Knox County school board members will decide Dec. 4 whether to support a Tennessee bill requiring schools to verify students’ immigration status before allowing them into the classroom.
The General Assembly could take up a bill in 2026 designed specifically to challenge a 1982 Supreme Court decision that guarantees access to public schools for all children regardless of their immigration status. Two school board members – Katherine Bike and Anne Templeton – are urging their colleagues to tell lawmakers the Knox County school board opposes the bill.
A new Christian nonprofit attempting to operate a charter school in Knoxville has sued the Knox County Board of Education, asserting the board discriminated against the nonprofit because state and local policies won’t allow “unapologetically Christian” schools to apply.
I suspect that since state dollars flow to explicitly religious private schools by way of vouchers, there’s really little difference when the state and/or a local school board sends funds to an explicitly religious charter school.
Wilberforce Academy is hardly the first openly religious school to offer the pretense of being a fully “public” charter school.
Five proposed charter schools affiliated with controversial Michigan-based Hillsdale College would drain more than $17 million from Tennessee suburban and rural public schools during their first year of operation and roughly $35 million per year at maximum enrollment, according to a new fiscal analysis by Public School Partners (PSP) and Charter Fiscal Impact.
Divided School Board votes against adding Lee’s voucher scam to legislative agenda
The Knox County School Board will not ask lawmakers to support Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher push, despite an attempt by the Board’s GOP majority to adopt the issue.
All Republicans except District 5 representative Lauren Morgan and District 9 representative Kristi Kristy voted Jan. 9 in favor of asking lawmakers to expand Tennessee’s private school voucher program. Kristy took a “pass” vote and Morgan voted “no.”
Morgan explained her “no” vote:
I don’t believe it’s in this board’s realm of duties to make vouchers a legislative priority as we don’t have control over what the legislator does. I think it’s our job here on this board to make Knox County Schools the best that they can possibly be and be the place where our students and our families want to get an education and choose to go to school.”
The Knox County School Board has joined a number of districts across the state calling on lawmakers to make changes to the state’s new third grade retention law.
The Knoxville News-Sentinelnotes that as written, the law could mean about 2700 third grade students in Knox County will be held back this year – unless they undergo summer tutoring and/or remediation during the 2023-24 school year.
A state law that goes into effect this year requires that students not testing at “met expectations” – reading at grade level – according to TNReady results, must be retained or complete a summer remediation program.
An article in the Maryville Daily Times explains what this might mean in practice.
The law applies to students who score at the “below expectations” or “approaching expectations” performance levels on the TCAP exam. Statewide, that could mean two-thirds of third graders, Winstead explained. However, Maryville’s third grade ELA performance last spring was ranked sixth in the state, with 60% meeting or exceeding expectations.
That left 40%, 174 children, potentially affected if the law had been in place. However, with exemptions for new English learners, students with disabilities that affect reading and previously retained students, the number drops to 122.
Across the state, districts are asking policymakers to tweak the law to give them flexibility.
It should be noted that the state has provided zero additional funding to districts to support the required remediation.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Here’s a great breakdown of the Knox County School Board races from a local blogger. In it, he explains why he thinks school board races are so important this year:
Probably the biggest threat to public education is the charter school movement. Designed at its heart to divert funding from public schools to private, often religious, schools, it serves as an existential threat to a free and equal public education in the United States. While “school choice” is an appealing phrase, the reality is that these schools diminish funding where most middle and lower socio-economic status children attend to give a tailored, often much less regulated, experience for those who desire their children to be segregated.
When it comes to endorsements, here are the recommendations:
District 1 – John Butler
District 4 – Katherine Bike
District 6 – Phillip Sherman
District 7 – Dominique Oakley
District 9 – Annabel Henley
Reasons for the endorsements are offered in each case along with a plea to restore some sanity to the overall operation of the School Board.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
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Knox County School Board candidate Kat Bike issued a statement today calling out a deceptive campaign tactic known as “push polling” which she suggests is spreading misleading information about her to voters.
Here’s the campaign’s statement:
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.
Betty Bean in Knox TN Todayreports on the campaign of Kat Bike for Knox County School Board:
District 4 school board candidate Katherine “Kat” Bike has maybe one-tenth the campaign kitty that her opponent has amassed, but she’s banking on fighting the money gap with what appears to be a bottomless reservoir of energy.
Bike is the parent of two Knox County Schools students.
Knox County is down to two finalists to become the district’s next Superintendent.
The choices are current Knox County Assistant Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer Jon Rysewyk and Bradley County Superintendent Linda Cash.
During a forum with both candidates, WBIR reports that Rysewyk made this statement:
“The new name of the game isn’t recruiting — it’s how to build alternative pipelines to manufacture high-quality teachers,”
That’s an interesting way to put the development of teaching talent – the intentional recruitment and retention strategies used to attract PEOPLE to the profession. Not sure exactly where teachers are manufactured.
The statement from Rysewyk reminded me of yet another story out of Knox County:
After a federal judge on Friday ruled that Knox County Schools must make masks mandatory, a group of parents began organizing a protest – suggesting they would send their kids to school without masks and then refuse to pick them up. Then, the planned protests escalated to using cars to block entrances to schools. Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs tweeted in favor of resisting the judge’s order. Now, though, the school system has closed for tomorrow as the district prepares to both enforce the judge’s ruling and deal with the protesting parents. The Knox County School Board had previously refused to issue the type of mandatory mask order that is in effect in a number of school districts across the state.
Here’s more on the story in a series of tweets from various players:
Rep. Gloria Johnson reports on the protest escalating:
Really concerning to me that an anti-mask group just met saying they need to bring Knox County Schools to a halt (to applause) and asked folks to block the entrances to schools with their cars-including not letting school buses in. This is not a group that cares about kids.
The end result: Schools are closed in Knox County tomorrow. Ostensibly, they will reopen Tuesday. However, it is not yet clear how the schools will go about enforcing the mandate and keeping kids safe in light of the escalating rhetoric around protesting the mandate.
Superintendent Bob Thomas shared the attached message with families this evening. (9.26.21) pic.twitter.com/HdajIIxJAX
A federal judge has ordered Knox County Schools to mandate masks with no opt-out in order to protect student safety. The move follows a recent order by a federal judge that Shelby County Schools may enforce a mask mandate with no opt-out in defiance of Gov. Bill Lee’s executive order requiring an opt-out option.
Knox County Schools must require all staff and students to wear masks in schools while a lawsuit by families of disabled children plays out, a federal judge ruled Friday. The ruling takes effect immediately.
U.S. District Judge J. Ronnie Greer also blocked Gov. Bill Lee’s executive order allowing Knox County Schools parents to opt out of the mask mandate. The judge’s ruling only applies to the school district.
The governor’s executive order was already set to expire Oct. 5. Jessica Salonus, a lawyer representing the four families who are suing the Knox County Board of Education and the governor, said that even if Lee extends his opt-out order, it still won’t apply in Knox County.
A similar lawsuit is now pending in Williamson County.
The rulings in Shelby and Knox counties mean that Lee’s opt-out order is essentially a moot point in two of the state’s four largest school districts.
