Longtime chairman of the State Board of Education, Mr. Fielding Rolston, retired from the Board on Friday during the first quarterly meeting of 2018. Fellow members of the Board elected Ms. Lillian Hartgrove as the new chair and Mr. Gordon Ferguson as the new vice chair.

On Friday, the State Board of Education launched an English Language Arts (ELA) standards implementation feedback survey at https://www.tn.gov/sbe/topic/standards-review to gather public comments on Tennessee’s recently implemented K-12 ELA standards. All Tennesseans are invited to review the standards, and the survey will remain open through January 31, 2018. The State Board is charged in state law with adopting academic standards for Tennessee students and with reviewing those standards regularly.

Today, the State Board of Education voted unanimously on final reading to approve new, Tennessee-specific academic standards for social studies. The new Tennessee Academic Standards for Social Studies will be implemented in classrooms in the 2019-20 school year. This multi-year, comprehensive review involved teams of Tennessee educators, subject matter experts, higher education faculty, state history and geography organizations, and multiple public comment opportunities, ensuring that all Tennesseans had a voice throughout the process.