tests, assistive technology, dictation, audiobooks and more. I know as a child what it’s like to feel like everyone else was learning something and I couldn’t. But I also know what it’s like to keep working at something until it finally clicks.

Due to my own struggles, I am always trying to find a way to make learning as concrete and hands-on as possible, which fits perfectly with Montessori. History always seemed to come naturally to me, and I was immersed in it from a young age, having grown up in Virginia. As a child, I wrote with a quill pen, visited Mount Veron, and saw Native American artifacts at Jamestown. While I can’t take my children to all those places, we have made our own ink from berries, written with a quill pen, and held Native American artifacts.

How are the set up and aesthetics of your classroom different than a traditional classroom? Why is that important when teaching students with disabilities?

A Montessori elementary classroom is purposefully set up very differently than a traditional classroom. There are no desks in rows but tables for small groups of students to work together or independently. As a teacher, I am not at the front of the room, but usually on the floor or at a table presenting a lesson. We always have at least two educators in a classroom.

The floors are often covered with beautiful carpets, so students can do large work comfortably on the floor. You won’t find bright, “kid-friendly” decorations on the walls, but rather beautiful art. The brightest objects in the room are meant to be the materials on the shelves, so the students will be attracted to the material and excited to work with them. We keep the lights low and soft music on to help maintain a calm environment. In addition, we have a sensory shelf where students can access headphones, sensory bottles, fidgets, and other tools that they might need.

A Montessori classroom is always designed to serve three grade levels. In working with students with disabilities, this is especially important because it means I already have a variety of materials, and students know in a Montessori classroom that they will be working on different things as they need them and that’s ok.

How do you get to know your students?

Getting to know your students isn’t something that happens all at once or overnight. I try to meet all of my students and their families before school starts in the fall. From that moment on, I’m always getting to know my students. Some of the best moments are during breakfast, recess or during a transition; it’s in those moments when I really need to be present and focus on the tidbits of information they’re sharing with me. When I do that, then I know whose family has a new baby brother or sister, whose grandmother is sick, what their favorite movie is, whose favorite animal is the orca, and so on.

Tell us about a favorite lesson to teach. Where did the idea come from?

With our Montessori materials and curriculum, there are so many lessons that come alive in a way that I haven’t seen in traditional classrooms. One of my favorites is the “Timeline of Life” or evolutionary timeline. This is a timeline about 3 feet wide and 10 feet long. As it’s unrolled, colorful illustrations reveal a great variety of life forms that have existed in the last 600 million years or so. Along the top of the timeline are bands showing the geological eras and periods, along the bottom are inset pictures of maps showing location of landmasses.

Cole’s Montessori classroom

In the first presentation we pick a few animals or plants and tell their stories: give defining features and discuss how they adapted to their environment over time in the Earth’s history. This makes such an incredible impression on the children. For many students, this is the lesson that gets them interested in research for the first time. This year, our students chose an animal from the timeline they wanted to learn more about. After investigating that animal here at school, we went to the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis so they could continue their research. As a former museum educator, I of course love when we can use museum resources in the classroom in addition to field trips.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your class?

Many in our community are struggling with poverty, violence, incarceration, access to services, food insecurity, and trauma. Our community is also filled with parent and community advocacy groups working to empower each other.

Our students aren’t always able to complete reading homework because they don’t have access to books at home. Fortunately, our school has just started a new lending library to help meet that need.

And our families are extremely involved in our school. We have over 2000 hours of family involvement every year. Families volunteer, visit classrooms, and come to our many family events. That is a giant help to our teachers.

What do you wish people outside of the education community (or maybe even within) understood about teaching students with disabilities?

Students with disabilities have strengths and weaknesses just like the rest of us. Every student has strengths that we can build on.

Having a disability does not mean one can’t learn or won’t, it simply means the student may need to be taught in a different way. Having a disability doesn’t necessarily mean that a student won’t be able to go onto secondary education or have meaningful work.

What part of your job is most difficult?

One of the most rewarding and difficult parts of my job is teaching our students emotional regulation skills. Our students struggle to regulate their emotions and how they relate to others. However, I’m blessed to work with an amazing classroom team, school team, therapists, and families who all support our students.

What are you reading for enjoyment?

In typical fashion for someone with ADHD, I’m always reading multiple books at once! I just finished “Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom” by Patricia Jennings, which was a refreshing read.

I’m currently reading “The Yes Brain” by Dan Siegel, which was recommended by our wonderful school counselor and is changing how I look at students’ emotional responses. I’m also reading “How To Be An Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi.

