Reporter’s Note
Three months ago today, Hamilton County Schools closed. As the coronavirus spread and people stocked up on hand sanitizer and toilet paper, students were sent home with packets of worksheets and their Chromebooks in tow.
Teachers scrambled to switch to virtual lessons and manage two dozen kids on Zoom calls, and some parents began to try to balance working from home with suddenly homeschooling their kids. Others scrambled to find someone to watch their kids and worried they wouldn’t eat lunch.
The world has changed in three months, and there still seem to be more questions than answers. Will school buildings open this fall? How can we keep children safe? How will virtual learning change higher education?
The Times Free Press will keep working to answer these questions and many more for you, our readers and our community. However, I will not be leading that coverage anymore. My last day at the Times Free Press is this Friday. This is my last School Report newsletter.
It’s not completely goodbye – I’ll still be covering education in Tennessee, but I’ll be saying goodbye to my newsroom family and to this community.
Thank you for letting me tell your stories these past three years. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about funding public education, the state of Hamilton County’s school facilities, whether educators should talk about race and how great a job many teachers are doing (and sometimes about the not-so-great ones, too). Thank you for being brave enough to call out elected officials, school leaders and sometimes even the media.
Thank you most of all to the students who have let me sit next to them in classrooms, peppering them with questions, or who have stood in front of a crowd, sharing their thoughts on important issues. Thank you for sharing your stories.
And always, thank you for reading, subscribing and supporting local news.
– Meghan
THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION NEWS
As the weather grows hotter, looming in many educators’, parents’ and students’ minds is one question: Will schools reopen this fall?
Last week, the Tennessee Department of Education finally released a long-awaited framework for reopening schools this fall, and Commissioner Penny Schwinn testified before a U.S. Senate committee about what the state needs to ensure reopening goes smoothly.
In some cases, Schwinn said, it could cost $100-175 per student for districts to buy an adequate amount of cleaning and sanitation supplies just to make sure schools are safe.
Meanwhile, students have also taken to the streets and joined protests against law enforcement and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death, and school leaders are preparing for hundreds of people to gather to celebrate the class of 2020 in just a few weeks.
Keep reading for these stories and more!