Baby steps first (Photo: Youjnii | Dreamstime.com)
I’m learning to walk again. It was odd at first. After more than two months of being unable to bear weight on my left foot after an April 13th fall, broken bones, and three subsequent surgeries, my brain had begun to rewire itself not to, under any circumstance, step on that foot — or else. Or else, what? I wasn’t sure of the medical specifics, other than it would undoubtedly hurt and it could hinder the healing. Incredibly cautious and afraid of the consequences, I have exercised great care in this endeavor and have become increasingly skilled at hopping on one foot while using a walker and balancing on the good foot while standing. Not skills I’d ever thought I’d master, but hey, my right leg is a lot stronger now. And I can challenge anyone to a standing-on-one-foot timed battle. Who’s up for it?
Since I was given the green light from the surgeon to bear weight — still with caution, and in an orthopedic boot — I’ve had to relearn, in a way, how to walk. At first, I was scared. Is my ankle going to collapse when I stand? Will the titanium plate snap out of place? Are fragments of my healing tibia and fibula going to crumble again beneath the weight of my body? And beyond that, it just felt downright weird to put that foot on the ground — tingly, as if it had just awoken from a monthslong slumber, burning a bit as the nerves reignited to do the job they’ve done for decades. Just like riding a bike, I suppose, but accompanied by some strange lighting strikes of pain and a brain that didn’t want to cooperate.
Last week, it started slowly, a step here and there as I remembered how to put one foot in front of the other, how to balance on two legs, expecting it to hurt. And it has. After the first full day of “walking” — some with a walker and some without, still in the boot and a little off-kilter — it felt like I’d traversed the expanse of Disney World, stood in long lines, and suffered the sorest feet (or foot) I’d ever felt. But the most I’d done was walk from the parking lot into the movie theater for a showing of Inside Out 2. (It was a great movie, by the way. I might have enjoyed it more than my niece and nephew. Among others, the part about losing joy as we grow up got me right in the feels.)
In this experience of learning to walk again, finding balance, and rewiring my brain to physically move forward once more, I’m struck with the notion that this applies to other parts of my life. Much has changed for me in the past year — in nearly equal parts good and bad — and even more in the last few months. In more than the literal sense, I’m learning to walk again — in the same environment with new characters, new challenges, new feelings I have to feel my way through. Sometimes it’s like looking at a dusty old box of pictures and letters with yellowing pages, so crisp as you pull at the folds. There’s not a lot of room for looking back though — wallowing in the holes left by a sister that’s moved far away, a dog that’s died, friendships that have grown apart. It stings and burns and pulls at the heart strings in a way that’s not conducive to the forward momentum needed to inspire those steps toward the future. And a voice inside quietly says, “Don’t look at them. It’s going to hurt.”
If you can rely on nothing else, you can on this: Change is a constant. We may want to cry and holler and resist when it comes, but it’s inevitable. In embracing mine, and in relearning to walk — literally and figuratively — I’ll try to muster the joy and gleeful vigor that’s seen in a baby taking its first steps. The whole world is new from an upright position, waddling unbalanced to and fro, tripping and falling down now and then. Both feet on the ground, wide eyes and a toothy grin, and so much — a lifetime — to look forward to.
David Kustoff and Governor Noem at Lincoln Day (Photo: Jackson Baker)
Say this about the Shelby County GOP: Demographic shifts in recent years have made it difficult to impossible for local Republicans to win a countywide race.
But they sure can turn out in impressive numbers for their annual Lincoln Day banquet, the most recent installment of which was held Sunday at the East Memphis Hilton on Ridge Lake Boulevard.
The keynoter this year was Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, who, after being introduced to the crowd by 8th District Congressman David Kustoff, said she intended to have “a family discussion” with them.
“If you know anything about me, you probably know that I’m a farmer and rancher who has run businesses my whole life,” she said, and, indeed, an introductory video had included some interesting rustic images of her, notably one of her galloping aboard a high-spirited horse across the Dakota plains.
