JMCSS works to make education relevant to students with Career and Technical Education programs

With nearly 13,000 students and a $127 million budget, the Jackson-Madison County School System requires a lot of dedicated people every day working in schools, the central office and maintenance, Superintendent Ray Washington said in a presentation to the Old Hickory Rotary Club on Monday.

“Teachers, principals, everybody extend themselves beyond a regular day,” Washington said. “It’s a lot of dedicated people who want to do right.”

That dedication happens not only in operations and academics but also to make education relevant for students, to ensure the transient population gets an equitable education and to educate all JMCSS students.

“Why am I here? I don’t need this,” is what Washington said some students will say.

Some students don’t see the relevancy of education, he said.

It’s not all students and not a majority, but it’s too many, he said.

Relevancy

County Commissioner Tommy Gobble, R-3, asked why students don’t see the necessity of education like his generation did.

Washington said it’s a different day where people find information through Alexa and Siri.

“So, what am I doing here? I don’t care about Shakespeare; I don’t care about all of these literacy works. Math: I’ll punch it in on my phone," Washington said, illustrating what students say. “Everything has apps now.

“Really getting some kids to understand the relevancy of education is a big deal because they just don’t see where it takes them to. So, we have to develop a path of what education does for you and where it takes you and (what can happen) with a lack of education."

JMCSS emphasizes career and technical pathways to make school relevant to students, maintain students’ interest and because not everyone will or want to go to college.

The state has identified 16 clusters of Career and Technical Education (CTE), in which JMCSS has 13 areas, including for fields such as teaching, nursing, welding and manufacturing.

The district offers seven industry certifications, in which there were 436 certifications obtained last school year.

While getting certifications, the district focuses on teaching soft skills, like getting to work on time and dealing with workplace conflict and constructive criticism.

“Our job is not only to develop them technically, but we develop soft skills in our students so they maintain working for a long period of time,” Washington said.

The district offers CTE for 3,000 students districtwide in the five high schools.

For example, there are dual credit and enrollment partnerships at Jackson State Community College, the University of Tennessee-Martin and Tennessee College of Applied Technology-Jackson as well as L.O.O.P. (Local Options and Opportunities Program), which allows students to attend school half the day and work the other half. It offers jobs at TBDN, Stanley Black & Decker, Gourmet Your Way, Old Country Store, Delta Faucet and BlueScope.

Transient population

Before the current district administration, a uniform curriculum at JMCSS was nonexistent because it wasn’t budgeted.

Schools, even classes at the same school, were teaching with their own created curriculum or different curriculum for the same grades.

There was no way to create an equitable education, especially since the district has a transient population, Washington said.

“We have students that move two or three times throughout the year to different schools, so how in the world could be they be expected to keep up if they’re learning in a different way everywhere they go?” he said. “For whatever reason, economics or whatever, students move throughout the year, and it was unfair to them not to have a standardized curriculum.”

Over two years with the curriculum overhaul, the district has purchased and implemented curriculum in the four core subject areas of English, math, science and social studies.

District highlights

• The district has 23 schools with about 12,750 students.
• The demographics of the district are 58% African American, 30% Caucasian students, with Hispanic/Latino, Indian and other nationalities making up 12%.
• The district accommodates 30 languages spoken with more than 1,000 students learning English; Title III federal funds assist the district in helping English learners.  
• There are over 2,000 students in special education, which ranges from gifted to students who can stay in the school system until they are 22 to learn life skills to live independently.

The district added five pre-K classes to serve 100 more students, for a total of about 660 students in 25 regular classes at 10 sites and the 13 special education classes for students with special needs or who are medically fragile. Three of those were locally funded by the district and county commission, while the other two classes were created through an annual competitive state grant.  

The new classes are at Andrew Jackson, Lincoln, South and Denmark, spread across the district so that students have an earlier opportunity to advance their learning, especially in literacy, Washington said.

“We know the key to literacy is reading by third grade,” he said. “You learn to read the first three years, and after that you read to learn. You can’t read to learn if you never learn to read.”

If students aren’t reading by third grade, the district has an intervention program to internally identify students to begin intervention.

Washington will make the presentation again at First Friday Forum at United Methodist Church on Sept. 6 and at the Exchange Club at the Doubletree Hotel on Sept. 24.

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Lasherica Thornton is The Jackson Sun's education reporter. Reach her at 731-343-9133 or by email atlthornton@jacksonsun.com. Follow her on Twitter: @LashericaT