Tennessee
Knox County school board urges lawmakers to change Tennessee’s book ban law
How Knox County Schools ban books in school libraries
Knox County Schools abide by Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act to determine whether a book challenge should result in a ban.
A majority of Knox County school board came together to ask state legislators to reform the Age-Appropriate Materials Act that led to the ban of “Roots” last month.
The board voted June 4 to move forward on a resolution brought by Anne Templeton that urges legislators to:
- Allow books to be considered as a whole instead of a single passage. Right now, if a section of a book has depictions of sexual conduct or excessive violence, it must be banned.
- Extend the materials review period to 90 days before a statewide commission acts.
- Distinguish between grade levels so a book can be removed from elementary schools and allowed in high schools, for example.
Board members Katherine Bike, the Rev. John Butler, Chair Kristi Kristy, Patricia Fontenot-Ridley and Anne Templeton voted in favor. Members Betsy Henderson, Lauren Morgan, Stephen Triplett and Vice Chair Travis Wright voted against the resolution.
Triplett and Henderson said they agreed with parts of the resolution, but were fearful this action could disarm the Age-Appropriate Materials Act.
“I don’t want to send a message to the General Assembly that I want the Age-Appropriate Materials Act watered down at all. That is my only fear in sending anything to them, is that they get the idea from our board that we want it watered down,” Triplett explained. “I would be content with these changes, but I’d also be content if nothing changed.”
Henderson urged the board to instead take the issue up in the fall ahead of the General Assembly’s 2027 session. Templeton said she preferred to act now because book banning is a relevant topic in Knox County.
“My request is not for us to sit down and rewrite the law. It’s to ask the General Assembly to have a conversation, to say, ‘Maybe we didn’t get it perfect the first time because we’re human and maybe in our humanity we didn’t look at all the ifs, ands and buts,’” Templeton explained. “Now we have a case study here in Knoxville that could possibly apply to make this law better. To make it different.”
Morgan said the bulk of the work needs to happen at the local level, not with the state legislature.
“We need to do some work on (policy) and figure out ways to work within the framework that the law provides,” Morgan said. “I think before we’re asking the General Assembly to begin or substantially alter a law that was only enacted a couple years ago, I do believe we need to do our work as a local board to figure out a better way to enact it here.”
Next steps
A resolution is just the first step for the board in a long legislative process that will start again in the fall.
Tennessee lawmakers will reconvene in Nashville in January, but work happens year-round. A Tennessee School Board Association advocacy guide encourages local school boards to submit potential resolutions June through September for consideration at the organization’s convention in November.
This resolution will likely be discussed further late in the year when the board creates its annual priorities to send with the Knoxville delegation in 2027. This is an annual process and can include asks to fully fund preschools or protect public education for undocumented immigrants, for example.
How we got here
The decision to ban “Roots” was made public in mid-May, and was immediately met with backlash from the community and country.
The novel’s author, Alex Haley, called East Tennessee home during the later years of his life. He built a home in Norris and later bought a home in Sequoyah Hills. A sculpture of Haley was erected in Morningside Park in 1998, and that part of the park is now dubbed Alex Haley Heritage Square. He donated his personal papers − including drafts of “Roots” − to the University of Tennessee. There’s a permanent exhibit in the Museum of Appalachia dedicated to Haley.
“Roots” was one of 124 titles KCS has banned in the past two years after Tennessee law directed schools to review the contents of their libraries. Superintendent Jon Rysewyk reinstated the historical novel May 26.
KCS evaluates books to ban on a regular basis, and the district committee − comprising three administrators − reviews only specific passages, not the totality of the work when banning a book, to follow the law. The committee previously reviewed an excerpt from “Roots” and did not recommend banning it.
District spokesperson Carly Harrington told Knox News the district does not “track or document the original source” of complaints.
Rysewyk told board members in a memo the ban “weighed heavily” on him. He said he consulted with legal experts who came to different conclusions in applying the state law to “Roots.”
Caitlyn Meisner is the K-12 education reporter for Knox News. Email tips and story ideas to caitlyn.meisner@knoxnews.com.