Actually, she is best known — both locally and everywhere else — as having quite recently been a likely, maybe even probable, choice of Donald Trump to be his vice presidential running mate in the forthcoming election.
But that was before news leaks of the content in her just-published memoir, No Going Back, which contained, among other things, her account of having shot to death — executed, as shocked critics, not all of them Democrats, would allege — a young hunting dog that, for various reasons, she had become dissatisfied with.
And the deed was done at a gravel pit. Not the best family-style imagery to boost her veep chances, even for the hyper-aggressive Trump. So, even though Noem’s notoriety made her a good draw for this year’s banquet, there was no going back for her vice-presidential boom.
The MAGA-minded Noem’s own accounting for her choice of book title was to forswear any going back to “the Mitt Romneys and the Cheneys and the Bushes” and their purportedly go-along-to-get-along ways.
Recalling a once-famous phrase of the late GOP icon Barry Goldwater, moderation in the pursuit of Republican goals was treated as anything but a virtue Sunday night. State Republican chairman Scott Golden riled the crowd up with his assertion that no fewer than “103 liberal, Communist left-wing groups” had registered to protest at this summer’s forthcoming GOP convention.
And there was a culminating speech from state Senator Brent Taylor, whose persona and nonstop crusade to oust Democratic District Attorney Steve Mulroy are both ubiquitous phenomena these days.
Taylor, who was presented with an award Sunday night for his “outstanding public service” and, with his significant financial support of the gala, was designated as the event’s “title sponsor,” did his best to make his anti-Mulroy vendetta a predominant theme of the evening.
Last week, as the senator reminded his audience, he had sworn to introduce legislation next year to remove Mulroy from office via two-thirds votes in both chambers of the legislature.
With an assist from Golden, who had characterized Mulroy as a “Soros-minded” DA — meaning a tool of philanthropist-mega-activist George Soros, an international bogeyman for conservatives — Taylor invited the crowd to share his enthusiasm for a purge of Mulroy. The DA was savaged for sins ranging from alleged softness in bail policy to an abortive proposal to offer a diversion program to previous nonviolent offenders apprehended for illegal possession of firearms.
“Make no mistake!” thundered Taylor. “Our community is less safe” because of the DA with his “restorative justice system.” He called for “maintaining the Memphis middle class by making Mulroy meaningless.”
Since the dinner, Taylor has upped the ante, establishing a “hotline” to receive input from crime victims, current or former staff members, or “anyone with information relative to the ouster resolution.”
Meanwhile, after the fire and brimstone of the Lincoln Day gala, attendees have the opportunity, for better or for worse , to enjoy some quiet reading time. Each person present received a copy of Governor Noem’s book, which is subtitled “The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.”
Aladdin Sane Weather Vane in progress (Photo: Mike McCarthy)
Few things are more noteworthy than seeing a photo of your coworker in the crotch of a 10-foot, papier-mache sculpture of David Bowie in progress. That coworker is, of course, Michael Donahue, one of our writers here at the Flyer. In fact, Mike McCarthy, creator of the sculpture, has covered Bowie in Flyers. We’re honored to say the least, but this sculpture is not in honor of us, but rather of a mostly unknown Memphis music history moment.
In 1973, while on his Aladdin Sane tour stop in Memphis, David Bowie visited the now-closed Memphis Academy of Art at the invitation of Dolph Smith, an instructor at the school. Smith had a watercolor he wanted to give the musician, which he happily accepted. Of this story, McCarthy says, he only heard glimmers during his time at the school in the ’80s, but it’s stayed with him ever since.
These days, McCarthy is running a nonprofit Sculpt Memphis, with the goal of preserving Memphis music history through sculpture. His Johnny Cash stands on South Cooper now, and, for the last year, he’s made statuettes of Howlin’ Wolf, Aretha Franklin, Memphis Minnie, Rufus Thomas, Muddy Waters, and the like. “Everybody loves them,” he says, “but [the question becomes] how do these things get to become like eight-foot-tall block sculptures. I think Memphis is extremely under-sculptured, under-statued.