Why creating an ‘oasis’ in his classroom is important to this Memphis teacher

2019-11-11T20:40:20+00:00

C.J. Harris said that one of his greatest challenges as a teacher in Memphis is keeping students’ “trials and tribulations” far away from his classroom.

“I try to make my class an oasis from the storms that scholars go through,” said the first-grade English teacher at Promise Academy Spring Hill Elementary School. “I try to keep the learning process as untouched from those things as possible.”

But Harris also acknowledges that sometimes he can’t keep his students detached from the family struggles they may face. He said he tries to help his students better understand their emotions because it’s difficult to teach them how to read if they can’t first process what’s on their minds.

He added that it’s important to be an everyday part of his students’ lives, even after they leave his classroom. Harris reflected on one student in particular that he is still close to.

“I’ve seen him cry during the turbulent times in his life and explode with laughter as I stood up on a table during a particularly silly lesson,” Harris said. “I earned his trust and respect by standing resolute and being a consistent part of his growth.”

We spoke with Harris about how he gets to know his students, what his classroom oasis looks like, and why getting to know a student’s family is important.

He was one of five Memphis educators selected by nonprofit New Memphis for its second round of winners of the Educators of Excellence Awards, which honors teachers in some of Memphis’ highest-needs schools with a prize of $1,500.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Who inspired your teaching style?

I had two amazing teachers when I moved here from Germany. They were instrumental in pushing me toward becoming the educator I am today because of the firm but fair demeanor they both possessed. They took the time to develop me as a whole student, not just academically. Many life skills I instill in my scholars today are from the blueprint they gave me.

What student or accomplishment are you most proud of?

C.J. Harris

When I think specifically on the scholars that I’ve gotten to know inside and outside of the classroom, a relationship I am particularly proud of is one that I’ve cultivated with a former student.

I still remember the day he walked into my classroom bright-eyed and nervous as he tentatively found his seat. Little did he know that that was my first day as a lead teacher and his apprehensions were matched with my own. Since that day, I’ve celebrated two birthdays, consoled him in losses, and seen him raise academic and athletic trophies. None of those things would have been possible without investing time, affection, and plenty of what every great teacher needs: patience. I’ve seen him cry during the turbulent times in his life and explode with laughter as I stood up on a table during a particularly silly lesson. I earned his trust and respect by standing resolute and being a consistent part of his growth. I try to represent a tangible goal for him to aspire to.

What do you enjoy most about teaching?

I really enjoy teaching in one-on-one settings like guided reading, tutoring, or even coaching other teachers. It is a time for the student to build their confidence through engaging and exciting “at-bats,” or when I ask them specific questions. I always outline the positives and then build on “next time let’s try.” I feel like that’s a very effective way to communicate in general.

What object would you be helpless without during the school day?

Markers, for sure, but I have a hat that has been with me for years that I prefer to keep with me as well.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your class?

I try to make my class an oasis from the storms that scholars go through. Our community is one with many trials and tribulations that do not discriminate because of age, and I try to keep the learning process as untouched from those things as possible.

The definition of an oasis is a fertile spot in an otherwise dry and barren land. Though physically my students do not live in the desert – although food deserts are prevalent and plentiful in the urban landscapes of Memphis – I’m speaking mostly in an emotional or academic sense. Students aren’t being taught to properly internalize and adapt to new emotions, so they are left on their own to digest these new feelings. Too often, they can’t process their emotions and act out. This ties hand-in-hand with the academic divide, where many of these children in an urban school find themselves on the wrong side of that divide, and they are frustrated. And a fixable cycle continues.

What role do parents play in helping your students learn?

I enjoy communicating with my scholar’s families and treat them like we’re a team. Time and time again my enthusiasm to be open and willing is met equally. When parents buy into that thought process, my relationships become deeper with students and even extend past the life of the school year.

That’s particularly important because I feel that teaching the whole student is the only way to build the leaders of tomorrow. I watch scholars all the time attempt to do things they wouldn’t do at home and it’s always entertaining when you pull your phone out and have the parent remind them of our expectations for that student.

Many times scholars have so many things going on at home they don’t get celebrated the way they should for exemplary work. Calling a mom on a lunch break to let them know how amazing their scholar is doing is one of the most effective forms of positive reinforcement that I use in the classroom.

What part of your job is the most difficult?

Seeing so much potential on the first day of school and realizing that this is a marathon and not a race, so I should not be disheartened if the scholars don’t reach every goal every time.

What was your biggest misconception that you initially brought to teaching?

A misconception I had was that the kids in urban settings were not as prepared mentally as their counterparts on the other side of the education gap. I have since learned that these young minds are just as ready to learn in rigorous environments. Oftentimes, it’s just a matter of working past the turbulence in their little worlds that can sometimes skew their drive and ambition.

