MEMORANDUM

DR. SANDY JOHNSON, CHIEF INSTRUCTIONAL OFFICER

MNPS African American History Standards Adopted by the State

On October 10, 2005, the article “ State creates official curriculum for African-American History” was in the Tennessean. It was noted that the State adopted the MNPS African-American Standards. These standards were created two years ago when district standards for social studies were being developed. At that time African-American Studies was being taught in five of our schools.

Knowing that Tennessee did not have standards for the course, MNPS saw a need to provide them . When Todd Wigginton, Social Studies Coordinator, attended the National Council for the Social Studies Conference in Chicago that November, he sought out sessions that might assist in the process. He found a few resources, but found only one state that provided any guidelines at all and those were not very detailed.

The MNPS committee basically started without any guidelines to create the objectives. The committee included Arika Landry, Georgia Sims, Carmen Turner, Doug Trotter, and Todd Wigginton. They created a framework that started in pre-slavery days on the African continent and examined the roles and contributions of African-Americans up through the present day. The African-American Odyssey serves as the adopted text for this elective course.

Last year the State Department of Education put together its own committee and began the process of writing standards for the course. After examining the standards adopted by MNPS and a few others they had found, the state committee requested that the MNPS standards be used as the basis for the state standards.

The rising popularity of African-American history courses in public schools statewide prompted an October 10 th article in the Tennessean featuring one of our teachers and several of our students. The standards for this course are included in our standards book you received earlier.

DR. JUNE KEEL, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT FOR HUMAN RESOURCES

“Learn Not to Burn” and “Remembering When”

The Metro Fire Department and Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools have entered into an accord to teach the National Fire Protection Association “Learn Not to Burn” and “Remembering When” curriculum to all Pre K, kindergarten, first and second grade teachers.

The purpose of this initiative is to train teachers on how to teach fire prevention programs in the classroom; it is designed to teach children the eight basic fire behaviors that have been proven to save lives and properties.

The program will be funded by a grant from The Office for Homeland Security. Three Metro teachers will be hired for a year to work under the direction of Deputy Chief Kim Lawson and Captain Manuel Fonseca. The program is tentatively set to begin in November and will end at the close of the school year.

RALPH THOMPSON, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT FOR STUDENT SERVICES

The Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools District is aggressively collecting and analyzing data relative to discipline concerns. Our intent is to utilize the data to guide and identify our strategies for overall improvement in the area of safety and student discipline. The Student Services Department has embarked on a proactive preventive approach to finding answers and resolutions to the district’s discipline concerns as well as continuing to seek the desired goal of developing a safe and secure learning environment for all of our stakeholders. Some of the initiatives that have been implemented include several meetings with the Metropolitan Nashville Juvenile Courts and the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. These meetings will be ongoing throughout the year. Police officers dressed in plain clothes are making random visits to our schools. We are increasing student loitering sweeps and conducting more random weapon searches that focus primarily on the middle and high schools. We are contemplating the possibility of implementing an undercover operation. Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and the staff members of the Student Services Department will continue to make school visits as a team. Regular staff meetings will positively sustain the implementation and maintenance of various discipline enhancement projects. In addition, we are exploring other new research-based programs that will promote our improvement initiative. We want to caution that improvement will not occur overnight, however, the Student Services Department will bestow our full attention to endorsing and maintaining a safe and secure environment for all of our children, personnel and community members in the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools District.

SANDRA TINNON, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT FOR K-12 ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES

As you are aware at the October 11, 2005 Board Meeting, an Overton High School parent alleged that a number of problems including unsafe learning environment for students; hostile and threatening working environment for staff; and lack of support for student activities and traditions existed at the school. The parent also suggested that the current principal had a dictatorial leadership style and was insensitive to the feelings of parents and students. As a result of these allegations, I have met with Dr. Garcia, had a conversation with Bruce Bowers in Employee Relations, and have scheduled a meeting with the principal along with Ralph Thompson relative to the violence in the building and other issues. Currently, we have found only one registered parent concern on the principal (10/19/03). It is my intent to conduct a thorough investigation and report my findings to the Director of Schools. This investigation will begin immediately.

PEG/jw

Attachment:

Program between MNPS and Metro Fire Department