“Maybe this is a little counterintuitive on my part,” he continues, “but I thought, maybe if I do a 10-foot tall David Bowie, it will draw attention also to the fact that there’s lots of Memphis music history, obviously closer to home, that people should be thinking about. If you had Bowie in Overton Park, that would be one more reason to go to Overton Park. If you had all these other sculptures in locales throughout the city, it could drive tourism, create international interest.”
For the Bowie statue, McCarthy chose to portray him in the “Tokyo Pop” jumpsuit by Kansai Yamamoto. Also, instead of one head, the musician has four atop a weather vane, with the four faces representing Bowie’s affinity for taking on different identities — from Ziggy Stardust to Halloween Jack. Why a weather vane? “I don’t know,” McCarthy says, “but I thought, okay, I’ll do a weather vane. Oh, weather vane rhymes with Aladdin Sane. Aladdin Sane Weather Vane.”
So far, McCarthy has been working on sculpting the piece since December with help from friends, like Terance Brown, who made the resin 3D image of Bowie’s face; Colleen Couch, who made the paper for the Bowie faces for the weather vane;
Yvonne Bobo and Brendan Duffy (owners of Off The Walls Gallery)Alison Heaverly, Off The Walls assistant Terance Brown (3-D artist, maker of the resin 3-D image of Bowies face)Colleen Couch (paper maker, maker of the paper Bowie faces for the weather vane)Geordan Lugar of Lugar Foundry, created the A frame inside the Aladdin Sane Weather Vane.Frank Smith, patron.Jana Wilson of VINTAGIA (Arkmania) and curator of the vendors.Kasey Dees with The Prettiest Star face painting.Drew Whitmire, assistant.Eat At Eric’s Food truckBlack and Wyatt Records (sponsor)The Memphis Flyer (sponsor) Kansai Yamamoto – costumer designerMasayoshi Sukita – photographer
but this Sunday, he’ll invite the public to begin the process of covering Bowie with clay at what he’s calling the Glam Rock Picnic. “The ultimate goal is to climb the ladder and start from the heart and start spreading the clay,” he says. “I want people to be involved.”
The Glam Rock Picnic will also have DJ Kitschy Kat spinning entire Bowie albums, a Bowie bar, Eat at Eric’s food truck, face painting by Kasey Dees, and vendors curated by Jana Wilson of Vintagia.
Glam Rock Picnic, Off The Walls Arts, 360 Walnut, Sunday, June 30, noon-5 p.m., $10.
Bianca Phillips and Joe Yester (Photos: Michael Donahue)
Loving Local returned this spring in a new location : Grind City Brewing Company.
And, to make things even more festive, tap room manager Ashley Creecy created a special drink, “Peach, Please,” for the Project Green Fork event. It’s made with black tea, peach juice, lemon juice, and a Grind City seltzer base, all garnished with a lemon wheel and fresh mint sprig.
Jon Van Hoozer, Will Coleman, Donna Van HoozerAli Manning and Beth WilsonDaniel Taylor and Daishu McGriff
“The staff was fantastic to work with,” says Leann Edwards, Clean Memphis/Project Green Fork program director. “And the location is a great backdrop, with a lot of places for people to roam.”
Guests also dined in the tap room where they could “get a respite from the heat.”
Kevin SullivanSelah and Darius NelsonKofi Asare, Khendra Lucas, Ashley Peterson, Meredith Woloshin, Nathan Woloshin
About 300 people attended the event, which featured fare from Biscuits & Jams, Good Fortune Co., Kitchen Laurel, Lulu’s Cafe & Bakery, and Shroomlicious Meals.
“Our chefs really love to be part of this event,” says Edwards. As a press release states, “This community event celebrates the creativity of Project Green Fork certified chefs, breweries, and bartenders who create custom, small-plate appetizers, desserts, and cocktails for the evening.”
Sexy guys in leather and charismatic performances make this biker flick hypnotically fun to watch.