What’s the best advice you’ve received about teaching?

In regards to my teaching style: “Be like Ms. Frizzle, don’t be afraid to shrink your kids to explore an atom or turn them into trees to watch plant life cycles…” and “Everything doesn’t work for everybody, do what works for you.”

Five questions with the Memphis pastor on a mission to raise awareness around childhood trauma

2019-10-23T17:32:05+00:00

Longtime pastor and community activist Charlie Caswell knows there isn’t a silver bullet for improving the lives of students in poverty in Shelby County, but he firmly believes he’s come as close as possible to finding one.

For Caswell, a high school dropout from the Frayser neighborhood in northwest Memphis, learning about childhood trauma changed his life. Studying adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, gave Caswell the language he needed to process his own childhood wounds. And it empowered him to become an ACEs evangelist, preaching to anyone who will listen — but especially to educators, school district leaders, and even governors — that awareness of childhood trauma can improve the lives of the most vulnerable students.

Caswell worked with Sen. Katrina Robinson, D-Memphis, to craft a bill signed into law this year that asks schools to consider traumatic experiences in students’ lives when determining discipline practices.

He’s trained more than 900 people in the last year on how to identify students dealing with traumatic experiences. Caswell also created Legacy of Legends, a community development corporation that’s partnering with the University of Tennessee and health professionals to work with those students. The group will host its grand opening at a church in Frayser later this month. Legacy of Legends is currently working with 30 students, and Caswell hopes to reach 100 students this year.

Childhood trauma negatively affects a child’s ability to learn. Researchers have tied stressful events such as divorces, deportations, neglect, sexual abuse, and gun violence to behavioral problems, lower math and reading scores, and poor health. This research is especially relevant in Memphis, where childhood poverty is on the rise and gun violence is prevalent.

Chalkbeat spoke with Caswell about his childhood, forming Legacy of Legends, and why he hopes every person in Memphis undergoes training on adverse childhood experiences. This interview has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity.

What was your education experience like growing up in Memphis? How does your childhood influence the work you do today?

I grew up in housing projects and went to Carnes Elementary School, which is closed now. Actually, my elementary school and high school both are closed, and my middle school was taken over by the state. I went to Humes when it was a junior high school, but unfortunately, I had some incidents there where I was kicked out.

In ninth grade, a fight happened at the school with my friends. I didn’t fight, but I was rounded up in the group and sent to juvenile court. I was locked up when I was 15. I saw my old principal again for the first time when I was doing a district training a few months ago. I always say that we have to be willing to ask “what happened to the children?” not “what’s wrong with these children?” If someone had asked me what had happened, maybe I wouldn’t have gone to jail. Now that experience really helps me to deal with how you can be a good child in a bad place and at the wrong time. It helps me to relate to kids who are talked about as being “bad” when I know bad things might have happened to them, but they aren’t bad.

I went to Northside [High School], and coming from a community of drugs and feeling like my teachers didn’t care, I felt like I was wasting my time. I actually paid some of my teachers to let others write my papers for me — that’s how little they cared and I tried. I dropped out. I thought that I might either be dead or in jail in this community anyway, so why put forth a real effort.

How did you go from that 18-year-old who believed he’d die or end up in jail to the person you are today? How did you become passionate about addressing issues of childhood trauma?

Just like the things in my childhood that broke me, there were pieces that built me up and gave me hope. There was a gentleman named Toney Armstrong who was our former police director, but back when I was a kid he dated my sister when he was a rookie cop. When Toney became a cop, one of the arrests he made was on my brother, and he told me, “Chuck, you’re not going to be like your brother.” And he looked out for me; he’d come play ball with us. The Boys & Girls Club used to bring a bus to the neighborhood to pick up kids for games, and when he heard that I wasn’t on the bus, he’d ask the director to come get me. It was that — it was people coming back for me that now reminds me that I have to go back for the least of these.

Caswell currently works with 30 students and hopes to reach 100 students this year.

But when I really changed was after seeing my older brother, who I thought was the man, get sentenced to 10 years in jail. Then a friend of mine shot another friend. And I watched another friend get shot in the head a year later. I just decided I didn’t want to die, you know? I got a job at a car lot. I started doing car washes out of the trunk of my car when I was 17 years old. I ended up becoming the manager of a car lot, then the finance manager, then took over the dealership. I became a pastor. I started reading everything I could on childhood trauma, on ACEs, and it all started clicking. I realized how my whole life had been influenced, had been colored, by what happened to me early on. And while that wasn’t the end of me, I knew I needed to get my own residual anger in check. And I really needed to help others with understanding their own trauma and fighting against its effects in their own lives.

