Transition Planning Commission Resources

The TPC's website is:  http://www.ourvoiceourschools.org

Some key TPC documents:
Final Assessment Committee Report 4/19/12
Logistics Committee Report to TPC 4/15/12
Logistics Committee Recommendations to TPC 4/15/12
TPC HR Library - particularly interesting in terms of current state comparison and how BCG examined the current state

The 21-member Transition Planning Commission unanimously approved the first draft of The Plan on June 14, 2012.  Over the summer, the TPC took comments from the public as well as from the Shelby County School Board and the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Education.  In July, the TPC unanimously approved its revised 308-page "Plan" made up of 172 recommendations.  The complete plan is available here:  TPC Plan.

For those of you particularly interested in curriculum and corresponding interventions, and student services, plan on spending some time in Appendix C.  The documents in Appendix C were composed by the relevant MCS and SCS staff to show current state for their particular areas of work.  In many cases, you'll see a joint "staff recommendation".  The TPC did not adopt or even address these joint recommendations in the body of its plan, but did append these recommendations as a "starting point" for implementation of the real work of the district - you know, educating students.

The statute, usually called Public Chapter 1 or the Norris-Todd Law (named for the respective Tennessee House and Senate sponsors), that created the TPC and required that the TPC make recommendations in 9 areas, does not actually require either the School Board or the Commissioner approve or reject any portion of the plan. Public Chapter 1 requires only that the TPC submit the recommendations, not that anything be done with them.

As of November 1, 2012, the TPC Plan is currently being considered by the Shelby County School Board and Commissioner Huffman. 

At its September meeting, the Shelby County School Board approved some of the recommendations:  1, 3-5, and 36-49.  It considered Recommendation 121, but did not vote on whether to approve it.  Recommendation 1 uses the work done (in Appendix C, all related to merging the educational processes) by the districts' staffs as a starting point for the implementation process.  Recommendations 3-5 are general recommendations related to increasing public PreK services.

Recommendations 36-49 all relate to "Effective Teachers".  The recommendations are generally innocuous, like "increase effective teachers" and "pick an evaluation system".  The controversial recommendation is #47, which adopts a method of "Mutual Consent" for teacher hiring.  This recommendation prompted one question, but was approved, along with the others, with 17 ayes, 1 abstention, and 5 absent.