In the 1950s-1960s, the motorcycle picture was its own genre. During the postwar years, as military-trained mechanics demobbed into civilian life, motorcycle clubs sprang up all over the country. Some of these guys, combat vets who had developed a taste for Army Air Corps-issued amphetamine pills, were pretty rough customers. Their leather outfits and roaring chrome steeds made the bikers irresistible to the camera. In 1953, The Wild One, a story about the conflicted leader of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, made a superstar out of Marlon Brando. In the 1960s, Russ Meyer and Roger Corman made biker movies a cornerstone of their no-budget empires, launching the careers of folks like Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, Jack Nicholson, and John Cassavetes. The genre hit its apex when Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider became a generation-defining hit in 1969.
Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders aims to resurrect the biker movie and take it to the art house. It’s based on a book of photography by Danny Lyon, who rode with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club from 1963 to 1968. He appears in The Bikeriders, played by Challengers’ Mike Faist, with camera and bulky tape recorder always in tow. Danny’s interviews with biker wife Kathy (Jodie Comer) provide the framework for Nichols’ unconventional story.
Kathy’s husband is Benny (Austin Butler), who is the right-hand man to Johnny Davis (Tom Hardy), the founder of the Vandals, the fictionalized version of the Chicago-based Outlaws. Nichols tells his story in layered flashbacks, adding details as Kathy remembers them. The Vandals were a regular old club of guys racing dirt bikes until Johnny saw The Wild One and decided that was boring. What are we going to do, asks his friend Brucie (Damon Herriman), sit around and talk about motorcycles?
“That’s what we do anyways,” says Johnny.
There’s a little more to it than that. They also drink truckloads of booze and fight, both other biker gangs and each other. Despite the fact that he has a day job as a truck driver and a suburban house with a wife and kids, Johnny maintains control of the organization through violence. If you challenge his leadership, you have to fight him. He wasn’t the biggest one, but he was the meanest one, says Kathy. Big Jack (Happy Anderson) finds this out the hard way.
Johnny surrounds himself with weirdos who share his motorbike obsession. There’s the aforementioned Brucie, whose red hair makes him look like someone squished Conan O’Brien. Cockroach (Emory Cohen) is called so because of his diet. Make of that what you will. Michael Shannon is Zipco, a Lithuanian immigrant who rails against “the pinkos.” When he tried to volunteer to go to Vietnam, he was rejected as an “undesirable,” and he’s still sore about it.
Then there’s Benny. He’s a man of uncomplicated pleasures. His mere smoldering presence is enough to break up relationships. And most importantly, he can take a lot of punishment in a fight. The film opens with Benny getting his ass decisively kicked for refusing to take off his colors. By the late ’60s, the Vandals’ reputation was such that the guys stopped wearing their leather jackets and denim vests unless they were in a group, fearing they would get jumped if caught by a rival gang alone. Everyone, that is, except Benny. His devotion to the club borders on the fanatical, a fact that is not lost on Johnny, who is looking for a successor. But as the ’60s progress, embittered veterans of the Vietnam War join the rapidly expanding club. They have a taste for more and harder drugs, and the motorcycle club gives them a ready-made smuggling and distribution infrastructure. Johnny’s generation were middle-class poseurs pretending to be Marlon Brando. The new breed took the bravado far too seriously.
Nichols and his cinematographer Adam Stone shoot the bikers like mythical figures, which, in a way, they are. But the actual characters are anything but mythical. This film is exceptional for what his bikers don’t do. They don’t plan a heist or go on a killing spree. One minute, they’re brawling with a rival gang; the next, the enemies are having beers and telling stories around the campfire. Their most dangerous habit is riding without a helmet. But a helmet would interfere with Austin Butler’s superb haircut, and we certainly can’t have that. For a film starring a bunch of sexy guys in leather, The Bikeriders is surprisingly chaste. Benny and Kathy never do much more than cuddle. For all its pretensions to realism, like Kathy’s extravagant Chicago accent, the film feels sanitized. Thanks to a clutch of charismatic performances, it’s still hypnotically fun to watch. It might even inspire you to jump on a motorcycle. Just don’t ride without a helmet.