WHITE HOUSE, Tenn. (WZTV) — A heavy law enforcement presence was reported Tuesday near the intersection of U.S. Highway 31W and Rolling Meadows Road in White House.
FOX 17 News has a crew headed to the scene and is working to learn more about the situation.
Law enforcement vehicles line a roadway near the intersection of U.S. Highway 31W and Rolling Meadows Road in White House, Tennessee, as authorities respond to an active incident on Tuesday. Officials had not released details about the investigation at the time the photo was taken. (Photo: FOX 17 News )
A viewer told FOX 17 News a man was barricaded inside a home with other people inside. However, FOX 17 News has not independently confirmed those details.
Once at the scene, FOX 17 News learned that a man who was inside the home during the operation had exited the residence. FOX 17 News is working to obtain more information on the incident that is now subsiding.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
Tennessee
Former Tennessee teacher who allegedly showed nude photo to student indicted by grand jury
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Tenn. (WZTV) — A grand jury has indicted a former Montgomery County high school teacher for allegedly showing an inappropriate photo to a student.
In March, FOX 17 News reported that 52-year-old Matthew Vedder, a teacher at Montgomery Central High School at the time, showed a 17-year-old student a nude photo of himself. Vedder told investigators he accidentally swiped to the photo while showing students photos of a school project. He later resigned from Montgomery Central High School.
Makenzie Ellithorpe, is the Montgomery Central High School student who Matthew Vedder allegedly showed inappropriate photos to. (Photo: FOX 17 News)
MORE | Teacher accused of showing nude photos to student resigns, family pushes for charges
On July 7, the Sumner County District Attorney’s Office presented the results of a law enforcement investigation into Vedder to the Montgomery County Grand Jury, which voted to indict him on four counts of exhibiting obscene material to a minor.
Vedder was taken into custody by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office. A Montgomery County judge set his bond at $10,000.
RELATED COVERAGE | Family renews calls for CMCSS director’s resignation during heated school board meeting
Although Vedder resigned, the family of a Montgomery Central High School student called for the resignation of the Director of Schools, Dr. Jean Luna-Vedder, Matthew Vedder’s spouse. The district previously told FOX 17 News that Luna-Vedder removed herself from any disciplinary decisions and the investigation involving her husband.
As of June, Luna-Vedder has not publicly commented on calls for her resignation.
This is an ongoing story. Stick with FOX 17 News as we bring you the latest.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Isolated showers and storms over the next few days will make for more brilliant color displays across the sky.
Rainbows have been very common across Middle Tennessee for several evenings now. With all the recent rain, conditions have been ideal for fabulous displays of brilliant colors. Some of you have even reported seeing double rainbows. WSMV4 viewer, Leslie Whited, captured the one above, early Tuesday evening, July 14th.
To find out how double rainbows form, let’s first examine how a single rainbow occurs.
Single rainbows form when the sun, positioned behind you, has its light refracted through raindrops ahead of you.
Those raindrops bend sunlight as it passes into the drops. Then, some of that light reflects off the back of the drop and is bent one more time as it exits the drop. That entire process is called single reflection. Single reflection produces the primary or brightest rainbow.
Sometimes, some light reflects twice while in a raindrop before exiting. This is called double reflection. Double reflection produces a secondary rainbow. The order of colors within a secondary rainbow is a mirror image of the primary rainbow (i.e. the reverse). Secondary rainbows are not as bright as primary rainbows because less light is double reflected than is single reflected (i.e. some light is lost or attenuated every time light is reflected). Notice the fainter secondary rainbow in Leslie Whited’s double rainbow/storm picture at the top of this article.
The ideal time to see a rainbow is when the sun is relatively low in the sky (and has the best chance of being at your back). That translates to early morning or evening. Since in our current weather pattern, showers and storms are most numerous during the late afternoon and evening, that’s when you’ll have the best chance of seeing a rainbow through the rest of this week. If you’re very lucky, you might even see a double rainbow.
Happy sky watching!
For life-saving weather alerts, customized messages on conditions and forecasts, and videos detailing upcoming weather events, download the WSMV 4 First Alert Weather app for iPhone or Android. Have weather pictures or videos? Share them here.
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