2023 Education Report Recommendations Status Update

The focus of last year’s Education Report was K-12 postsecondary advising.
The 2023 Education Report was focused on how students connect and explore career pathways and how students are supported in taking tangible steps to make their postsecondary goals a reality. The following is an update on the progress of those recommendations.
Recommendation #1

MNPS should evaluate the impacts and effectiveness of grants supporting K-12 postsecondary advising and create a plan for sustainability and scalability based on evaluation results. 

Implemented

MNPS continues to collaborate with the city of Nashville to create a plan for sustainability of its most impactful counseling and advising programs. Through MNPS’s research-practice partnerships, including the PEER partnership with Vanderbilt University, MNPS continues to evaluate the effectiveness of its counseling and advising programs and drives towards continuous improvement.
Recommendation #2

MNPS should ensure their advising strategy clearly identifies how community partners can best augment and reinforce the district's advising efforts to ensure all students have a pathway to a successful career.

In Progress

MNPS recognizes that community partners cannot take the place of an effective school counseling and advising strategy – and research demonstrates this is the case. In that spirit, MNPS has prioritized establishing clear roles and responsibilities to drive impactful college counseling opportunities. At the Support Hub, the district has consolidated the Executive Director of Counseling and Advising and the Executive Director of College and Career Readiness roles under one department to ensure tighter coordination and alignment between these teams. Through MNPS’s partnership with Alignment Nashville, we have begun convening community partners to align on roles for external partnerships and identify gaps in the student experience that can be uniquely met by community partners.

Recommendation #2

MNPS should ensure their advising strategy clearly identifies how community partners can best augment and reinforce the district's advising efforts to ensure all students have a pathway to a successful career.

Recommendation #3

MNPS should meaningfully encourage the full adoption of a postsecondary advising data collection and analysis mechanism available to appropriate staff and community-based partners engaged in postsecondary advising with support from the state and other partners.

In Progress

MNPS has taken great strides in building an effective data infrastructure for college and career readiness. MNPS, through the use of the GEAR UP grant and programming, has established a new junior and senior transition planning tool allowing counselors to identify and support students to achieve their postsecondary goals. We are also in a continued partnership to build the district’s Momentum Metrics platform, allowing us to monitor students’ progress toward college and career readiness goals. Finally, MNPS has engaged in continued data collection with our postsecondary partners as part of the University MNPS work to increase applications to MNPS’s unique and exclusive full scholarship opportunities available through our partners. And we continue to advocate for the state to release P20 longitudinal data, which would help us continue to develop and tailor opportunities for our students.
Recommendation #4

The Metro Nashville Council, Tennessee state legislature, and postsecondary institutions should provide flexibility and tailor postsecondary enrollment and completion supports to better address barriers to student access and success.

Implemented

  • Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell approved use of funds from the Nashville GRAD program to include Nashville Flex program participants, giving part-time students important support to complete their degree.  
  • University MNPS, a collaborative effort between the district and local higher education institutions to offer scholarship opportunities for MNPS graduates, has continued with the support of TN State University, Nashville State Community College, Belmont University, Lipscomb University, Fisk University, and Vanderbilt University.  
  • HB1923/SB2666 (requires a Tennessee College of Applied Technology (TCAT) to reserve an enrollment slot for each dual enrollment student in the term immediately following the last term in which the student was enrolled in the TCAT as a dual enrollment student if space is available for the student at the TCAT in the program in which the student was previously enrolled. 
  • The TN Higher Education Commission published Food Insecurity in Tennessee Higher Education in 2023. The report “explores food insecurity across public institutions of higher education in Tennessee and the strategies and interventions used to mitigate student hunger on their campuses.” HB0869/SB0833 requires the commission to continue submitting to the governor, the speaker of the senate, and the speaker of the house of representatives, annual reports. 
Recommendation #4

The Metro Nashville Council, Tennessee state legislature, and postsecondary institutions should provide flexibility and tailor postsecondary enrollment and completion support to better address barriers to student access and success.

Introduction
Recommendations
Closing
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