2022 Nashville Chamber Education Report

2021 Education Report

Recommendations Status Update

Every year, the committee assesses whether the previous year’s recommendations were implemented, partially implemented, or not implemented.

For 2021, 9 out of the 9 recommendations for MNPS were implemented.

Driving Instruction

A principal should be assigned to a school based on their leadership competencies, showing that they are equipped to meet the diverse needs of the school. A matching rubric should be created that compares the candidate’s skill set against the school’s needs.
Implemented
In alignment with the recommendation, MNPS has paired the Leadership Framework with the principal hiring process to create a robust matching process that not only assesses the applicant’s leadership skills but also includes assessing the diverse needs of the school and determining whether the applicant would be a match for that particular school. The district uses a rigorous process that involves gathering feedback from all school stakeholder groups in the selection.

Driving Instruction

Address non-academic needs of students through community cultivation and administrator engagement, allowing principals to focus more directly on teacher preparedness and the academic needs and growth of students.
Implemented
The Education Report Committee shed light into the non-academic needs of students, and with the strategic investment of ESSER funds, MNPS has significantly expanded its number of schools that fall under the Community Achieves umbrella by partnering with Family and Children’s Service to expand from 35 schools to 58 in 2022-23 and now serving approximately 34,500 students. MNPS also has continued to invest in its partnership with Communities In Schools of Tennessee, which is embedded in eight of the district’s schools. These efforts to coordinate wraparound services allow school leaders to focus more on academic engagement and quality instruction.

Driving Instruction

As each student is led to academic success, relationships between students and staff, like their Navigator, must remain dynamic throughout the student’s academic career, ideally with one identified individual. Principals are effectively allocating resources to ensure all students are known, and the pathway for such is created and supported.
Implemented
We appreciate the Education Report Committee recognizing the dynamic relationships necessary for student success. MNPS is in its third year of the Navigator program to support students and understand and meet their needs by pairing each student with a staff member who is invested in their success. The Support Hub continues to provide ongoing support and guidance to support the quality implementation of the program, including guidance on how to allocate time in the school day to allow for quality adult-to-student connections.

Prioritizing Talent

To attract and retain diverse talent, MNPS should utilize and enhance residency programs in support of the teacher/principal pipeline. This pipeline should first focus on local, homegrown talent and those placed in interim positions.
Implemented
MNPS agrees with this approach to recruiting amazing teachers to serve Nashville’s students and appreciates the Committee’s endorsement of the idea. The district is continuing longstanding partnerships with local teacher residency programs and places candidates annually with mentor teachers. Additionally, MNPS is now using ESSER funds to launch the “Reimagining the Teaching Job” pilot, which supports a cohort of eight schools to creatively design teacher roles that are sustainable and grow teacher residents, paraprofessionals, and other community members to be ready for teacher roles. MNPS also has started a “Grow Your Own” program that allows support staff to receive a no-cost education to prepare them to become licensed teachers in our schools. The Aspiring Principals Program (APP) is a leadership pipeline initiative that focuses on preparing assistant principals for the executive principalship through a cohort model that combines training in instructional leadership practices with real-world experiences.

Prioritizing Talent

Administrators should incorporate internal and external developmental opportunities to allow education professionals time to recharge and explore throughout the year.
Implemented
In conjunction with the Education Report Committee’s recommendation, MNPS offers and is expanding internal and external professional development opportunities.

Prioritizing Talent

Principals are encouraged to set a community-driven vision for their schools, emphasizing families, businesses, social enterprises, etc.
Implemented
MNPS agreed with the Committee’s recommendation and continues to require a community-driven partnership in school improvement plans, requiring parent and community engagement in the school budgeting and improvement process. Additionally, MNPS has expanded the work for MNPS ReimaginED to develop clear cluster-wide plans for feeder patterns.

Managing Operations

Hire or identify a program coordinator or program liaison within each school and/or cluster who acts as an outreach coordinator between that school/cluster and the community.
Implemented
MNPS agrees that principals need additional staff to help coordinate with the community so the principal can remain focused on leading instruction. As discussed with previous recommendations, MNPS has since expanded positions that will help support these efforts outlined in the report. About half of our schools have Community Achieves or Communities In Schools of Tennessee coordinators on site, and the others can use ESSER, Title I or student-based budgeting funds to pay for a range of similarly positioned roles that can improve school-community participation. In addition, all schools must designate a School Improvement Team Lead and a HERO lead, who serve as points of contact for external and community engagement.

Managing Operations

Principals should have the opportunity to enter into a peer relationship with a business leader that is mutually supportive for both the school leader and the community member.
Implemented
Principals have this opportunity, and every October the Principal for a Day program, sponsored by PENCIL, connects each principal with a community member interested in seeing how our schools operate as a community supporter.

Managing Operations

Modify the principal evaluation rubric to clearly define and appropriately weigh the “Look For” behaviors to successfully manage operations.
Implemented
By State Board of Education rule, MNPS uses the adopted TEAM framework.

