Our Schools & Students

Nashville Teaching Fellows work throughout the city, in any school where there is a need for dedicated educators to teach critical shortage subjects.

Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) serves close to 75,000 students - a diverse community of children that are 48% African American, 35% Caucasian, 13% Hispanic, and 3% Asian. It is the 49th largest urban school district in the country and is comprised of 138 schools, including 74 elementary schools, 40 middle schools, 18 high schools, 3 alternative schools, and 3 charter schools. MNPS is also home to the largest English-language learning (ELL) population in the state, with 5500 students receiving ELL services. Working with such a diverse and high-need population brings rewards and challenges, but Fellows hold high expectations for students and themselves, ensuring that all students get the support they need to succeed in school.

Excellent Schools for Every Student

As a Nashville Teaching Fellow, you will be working in a state that has steadily increased its focus on one goal: improving student performance.

Tennessee was one of only two states who were successful in the federal Race to the Top grant competition.  After being awarded over $501 million through this competition in 2010, Tennessee has embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve student performance throughout the state, and nowhere is this more evident than in Nashville, where MNPS has embraced a bold vision for its schools and students, aiming to "provide every student with the foundation of knowledge, skills, and character necessary to excel in higher education, work, and life.” Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools calls on you to help our students realize their potential. Initiatives include a dramatic raising of performance standards throughout subject areas and across all grades, changes to teacher evaluation systems to ensure that there is an outstanding teacher in every classroom, and expanded use of student data to help teachers tailor instruction to meet individual students where they are and help them to move forward.  

Teachers are at the heart of of this effort to improve achievement for all Nashville students. Tennessee has worked in recent years to improve the quality of its teacher preparation institutions and to create new high-quality alternative licensure paths to offer a streamlined path into the profession for outstanding individuals who want to make a difference in the state's highest-need classrooms. Dr. Jesse Register, Director of Schools in MNPS, has particularly embraced the challenge of education reform, taking action to transform outcomes in the city’s chronically low-performing schools. MNPS launched Nashville Teaching Fellows in 2009—bringing new teacher talent into schools that had long struggled to attract and retain great teachers—and the district also partnered with local universities and businesses to create innovative programs that are achieving impressive results in our schools.