How are you taking what you’ve learned into Memphis schools and the broader community?

There’s a program we’re doing called Wraparound Frayser that focuses on providing assessments to determine trauma or ACEs that a child may have experienced and then provides high-fidelity wraparound services and work with my team and that family to surround that child, right? We have five people on staff now. We partner with Ascent Health to do therapy sessions. We’re also partnering with FACES for a community engagement specialist. The model we’re doing now is a pilot to show that a community-based organization can partner with clinical-based companies and build a high-fidelity wraparound model.

Schools refer students to us, churches can refer to us. Parents have started coming to us directly. When a child is referred to us, we first do an ACE assessment with the child and parent, and then a resilience assessment. The resilience assessment goes even deeper with questions like, “Do you feel like your mama or daddy was there for you?” “Did someone in your family care about how you were doing in school?” The reason we have both the child and the parent do this is because oftentimes parents themselves also have had traumatic experiences that they’ve never dealt with. How can their child work on this if the parent has never dealt with their own challenges?

Then, with the family and children, we make a set of goals that we work on with them. We have another grant that’s going to allow us to expand this work beyond the neighborhood of Frayser. We’re going to work with 100 kids this year, and hopefully 400 kids in the future across Shelby County. It’s a movement, right?

In addition to the one-on-one work with students and families, you’ve also been focused on training to raise awareness of ACEs among adults. Tell me more about that.

I’ve done trainings with police and politicians on how trauma impacts our young children. I just went through a two-day training with Shelby County Schools Board Commissioner Stephanie Love on how brain development is impacted by traumatic experiences. Now Ms. Love is trained to facilitate that same program and she’s focused on trying to train more parents and the district. She’s a board member equipped with this now, right? That’s the type of influence we want.

But within the schools, it has been hard to help teachers go from their head knowledge to heart knowledge, if you will. They know with their head that their students are going through a lot, but that doesn’t impact how they view discipline. For example, after I did a training at a school I had a principal come talk to me because her teachers were still coming to ask to send children home because they said they were “off the chain.” Send them home to what is traumatizing them? That’s not going to help what we need to be doing. But it also can’t be fair to put that on this teacher, who has 29 other students who need her to teach and she can’t teach with this child in her class right now. So, instead of sending that child home or putting them in the hallway, we need wraparound services. We need someone to call to come work with that child and get them to a place where they can get back to learning that day, and also work on their long-term health.

There’s a tension I feel and hear when talking to some educators that parents need to be more involved in their children’s lives, and that will make their behavior better. And then when I talk to parents, they feel that schools aren’t doing enough for their child. What do you think about this tension?

The parent is right, and so is the teacher. Yes, it is the parents’ responsibility for the behavior of their child. But many of the parents who you are asking to step up, when you dig to the root of their lives, you’re going to see the discrimination, you’re going to see the poverty and the systems that were created intentionally that held people back. It’s not just as easy to pull yourself up and help your family. And some parents are trying incredibly hard and working multiple jobs, trying to secure a more stable home, more stable transportation for their kids. Again, the teacher has 30 children to educate and can’t be expected to be a teacher and a counselor. What I’m saying is that it’s not a good plan to keep blaming someone else to step up. I’m saying that we as the community have to step up for our children.

It’s hard to be innovative; it’s hard to do something different when you don’t have the money. When you look at a place like my old high school, Northside, where we knew the poverty level is high. We knew the crime level is high, but yet we still allow these children to go to a school that’s got 30 kids to one teacher, and now that teacher has to come deal with all of that trauma herself? Can’t we do better than that as a community? As a state? We can figure out new ways to fund this trauma-informed, trauma-responsive work. That’s my life’s work now.

This article tackles a topic raised during our 2019 Listening Tour. Read more about the 2019 Listening Tour here, and see more stories inspired by community input here.

Perfecting her craft: Why this Memphis educator couldn’t teach without support from her mom and former teachers

2019-10-15T15:17:42+00:00

Two of Regina DeLoach’s former elementary school teachers still message her on Facebook to check on how she is doing.

DeLoach said her second- and third-grade educators inspired her to go into teaching, and she got to work alongside them before they retired. Now in her 15th year as a special education teacher at Westhaven Elementary School, DeLoach says she still leans on their wisdom.

“They made learning fun and set a solid foundation for my love of learning,” she said. “They never forgot about me after I moved on to the next grade, even during high school and college. Still to this day, they ask my mother about me or send me a random message on Facebook to encourage or motivate me.”

DeLoach added that the best advice she has received came from her second-grade teacher, who encouraged her during her first year of teaching when some of her student’s grades were disappointing.

