Tennessee
Tennessee parent proudly calls herself a ‘Venmo mom’ — why her stance is dividing the internet
A Tennessee mom says she doesn’t want to volunteer in her kids’ classrooms or for their extracurricular activities — and said she’s “found her community” after posting a video on TikTok explaining that she’s a proud “Venmo mom.”
“I don’t know about anyone else out there, but ‘Meet the Teacher’ is super stressful because I do not want to be involved at all,” Casey Neal, 31 and a mother of four, said in her video that has grabbed at least 450,000 views.
“I will make sure my kids obviously do their homework and get to school on time … but I don’t want to be on PTO, PTA, room mom, team mom — I don’t want to do any of that.”
Neal indicated that when the start of a school year or sports season rolls around, she gets ready to duck.
“I start getting real stressed when they start asking for volunteers,” Neal said in her video.
“I’m like, ‘Oh no, I know they’re judging me because I’m not raising my hand,’ but I don’t want to do all that extra sh–,” she said. “I don’t want to come in. I don’t want to set up.”
But she’s more than happy to Venmo money to help with whatever is needed, she said.
“If the room mom needs money for everyone to participate, fine. I’ll Venmo money right over,” Neal said in her video.
“I do not want to set up for it. I don’t want to do it.”
This year, to avoid the stress, she said she made that perfectly clear to all the classroom and team organizers.
Neal and her husband have four kids — ages 11, 7, 5 and 3 — who are involved in all kinds of activities, such as cheerleading, baseball, football and more.
“I even told one of the coaches today that I am a ‘Venmo mom,’” Neal said.
Neal, who worked as a district manager and ran five stores for Andy’s Frozen Custard until moving to Knoxville this year, said her job made it difficult for her to attend school functions during the work day.
And that didn’t seem to sit well with some people.
“When I wasn’t as involved as the other moms, I didn’t feel very welcome in certain situations,” Neal told Fox News Digital.
“My two youngest, they went to a private school before we moved, and they had a bike day, where you brought their bike or their scooter, and [some people] were like, ‘Oh, you’re not staying?’ Or, ‘Oh, you’re not staying for the party?’ I’m thinking, ‘Does nobody work anymore?’”
Neal said she also had a bad experience with some cheer moms a couple of years ago.
“Their practices are two to three hours long,” Neal said.
“So I just come back and pick up [her daughter] when practice is over. There was a mom who was talking very poorly of me, and this is one of the practices I happened to go to. When she realized I was there, her face dropped. There was even a dad there who was, like, ‘Not cool.’”
Said Neal, “I don’t need that drama in my life or in my kids’ life.”
“We’re here to set examples, and if they’re talking poorly in front of all the parents, I’m sure some kids heard some stuff. I just don’t think that’s necessary.”
That’s when Neal realized she could avoid all the trouble and still help out by donating her money rather than her time.
Thousands of people agreed with her — all for their own reasons.
“I’ll literally pay for the entire event, just don’t make me actually go,” one viewer of Neal’s video said.
“This is so me. Just let me know how much money and I will send it,” another viewer said.
“As an introvert, please don’t ask me. I’ll send all the money and cheer in the audience, though,” another person commented.
“This. Can we normalize this?” another person commented.
“You need door prizes, meals donated, crafts? I’ll drop it at the office. I’m not staying,” another viewer stated.
What’s even more validating, Neal told Fox News Digital, are the comments of appreciation for “Venmo moms” by the ones organizing the events.
“There is a place for everyone,” one viewer commented.
“As a room mom and team mom, I can’t thank you enough for being a Venmo mom,” someone else added.
“As a room mom, I love Venmo moms,” another viewer said.
Neal said she now has a community of moms who are supportive of this behind-the-scenes role.
“Not to sound cheesy, but I just thought it was really beautiful,” Neal said.
“Never did I think my rant would go off. But the comments and women supporting each other in the comments and supporting me meant a lot. It takes all kinds of people doing all kinds of things,” she added.