Advocacy groups and organizations have shared their thoughts on the Supreme Court of The United States’ (SCOTUS) decision to hear a challenge on Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors in the state.
While the case will not be heard until next fall, organizations such as the ACLU and OUTMemphis are hoping that SCOTUS rules in favor of trans youth.
“This case started with trans youth in the Mid-South and Tennessee and the folks who care for them, after our state passed laws denying life-saving health care,” Molly Quinn, executive director of OUTMemphis said. “ A year later, with more than 20 states outlawing this care and over 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills, this fight is a centerpiece of the pathway to queer and trans justice in our country, which we will never give up on. If the court sides with Tennessee’s unlawful ban, the state can and will escalate its discrimination against trans people and the broader LGBTQ+ community.”
In September of 2023 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed for the law restricting transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming medical care to remain in effect.
The ruling came months after the court initially blocked the law from taking effect in July of the same year.
The state law was signed by Governor Bill Lee in March of 2023, and prohibits healthcare professionals from administering gender-affirming care to minors.This legislation makes gender-affirming hormone therapy and puberty blockers inaccessible and trans people in Tennessee will not have access to this care until they reach the age of 18. Similar restrictions have been made in states like Arkansas and Alabama.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) they along with the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld LLP asked the Supreme Court to review the September ruling.
“The United States intervened in the plaintffs’ case at the district court and also asked the court to review the Sixth Circuit decision,” the ACLU said in a statement.
Quinn added that trans youth want “the freedom to live joyful and authentic lives,” and said their livelihood could be at stake if the court sides with the state.
“A better and freer world takes every kind of effort, and we hope the court will limit state overreach as Tennessee and states like it attempt to stand in the way of our futures,” Quinn said.
Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, a plaintiff’s attorney on the case and OUTMemphis Board of Directors member, said this case is about “curbing government interference in our lives.” In a statement released by ACLU-TN, Cameron-Vaughn shared Quinn’s sentiments regarding Tennessean’s rights to live their truth.
“Tennesseans deserve the freedom to live their lives as their authentic selves without government interference, yet every day this law remains in place, it inflicts further pain and injustice on trans youth and their families,” Cameron-Vaughn said. “The Court has the power to protect trans youth’s right to access the healthcare they need by striking down this discriminatory law.”
Other organizations are hoping that SCOTUS can provide more guidance and relief nationwide and that this will set the proper precedent for the country moving forward.
During a press conference to reflect on the two-year anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi CEO Ashley Coffield said it’s remarkable that the law will be heard.
“I agree with the Biden Administration that this is a really confusing time for families of minors with gender dysphoria and that it is critical that we have legal guidance to follow so that this is not like abortion, where it is state-by-state and is a total mess, and people are confused and scared and don’t know what’s going on,” Coffield said.
The number of hate and anti-government groups operating in the Memphis area last year held at four, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), amid a record wave of white nationalist and anti-LGBTQ groups.
Each year, the Montgomery, Alabama-based SPLC issues its Year In Hate and Extremism report, which details hate groups and anti-government extremist groups operating across the U.S. This year’s report found a total of 1,430 active groups (in both categories combined) operated in the U.S. last year, up from the 1,225 groups active in 2022.
The number of active groups in the county marked a record in SPLC’s data tracking. The previous record surge in groups was in 2018 when the number totaled 1,020. After that surge, the number of hate groups fell for four years year in a row up to 2022. Last year’s rise broke the streak and the record.
The new report documents 595 hate groups and 835 antigovernment extremist groups, including a growing wave of white nationalism increasingly motivated by theocratic beliefs and conspiracy theories. These groups intensified their efforts over the past year to recruit new members, increase their online presence and in-person demonstrations, exploit international and domestic conflicts, lobby the government and, in some cases, directly participate in elections, especially at the local level.