“She reminded me to never get discouraged and ‘Always remember if you are teaching, the students will learn. Don’t focus on numbers from the data wall, focus on delivering quality instruction and the numbers will come!”’

DeLoach spoke with Chalkbeat about the factors outside of her classroom that affect her students, why she couldn’t teach without her family, and why her favorite lesson to teach is on modes of communication. She was one of five Memphis educators selected by nonprofit New Memphis for its second class of the Educators of Excellence Awards, which honors nominated teachers in some of Memphis’ highest-needs schools with a prize of $1,500.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Was there a moment when you decided to become a teacher?

I have always aspired to become an educator. My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Nelson, and my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Cunningham, were excellent role models and former colleagues. I had the opportunity to work with them both during my third year of teaching before they retired.

I admired their love for education and their students. They made learning fun and set a solid foundation for my love of learning. They never forgot about me after I moved on to the next grade, even during high school and college. Still to this day, they ask my mother about me or send me a random message on Facebook to encourage or motivate me. I will never forget the impact they had on my education. I strive to be an educator like Mrs. Nelson and Mrs. Cunningham.

How do you get to know your students?

Building transparent and open relationships allows me to get to know my students and their families. I build warm, but strict, relationships where students know I have high expectations for them and I will not make exceptions to the expectations or rules already in place. They also know that I still love them and want what is best for them.

Tell us about a favorite lesson to teach.

My favorite lesson to teach was on modes of communication. The students explored both electronic and non-electronic communication. We researched the Pony Express, smoke signals, Morse code, hieroglyphics, and telegraphs. We also took a trip to the post office, and set up email addresses.

While reading the Flat Stanley book series, students created their own “flat person” and sent them on an adventure to a family member, friend or pen pal via a letter or email. I loved to see the looks on the students’ faces when they received a letter/package at the school or an email with their returned flat person explaining the adventure.

What object would you be helpless without during the school day?

Regina DeLoach

I would be helpless without the picture of my family, which has always sat on or near my desk.

From fulfilling my Amazon classroom wish list to the daily motivational text message I receive from my mother, my family has always supported and encouraged me. The picture reminds me that just like my family is my biggest cheerleader, I must be the biggest cheerleader for my students by cheering them on to academic, social, and emotional success.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your class?

Several things out of my control and outside of school – violence, crime, poverty, and other traumatic experiences – affect what goes on inside my class. However, I cannot and do not allow those situations to affect my job as an educator.

I lean on my school’s counselors, as well as wraparound services provided to students, and social emotional professional development and training provided by the district, to ensure that each student feels comfortable, safe, and successful while in my care.

Tell us about a time when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.

As a special educator, I am tasked with advocating for my students to receive a quality education with additional services, if needed. While completing an initial individualized education plan meeting, a parent stopping me during the meeting because I was talking too fast and everything was confusing. I started the meeting over and explained each component to ensure the parent had a good understanding. That meeting changed my approach when conducting meetings. I not only must ensure that meetings are conducted and followed for compliance, but I must ensure that my parents are truly informed and have a clear understanding so that their child’s academic and social emotional needs are met.

What part of your job is most difficult?

The most difficult part of my job is not being able to control (or shield) the experiences and situations that impact my students. Some students are faced with so many things, they do not have the opportunity to simply be a child. Each day I strive to improve the quality of life that my students will experience after high school by offering them a quality education. I know that if my students believe in themselves regardless of uncontrollable circumstances and are provided the resources and mentors needed to meet their needs, they will persevere through challenges and be successful in their adult lives. This mindset drives my actions each day.

What was your biggest misconception that you initially brought to teaching?

Having the summer off is the biggest misconception I initially brought to teaching. I always find myself participating in something pertaining to education during the summer months. During the summer months, I’m either teaching summer school, attending professional development or taking graduate classes/courses. I am always in “school.” I’m always perfecting my craft either teaching, learning, or both.

What are you reading for enjoyment?

I am currently reading No Opportunity Wasted: The Art of Execution by Bishop Joseph W. Walker III. As an aspiring administrator, I want to ensure I take advantage of every opportunity I am presented to help me as I prepare to? impact the future leaders of tomorrow.

What’s the best advice you’ve received about teaching?

The best advice I’ve received about teaching came from my second-grade teacher who I also had the pleasure of teaching with. During my first year of teaching second grade, I felt overwhelmed after receiving the first quarter of student data.

She reminded me to never get discouraged and “Always remember if you are teaching, the students will learn. Don’t focus on numbers from the data wall, focus on delivering quality instruction and the numbers will come!”