Recommendations for the Mayor's Office

Align the city’s resources to meet the growing and diverse needs of students.
In-Progress (will be fully implemented by Feb 2023)

In September, Mayor Cooper announced his Agenda for Nashville’s Young People with the ultimate and ambitious goal of making Nashville the best place in the south to grow up. As part of that Agenda, Nashville will be launching its first ever municipal Children’s Cabinet. This effort is part of a larger goal to increase the city’s alignment and coordination to meet the growing and diverse needs of students and families. The Children’s Cabinet is a convening of all local metropolitan government agencies that serve children and youth that prioritizes improvement and collective impact to meet the needs of students. In most municipalities, there is no designated forum for regular collaboration among all government agencies that service children and youth. A children’s cabinet provides a space for local government agencies to develop a shared vision for children in the Nashville community, and then work together to make that vision a reality. By seamlessly coordinating supports and services that our community provides, the Children’s Cabinet will address young people’s holistic needs as they grow and develop. Creating common goals, sharing and comparing data, and addressing gaps or application in resources will allow Nashville government department heads to create and maintain stronger policies and more holistic decision making. These policies and decisions will allow the programs and services that they govern to have an even greater impact on children and youth. By bridging silos and driving collaborative action, the Children’s Cabinet will align resources, close programming gaps and reduce duplication, and prepares all children and young people to grow and thrive from birth to adulthood.  The Children’s Cabinet will be one of the structures that promotes and actively maintains municipal alignment of resources to promote the holistic, diverse needs of youth. The cabinet will meet monthly from February to May and quarterly starting July 2024.

Recommendations for the Mayor's Office

As professional development opportunities are scheduled for city employees, invite MNPS Administrators and educators to the table.
In-Progress
Increased collaboration and alignment is important to Mayor Cooper. MNPS has a separate and independent HR function than Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County. Therefore, integrating professional development opportunities to be made available to MNPS staff must first start with MNPS. We will continue to investigate ways in which MNPS administrators and educators collaborate and participate in professional development opportunities hosted by Nashville and Davidson County that are aligned to the needs of both groups. We are fully supportive of MNPS sharing Metro programs with their employees—and Metro HR routinely collaborates with MNPS HR to maximize opportunities—when possible and appropriate.

Recommendations for the Mayor's Office

Conduct listening sessions with families to determine where gaps exist and how the city can help to remove them.
Implemented and In-Progress
  • Another piece of the Mayor’s Agenda for Young People is a renewed focus on resources for afterschool programing. The Mayor often says that the school day does not end at 3pm, and is focused on how the city can support families during the window of time between when school ends and when many parents get off work. This past year, Mayor Cooper launched Nashville’s first Out-Of-School Time Program Locator as part of that effort. This new online tool connects Nashville parents with afterschool programs in their area. As of today, nearly 75 locations across Metro Nashville are part of the database and will serve approximately 74,000 students each year. The Out-of-School Program Locators fills a critical gap to more efficiently streamline the process for parents to locate out-of-school programming that meets the needs of their family. Additionally, in partnership with MNPS’ Extended Learning Department, Alignment Nashville, and United Way, we launched the inaugural Out-of-School Time Collaborative, which is a coalition of over 60 organizations dedicated to supporting and strengthening the programming options for how Nashville students spend time after the end of the school day. The Out-of-School Time Collaborative brings together youth service providers in the out-of-school time space to advance the shared interest of providing all youth in Nashville (K-12) access to high quality programming. We are developing an intentional/systematized way to engage families to share feedback related to the Out-Of-School time locator. The Out-Of-School Time locator is the product of removing barriers and promoting access for all families of Davidson County. In partnership with the Nashville and Davidson County Children’s Cabinet and other various stakeholders/organizations/nonprofits—using the 2010 Child and Youth Masterplan—we will continue to engage families by threading into our existing practice listening sessions, tasks forces, and roundtable discussions. Families are an important stakeholder, and we want to ensure that there is space for families to share thoughts and feedback as it pertains to gaps and process improvement.
  • The Village is one of many ways that we engage families and community leaders/members. The Village is a collation of over 200 grassroot nonprofits focused on violence intervention and addressing the underlying factors that often fuel crime in communities. The mission of “The Village” is to provide a safe space for leaders and community members from marginalized communities, identities, or lived experiences to connect and gain access to various support streams. The Village intentionally engages and encourages families, constituents and community organizations to share thoughts, concerns and feedback. Members of the Village report back to the Mayor’s Office with learnings/insight from listening sessions. We will continue to leverage existing structures/systems and introduce new opportunities to ensure that families can share barriers, gaps, and feedback.
  • The Office of Mayor Cooper also launched Know Your Nashville Ambassador Surveys. This is an outreach initiative from the Mayor’s Office that seeks to educate young adults to valuable resources, foster new pathways for civic engagement, and grow constituent connection. The survey measures how connected constituents feel to Nashville and also measures what resources are most salient to need.
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