The report says communities of color, immigrant communities, minority faith communities, and LGBTQ+ communities are all targeted by and experience the negative effects of “hate-filled rhetoric and antigovernment conspiracies through actions such as banning books, protesting drag story hours, and using school boards as political battlegrounds.”
Credit: Southern Poverty Law Center
In Tennessee, 37 hate groups operated here last year, according to the report. They include “racist skinheads,” white nationalists, militia movements, neo-Volkish groups, neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, anti-Muslim groups, a hate-filled gift shop, and more.
“With a historic election just months away, this year, more than any other, we must act to preserve our democracy,” said Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the SPLC. “That will require us to directly address the danger of hate and extremism from our schools to our statehouses.
“Our report exposes these far-right extremists and serves as a tool for advocates and communities working to counter disinformation, false conspiracies and threats to voters and election workers. Together, we can dismantle white supremacy and ensure all communities see themselves represented in our democracy.”
In Memphis, four groups made the SPLC’s annual report. Moms for Liberty and Proud Boys remain active here, it says.
The local Moms for Liberty group says it is “dedicated to the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.” Jennifer Martin is listed as the county chapter chair on the national group’s website.
The West Tennessee Proud Boys website shows a photo of the group marching on Beale Street and tells its members to “walk your streets with your head held high.” An obviously fake Memphis address is listed as “Freedom Street, Memphis, TN 38503.” The ZIP Code is for Cookeville, Tennessee.
In its website’s “Beliefs” section, the local Proud Boys say they are “are proud Western Chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.” They say they want small government, freedom of speech, closed borders, the right to bear arms, to “venerate the housewife,” and more.
On racism, the Proud Boys site says it “may be alive, but it is not well” as “progress has been made in overcoming racial prejudice.” With that, they don’t want “anti-racial guilt.” … “Let no man be burdened with shame for the deeds of his ancestors,” reads the site. “Let no people be held accountable for things they never did.”
The site also offers a portal to join the group. Another button, for complaints, takes a visitor to a YouTube video featuring a tune called “The You Are A Cunt Song.”
Two Bartlett radio stations also made the SPLC’s list this year, as they have for years. The “about” section of Blood River Radio says “genocide is being pursued against white gentile people of the world.” The Political Cesspool hosts have said “we represent a philosophy that is pro-white and are against political centralization.”
Read more about those stations in a previous story here. Read an in-depth look at them, their hosts, and their guests from the SPLC blog here. Read about the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s latest hate crime report here.
Tennessee schools are increasingly punishing and excluding special education students with behavioral issues instead of providing them with evidence-based interventions to support their academic and behavioral growth, a new report says.
And it’s not the fault of teachers, school staff, or the students themselves, the author says.
In its report, released Friday, the Tennessee Disability Coalition blamed state policymakers for setting priorities and adopting policies that are ineffective at best, and likely harming thousands of the state’s most vulnerable students.
As a result, the coalition says, educators are using “ineffective, dangerous, counter-productive, and rights-violating practices” in the classroom.
The criticisms come after Tennessee enacted a string of increasingly stringent laws aimed at tightening discipline in the classroom — from the 2021 Teacher’s Discipline Act empowering teachers to remove chronically unruly students to a 2024 law requiring a one-year suspension for students who assault teachers at school.
Such policies, the report says, disproportionately affect students with disabilities, particularly those with behavioral issues, thereby restricting their educational opportunities.
“These policies not only sweep students with behavior needs into more restrictive settings, alternative school placements, and the juvenile justice system, they cast a net over other marginalized communities, including students of color and students in poverty,” the report says.
Jeff Strand, the coalition’s public policy director, said recent Tennessee laws also show a lack of understanding about special-needs students with behavioral challenges, leading to policies that are poorly suited to address the root causes of disciplinary issues.
“Good teachers know behavior issues are a child’s cry for help,” said Strand, a former special educator who authored the report. “What we’re doing in Tennessee is only making the problem worse.”
