What Metro Nashville Public Schools Faces This School Year
As school heads back into session for the 2026-27 year, Metro Nashville Public Schools faces a number of new challenges, opportunities and mandates that affect students, teachers and families. From new laws from the state legislature to increased state spending on vouchers to new school start times and a giant budget, MNPS starts the year with a bevy of things on the slate. Here are a few of the larger items facing the district:
MNPS Makes Adjustment to School Start and End Times
After community input and surveys to families last year, Metro Nashville Public Schools will start this year with a new schedule. Start and end times for elementary, middle and high school will now be staggered, with later start times for high school and elementary and no change to the middle school schedule.
The Metro Nashville Board of Education voted to approve the schedule ahead of the 2026-27 school year. Studies have shown later school start times for high schools can improve their ability to remain engaged, and this new schedule is meant to give high school students a bit more time to sleep in the morning. The new schedule was also implemented after looking at what would keep disruptions for families and the schools to a minimum.
This is the new school day schedule for each group:
- Elementary schools: 8:10 a.m. – 3:10 p.m.
- Early Learning Centers: 8:10 a.m. – 2:10 p.m.
- Middle schools: 8:55 a.m. – 3:55 p.m.
- High schools: 7:25 a.m. – 2:25 p.m.
Optional magnet and charter schools are able to adhere to their preferred schedules as they have in the past. Drivers in school zones should also note the new schedules. AMANDA HAGGARD
MNPS Starts Year with Largest Budget to Date
The kids were already a month into summer when the Metro Nashville School Board voted to approve the next school year’s historic budget of $1.4 billion.
“This allocation reflects an investment in the continued growth and operational stability of Nashville’s public schools, and it supports our work as a four-time Level 5 Advancing District delivering historically high academic outcomes for students,” the district wrote ahead of its initial proposal.
The overall budget increased by around 4 percent, $55 million over last year’s budget. The MNPS budget makes up more than 37 percent of the city’s overall budget.
“As is true of any school district budget, the overwhelming majority of MNPS expenditures go toward the people who serve our students every day. Of the $55,870,900 increase in the FY27 budget, approximately $40 million — more than 70 percent — is dedicated directly to employee compensation, including salary steps, health and pension benefits, and the Metro-wide cost-of-living adjustment. This reflects a fundamental truth about public education: investing in schools means investing in people.”
Just a week ahead of the budget vote, the Metro Council asked MNPS to undergo a $800,000 audit during the budget cycle and to pull $550,000 from the 2026-27 budget to fund it. The audit will look at MNPS operations, but the overall scope is unknown.
The board voted to pull funds for the audit from a proposed pre-K $1.1 million expansion of the Hillwood Early Learning Center. They will utilize the overage for vacancy savings. AMANDA HAGGARD
MNPS Cites Negative Fiscal Impact in Four Charter School Denials this Summer
At the end of July, the Metro Nashville Board of Education voted to deny four charter school applications citing the budget implications and effect it would have on community schools.
The schools — Music City Academy, the Gate School, Nashville School of Excellence and Empowerment Academy — submitted amended applications after the board denied them in April. The negative fiscal impact of bringing on the four charter schools would be $6,444,510 in their first year of operation and $21,999,919 at their full build-out capacity, according to the district’s estimates.
“The community I represent is firmly on the side of more funding for the schools already in place in the community,” board member Erin O’Hara Block said at the July 28 meeting.
Funding from the state is based on a per-pupil formula, which means as enrollment goes down in a community school, the school gets less financial support. Already struggling schools stand to lose the most in these scenarios.
All four schools could appeal to the Tennessee Department of Education’s Tennessee Public Charter School Commission where they could overturn the local decision and approve the schools. AMANDA HAGGARD
MNPS Says No Major Impact as State Restricts K-5 Classroom Tech
A law passed by the 2026 Tennessee General Assembly now places limits on digital-device use in kindergarten through fifth-grade classrooms. Beginning this school year, districts with K-5 students are being asked to adopt policies that restrict digital devices at school and require teachers to stop using them to provide instruction and electronic testing for elementary-aged students.
Metro Nashville Public Schools says that the new law already fits with its instructional approach and that it would not require significant changes to classroom practices to comply.
“Over the past several years, with support from both Metro Government and previously through the federal ESSER program, MNPS has made substantial investments in full classroom sets of textbooks and other instructional materials,” the district says. “Students have access to physical books, workbooks and hands-on instructional resources that support high-quality teaching and learning.”
MNPS says technology plays a role in classrooms as a tool to “enhance and supplement effective instruction, not replace the relationship between teachers and students. Our focus remains on using technology intentionally where it adds value while keeping teachers at the center of the learning experience.”
The law applies to local school districts and public charter schools serving those grades. AMANDA HAGGARD
State Voucher Vendor Gets Boost Over Summer
Tennessee lawmakers gave a $356 million raise to the company handling the state’s two private-school voucher programs, despite the vendor’s woes in two other states.
The legislature’s Fiscal Review Committee approved the increase this summer, pushing the maximum contract amount for Student First Technologies, LLC to nearly $637 million over the life of its five-year contract to run an online portal where parents can apply for the funds and receive payments.
The increase for the last two years of the contract comes after the legislature added 15,000 students to the Education Freedom Scholarship program this year, pushing it to a total of 35,000 for the 2026-27 school year.
The Department of Education hired the Indiana-based company in May 2023 to administer the Education Savings Account program, ESA, for low-income students to attend private schools at a cost of around $40 million.
Approved in 2019, the ESA was Gov. Bill Lee’s first voucher program, and is available to students in Metro Nashville, Memphis and Chattanooga. Initially, it was administered by Florida-based ClassWallet in a no-bid contract.
The department then widened the Student First Technologies contract to cover a separate private-school voucher program enacted in February 2025, which is projected to cost $270 million next school year after the expansion goes into effect.
Democratic Sen. Heidi Campbell of Nashville raised questions about the vendor in June, saying Student First Technologies won Tennessee’s business even though the state of Arkansas terminated its contract with the vendor and obtained $300,000 in damages for failure to deliver online services.
The vendor also struggled to run a similar program in West Virginia after receiving a $10 million contract, failing to process nearly 3,000 of 9,000 student applications.
Campbell asked whether the department conducted an independent performance review of the vendor for “accountability.”
States Newsroom and The 74 reported that the vendor wasn’t supposed to take on other contracts until it cleaned up problems in West Virginia.
Department of Education officials responded by saying the vendor was selected in a competitive bid process and that the company has been a “good partner.” The Tennessee Comptroller hasn’t reported any problems with the performance of Student First Technologies.
Keith Minor, an attorney for the department, said the Comptroller’s Office audits all contracts and that the department can seek liquidated damages in case of a breach of contract.
Education officials referred reporters’ questions afterward to a department spokesperson.
Rep. Dan Howell, a Cleveland Republican who chairs the Fiscal Review Committee, declined to comment on the amount paid to Student First Technologies, saying he voted against the private-school voucher program when it was adopted last year.
But Sen. Todd Gardenhire, a Chattanooga Republican, said the committee should start looking at vendors’ backgrounds, including fines and penalties, when discussing contract increases. Gardenhire said that the state needs to monitor the rising costs and consider legislation in 2027 to deal with the expense. Gardenhire added that lawmakers also need to “see what the new governor, whoever that is, has an appetite to do.” SAM STOCKARD | TN LOOKOUT