Local Education News- Register is resigning & Enrollment Down

Register’s Exit Doesn’t Change Plans For East Nashville, Low-Performing Schools

Metro Schools Director Jesse Register says he’s got a lot of work to do before his contract with the district ends. Last night, Register essentially gave the school board nine months notice.

That announcement comes amid criticism of his proposal to transform East Nashville into a school choice zone. Register says he remains committed to bringing that plan to fruition. And he says he wants to leave office with a clear framework in place for improving all of the schools the state has marked as being among Tennessee’s lowest performing.

You can’t complete it in the course of a year, but I hope the planning and beginning implementation of a strategy, a comprehensive strategy to deal with priority schools is in place.

Register’s last day is June 30. That should leave the school board enough time to find a new director before he leaves. It also means the search will happen while outgoing Mayor Karl Dean is still in office. But when asked what role he’ll take, Dean indicated he plans to step back and let the school board focus on input from the mayoral candidates and the community at large.

Why Did MTSU Enrollment Drop So Suddenly? President Says Students Can’t Pay

Middle Tennessee State University is blaming a big enrollment decrease on students’ ability to pay. Admission figures have just been made final, though president Sidney McPhee says the nearly five percent drop occurred just before the start of the semester.

“We purged, we dropped from our rolls the Friday before classes began that Monday over 1,200 students because they were unable to afford their tuition,” McPhee tells WPLN. “This has been a pattern over the last several years.”

The university hiked tuition 4.4 percent this fall, topping $8,000 for the year.

Admissions officers have been surveying students who left and McPhee says cost is the number one factor, adding that many plan to come back.

The enrollment drop has forced MTSU to make cuts, though McPhee says they should not be noticeable to most students.

“There should be no real, meaningful distraction to us,” he says.

The financial pinch is compounded by the state’s inability to follow through on a program that pays universities more for graduating students on time. MTSU was due $4.2 million for increased efficiencies under the Complete College Act but ended up only getting $1.25 million.

Source: nashvillepublicradio.org

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