Specifically, the report calls out a shortage and high turnover of special education teachers; systemic gaps in training and support for special and general education teachers and administrators on the needs of students with behavior issues; a trend toward punitive and exclusionary practices; and a lack of student access to effective school-based supports and therapies, including enough school psychologists, counselors, speech-language pathologists, and board-certified behavior analysts.
Families: teachers are under-trained and overwhelmed
Chris and Angela Powell’s family has experienced gaps in school services firsthand as parents of a child with autism and ADHD.
They describe their son Charlie as intelligent, caring, and kind. But his behaviors — whether shouting out answers, failing to complete worksheets, or fighting — often resulted in lost recess, hours in the principal’s office, or even being physically restrained or placed in a padded room during his first few years of elementary school in Williamson County, south of Nashville.
“These are invisible disabilities, and his behavior was his form of communicating. But he was being excluded and punished based on his disability,” said Angela Powell, now a special-needs advocate. “His general education teachers didn’t seem to understand how to work with children who have needs like ADHD or autism.”
The Powells say Williamson County’s two school districts lacked qualified therapists and other specialized support staff, leaving teachers with few tools to tackle classroom misbehavior. Charlie eventually was placed on homebound instruction, receiving his lessons in a home setting and missing out on the opportunity to attend school with his non-disabled peers. Now 12, he is being homeschooled.
“If the richest district in Tennessee can’t help my son learn,” said Chris Powell, “I shudder to think what families deal with in the other 94 counties.”
Meanwhile, the report identified only three of the state’s 10 largest teacher training programs — at the University of Memphis, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and University of Tennessee-Chattanooga — as offering more than two courses on teaching students with disabilities.
Also, while the state recently switched to a new K-12 education funding formula to provide more resources for students with higher needs, such as students with disabilities, the change did not require that districts designate such extra funds for special education services.
And while the state promised to inject an extra $1 billion annually in the K-12 funding pool, Tennessee remains in the bottom fifth of states in per-pupil funding.
Exclusion policies gave way to inclusion movement
Tennessee was once one of the many states that had laws formally excluding children with disabilities from public schools, on the premise that those kids would not benefit from a public school education. Before the passage of a 1975 federal law establishing the right to a public education for kids with disabilities, only 1 in 5 of those children were educated in public schools.
The expanded Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990 marked the advent of the inclusion movement and the belief that children with disabilities, with some individualized support, can thrive in educational settings with their non-disabled peers.
But despite clear research on the benefits of inclusion for students with disabilities, surveys show general education teachers feel ill-prepared to work with them and struggle especially with special needs students with behavioral issues.
In Tennessee, about a tenth of the state’s public school students use an individualized education plan, or IEP, intended to ensure that the student receives specialized instruction and related services for their disability.
But according to data from the state education department, those same students receive a disproportionate share of formal disciplinary actions that include in-school and out-of-school suspension, expulsion, and transfer to alternative settings. In 2021-22, the most recent school year for which data are available, 12.5% of students with disabilities were removed from their classrooms, even though federal law limits excessive exclusionary discipline.
In addition, informal exclusionary disciplinary practices — which are difficult to quantify — are almost exclusively directed toward students with disabilities, the coalition says. They can include directing parents or guardians to take the student home for the day, inappropriate homebound placement, excessive use of threat assessments, inappropriate use of in-school suspension, and exclusion from school transportation.
Pending review of the report, a spokesperson for the state education department declined to comment on its assertions.
The leader of Professional Educators of Tennessee, which lobbied for the Teacher’s Discipline Act, acknowledged the challenges and nuances of disciplining students, especially those with special needs.
“We have seen since the pandemic an increase in mental health issues. That is why we at Professional Educators of Tennessee have worked hard to get additional funding for mental health in Tennessee,” said executive director JC Bowman.
He added that he’s open to new ideas that “ensure classrooms are safe and orderly, and every child has an opportunity to learn.”
