Find Pathways to Prosperity in Jackson, TN

Jackson / Nathan Lambrecht

If you haven’t visited a local high school recently, you might be astounded by what you’d find there. Because for Jackson-Madison County School System (JMCSS) students, everything old is new again. But everything new is even newer.

Guided by the knowledge that individuals learn in different ways, in different settings, even at different times of day, JMCSS is creating tailored educational paths that help students seamlessly transition from school to work or postsecondary education, whether they aim to be a neurosurgeon, an advanced manufacturing robotics tech or a chef.

Powerful Partnerships

In 2021, JMCSS received a $2 million Innovative High School Model grant from the Tennessee Department of Education. It was used to form a Department of Innovation, which, with school personnel and community partners, manages 12 different Innovation Impact Institutes at each of the district’s high schools and at the Workforce Development Center.

By redesigning existing Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs, humanities courses, Early College and work-based learning, and launching innovative new initiatives with community partners, the entire basis of learning is shifting.

“Our Innovation Impact Institutes are improving the ways in which our students learn by introducing a renewed excitement for traditional career and technical programs as well as providing new classes and initiatives to our district,” says JMCSS Superintendent Dr. Marlon King.

The Institutes reimagine when students learn, beyond the traditional school day, where they learn (A lab? A greenhouse? A hospital?) and how they learn – whether hands-on, remotely on a computer, in a classroom or through internships. The who includes community partners.

Changing the Narrative

High schools are open enrollment. Learning can be anywhere it needs to be, and classes and work can take place long past the traditional 3 p.m. bell, providing juniors and seniors a choice of where they go and what they can study.

At Liberty Tech High, students in the Advanced Agriculture, Food, Natural Resources & Technology Innovation Impact Institute grow vegetables in raised beds they built, giving some produce to the school’s cafeteria and selling to other cafeterias. Grant money will, in time, provide a tractor and drones, so they can grow row crops and manage them by air from their classroom. Students interested in animals can work directly with Crusader Cuts, the program’s partner, learning pet care and, in the future, large animal care.

Jackson Academic STEAM Academy (JASA), the system’s “cyber-school,” is home to the STEM & Digital Entrepreneurship Institute. Students here have created an eSports program and developed a nationally ranked eSports team. Their work also includes classes in video game design and eSports management, two rapidly growing fields.

 South Side High School Institute of Advanced Carpentry students are designing and building a solar-powered tiny house, gaining valuable collaboration skills as they work with welding students who built the steel trailer on which the tiny house can travel and automotive students who wired the trailer and put wheels on it. The resulting trailer alone is valued at $30,000.

The Automotive Maintenance & Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Institute, housed at the district Workforce Center, offers students training on up-to-the-minute Amatrol equipment that will prepare them for ever-evolving industries that need highly trained mechatronics engineers. The district has invested more than $200,000 in equipment for the institute.

Students at the Hospitality & Tourism Management Innovation Institute at Liberty Tech learn to plan, prepare and serve food. But they also learn service, marketing and retail, using their new skills to run an online holiday catering business and a once-weekly Taste of Liberty Café.

By thinking outside the box, the institutes are helping students be better prepared for a constantly changing work world that needs their skills.

“You must also remember this is taking place within our tuition-free, community school system,” King says. “This allows us to change the narrative some people have toward public school. Our public schools are winning.”