“We’re all there for the same reason. We just contribute in different ways. I just thought it was really beautiful and positive.”
There were a few who disagreed with the notion of not giving time to an important cause, such as a child’s education experience or extracurricular activities — and they didn’t mind saying so.
“I do want to be involved [because] I wish my mom was when I was a kid,” one viewer commented.
“Your kids would love to see you helping,” someone else said.
“I was a Venmo mom until I lost my son last year. This year I’m doing everything to be involved in my daughter’s life. Every moment counts,” another user wrote.
Others said that they didn’t really want to volunteer their time — but they’re willing to take one for the team.
“As a new PTA president, I don’t want to do it either, yet here we are,” another said.
“I don’t want to either. I do it to make sure my kids have the best experience [they] can. It’s not really about me at all,” someone else commented.
“My thoughts are if everyone felt like that, then the kids would have a sh—- experience in school,” another person said.
“So I suck it up and volunteer so the kids can have fun or whatever else it’s for.”
Neal said her kids love seeing her in the stands and they know she’s there to support them in all their activities.
“I love being on the sidelines. That, for me, is the biggest thing,” said Neal.
“But as far as being in charge, being a team mom, a room mom, I’m just not good at planning, and there are people who want to do that. I will get a teacher whatever they need to make them successful, to help make the class successful, but I just don’t want to be in charge.”
Neal added, “And the teen moms, they seem to have it under control. They don’t need me.”
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.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – A Tennessee school district is crediting an AI teaching assistant program with helping students improve their TCAP English Language Arts (ELA) scores.
Scott Langford, the director of schools for Sumner County, said in a press release that a preliminary report shows that education tech company CourseMojo has been helping maintain student engagement “at the most rigorous point of the lesson.”
“Students take ownership of their own learning while teachers can measure individual student progress in real-time,” Langford said. “Teachers benefit from the feedback to connect students to the standards included in each activity.”
Sumner County schools conducted a pilot test of CourseMojo for sixth graders in six schools during the 2024-2025 school year. After finding an average 8 percentage point increase on the TCAP ELA assessment for those students, they decided to expand the program’s use to all middle school grades last academic year.
While usage of Coursemojo varied across schools, a preliminary analysis of the district’s 2026 TCAP ELA assessment data showed that groups with an average of 25 or more Coursemojo activities per student improved ELA proficiency by an average of 3.7 percentage points. Groups with little or no use of the program saw -0.2 percentage points during those assessments, the district said.
Eighth-graders had the “strongest gains,” the district said, after “stagnant performance for the last several years.” According to the district, those students who had an average of 25 or more Coursemojo activities had an average increase of 8.7 percentage points in proficiency.
Dacia Toll, co-founder and co-CEO of Coursemjojo, said that the “technology alone doesn’t improve student outcomes,” but that the success depends on how educators implement tools.
“Sumner County Schools has been incredibly thoughtful about integrating Coursemojo while keeping rigorous curriculum and great teaching at the center,” Toll said. “We’re proud to partner with a district that’s so committed to their own learning and to helping every student succeed.”
While the district boasts improved proficiency with the AI tool, it also said that its preliminary findings compare outcomes among school-grade groups with different levels of implementation, “rather than against schools that did not use the platform.”
More analyses are expected to be done with the final TCAP data.
Even with the help of the AI tool, the district was not the top in the state for proficiency increase in its TCAP ELA scores, according to state data.
However, district TCAP results show that from 2024 to 2026, the percentage of middle school students not meeting expectations decreased from 54.7% to 51.9%. The number of students meeting or exceeding expectations increased from 45.3% in 2024 to 48.1% in 2026 for ELA.
While that is an improvement, it remains unclear the exact influence Coursemojo had on those scores. And overall, the results show that less than half of Sumner County middle schoolers are proficient in ELA — a result that echoes statewide.
Copyright 2026 WSMV. All rights reserved.
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