Tennessee Legislative Tracker

This bill is the comprehensive charter policy package that streamlines the approval and renewal process for public charter schools. The bill strengthens the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission’s oversight authority, simplifies application requirements, and ensures consistency in authorizing practices. These reforms also reduce red tape and increase predictability for proven charter operators, helping them serve more students in need of high-quality options.

STATUS: Signed into Law in 2025

This makes changes to the existing public charter school facility laws. Public charter schools have a right of first refusal to vacant and underutilized property of an LEA. This update provides a right of second refusal to child care agencies, unless there are no public charter schools, then the child care agency has a right of first refusal.

STATUS: Signed into Law in 2025

This bill amends the state’s funding formula implementation to ensure that funds generated for public charter schools under the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) Act are delivered directly to the charter school rather than being routed through the LEA. This change enhances financial transparency, ensures that funding reaches the students it is intended to support, and reinforces the autonomy and accountability of public charter schools.

STATUS: Signed into Law in 2025

This bill expands Tennessee’s school turnaround and intervention strategy for low-performing schools. The program emphasizes strategic partnerships, data-informed interventions, and evidence-based practices tailored to the needs of specific communities. By broadening the program’s reach, this bill equips the state to act decisively in schools where students have historically lacked access to a quality education, while incorporating lessons learned from prior turnaround efforts.

STATUS: Signed into Law in 2025

This bill expands the state board’s power to subpoena the appearance of persons or the production of items the chair of the state board, or the chair’s designee, considers material or relevant to an accountability hearing for a local education agency operating a public school, or a public charter school, receiving a “D” or “F” letter grade. This ensures public transparency and community accountability around school performance.

STATUS: Signed into Law in 2025

This bill allows an LEA to adopt and implement a merit-based pay structure for educators to award additional compensation to high-performing educators and to incentivize educators to meet and exceed expectations. This expands flexibility for districts to leverage resources to recruit and retain top teaching talent.

STATUS: Signed into Law in 2025

This bill requires each local board of education and public charter school governing body to adopt and implement a wireless communication device policy for students and to publish the policy on its website. This supports teachers and learning in the classroom, while empowering districts with local control to create a policy that meet the needs of their students and families.

STATUS: Signed into Law in 2025

This bill prohibits a county LEA or public charter school authorized to operate in a county LEA from charging registration fees, enrollment fees, or tuition for a student who resides in the county and who transfers to a public charter school authorized to operate in the county LEA from another LEA located in the same county. This breaks barriers for access and choice for families who want to enroll in a charter school.

STATUS: Signed into Law in 2025

This bill creates a limited occupational teaching license for individuals who have not completed a traditional educator preparation program but are otherwise qualified to teach specific CTE courses. It allows teachers holding an endorsement exemption to teach courses that include an end-of-year assessment. Additionally, the legislation permits teachers with a postsecondary teaching license to add endorsements to their K–12 license for subjects they previously taught at the postsecondary level.

STATUS: Signed into Law in 2025

This bill requires each local board of education and public charter school governing body to develop and implement a policy to provide, with each K-8 student’s report card, the student’s score on the universal reading screener if administered to the student in the current school year, and the results of the dyslexia screener most recently administered to the student, if applicable.

STATUS: Signed into Law in 2025

This bill originally proposed sweeping roll-backs on how we measure student learning and teacher performance, but TennesseeCAN and its advocacy partners worked to amend the proposal and successfully defend the state’s accountability framework to ensure high expectations remain for students, schools, and teachers. The final version created a study committee that is tasked with studying teacher and principal evaluations, student assessments, instructional time requirements, high school academic standards, and educator licensure and compensation. The committee must report its findings and any legislative recommendations to the General Assembly by December 31, 2025.

STATUS: Signed into Law in 2025