KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Tennessee Department of Education hosted a town hall meeting at the University of Tennessee on Tuesday, looking to hear from the community before making decisions on education policies.
The meeting was one of eight townhalls organized across the state, meant to connect education leaders with students, parents, teachers and members of the community. They said they wanted to hear more opinions about a "student-centered" investment strategy for education. The new approach may change the state's education funding formula.
The approach is being pushed by Governor Bill Lee. He helped create a central steering committee composed of policymakers from across the state. In that steering committee are 18 subcommittees focused on different aspects of education.
They focus on economically disadvantaged and highly-mobile students, rural and small district learning, post-secondary readiness, higher education readiness, school system leaders, school system personnel and English learner issues.
The subcommittees meet twice per month either in-person or virtually. More information about their meetings and what they discuss is available online.
The meeting on Nov. 2 started at 6 p.m. and was co-hosted by the Knox Education Foundation, United Ways of Tennessee and tnAchieves.
There will be other meetings for different regions of the state. On Wednesday, leaders will host a meeting for Tennessee's First Region before moving to the Southeast Region on Thursday.