The state comptroller is looking into the “informal removal” issue, also called “off-book suspensions.” Its Office of Research and Education Accountability has commissioned a report, which is expected to be released later this year, to better understand the use of informal removal, which often violates the rights of students with an IEP.
Strand says both pathways — formal and informal — can allow schools to avoid developing effective plans to correct bad behavior so they can stay in class and learn.
He recommends that Tennessee parents learn as much as they can about the rights of children with disabilities, including those with behavioral issues.
The coalition is hosting a free webinar at 5:30 p.m. Central time on Tuesday, June 25, on Facebook.
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
More than 10,000 women have left Tennessee to receive abortion care in the two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, according to Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi. (PPTNM).
The health care group marked the anniversary of the decision with a news conference Monday. PPTNM health centers now provide patient navigation services to those in Tennessee and Mississippi who need to travel out of state for abortion care. The group has provided assistance to over 800 patients.
Ashley Coffield, the group’s CEO, said it’s “dangerous” to be pregnant in Tennessee.
“Two years after the Dobbs decision allowed our state’s abortion ban to take effect Tennessee is in a state of crisis,” Coffield said. “It is dangerous to be pregnant here.”
“We are living without a basic freedom and access to life-saving care that we never thought would go away, and people are afraid,” Coffield added. “The attacks on reproductive rights have not stopped.”
Seven women and two providers are suing the state because they had to receive the procedure elsewhere, Cofield said.
The Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation this year that makes it a criminal offense for adults to help minors access abortion care out of state. The legislation also allows for another person to sue the person found guilty of “abortion trafficking” for the death of the unborn child, and is set to go into effect on July 1.
Planned Parenthood said they are still able to help minors with the consent of an adult through their Planned Parenthood Direct service where they can provide birth control and contraceptives through tele-health.
The organization is also able to provide care at a reduced cost thanks to their Title X services. In 2023 PPTNM was awarded $3.9 million to be used over the next three years. The funds came from the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood and given so PPTNM could continue providing free care to patients in need after it was announced in April that the state of Tennessee was no longer eligible for Title X funding. This was due to the state’s inability to provide “abortion referrals upon client request.”
Tennessee lawmakers marked the anniversary, too. Senate Democratic Caucus members Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis), Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis), Sen. Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville), Sen. Sara Kyle (D-Memphis) and Sen. Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) issued a joint statement condemning Tennessee’s restrictions.
“None of us ever thought we would live in an America where women have fewer rights than our mothers and grandmothers or that politicians would use the power of the government to decide when or if we grow our family,” the statement said.
The lawmakers also said they are “more determined than ever to restore this basic freedom to every woman in Tennessee.”
PPTNM’s Coffield said that her group anticipates restrictions on reproductive rights “can get worse,” yet they are committed to keeping their doors open for people who need access to abortion care through their navigation services.
In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ruling made in the landmark case, Roe v. Wade, which protected a woman’s right to choose an abortion. A day after the decision, a Tennessee law went into effect that made providing abortions a felony. The Human Life Protection Act “was passed in 2019 just in case the U.S. Supreme Court ever overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade.”
At the time of its passage, the law did not allow abortions in cases of rape, incest, or any fetal abnormality that could prove fatal to the baby. The law only allowed an abortion in Tennessee if giving birth would kill the pregnant woman or would prevent “serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of major bodily function.”
Memphis’ own musician/producer Mark Edgar Stuart has a new album, Never Far Behind. It was produced by Will Sexton at Bruce Watson’s Delta Sonic Studio. The first single is the floaty, melancholy “Until My Dying Day.” The music video, which was produced and directed by Landon Moore, takes us to some visually interesting locations in Memphis, like the stage of the Crosstown Theatre.
“I’ve had this song in my pocket for a long time,” says Stuart. “It’s a song for my mom. A song of reflection, gratitude, and joy. A simple ditty, repetitive and catchy, almost like a nursery rhyme. I just wanted her to have no problem understanding the sentiment. It could also be about a father, daughter, a friend, or even a sweetheart. It’s your song now.”
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
