Yocum Creek
Yocum Creek, KY · Municipal
knoxtntoday.com
boatingindustry.com
Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful Launches River ROVer
Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful® (KTnRB) recently launched the River ROVer™, an innovative cleanup initiative that removes floating litter and debris from waterways throughout the Tennessee River watershed. With support from Yamaha Rightwaters and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), KTnRB combines remote-operated debris collection technology with a specially engineered vessel to expand cleanup efforts near dams and to educate communities about the far-reaching impacts of waterway pollution.
Yahoo!
hoodline.com
WATE
Chalkbeat
Christian school wins Tennessee court case challenging religious charter ban
Did you know search engines like Google are changing the way you see news? Keep Chalkbeat’s valuable education coverage at the top of your feeds by clicking here and checking the box next to our name. Knox County Schools cannot block a Christian charter school application on religious grounds despite a Tennessee law banning religious charter schools, according to a federal court ruling on Friday. The narrow decision applies only to Knox County Schools and the Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville, which sued the school district last year over its application of the state law. It does not strike down Tennessee’s religious charter school ban or guarantee that Wilberforce’s application will be approved. The ruling comes amid a growing national conservative push to greenlight taxpayer-funded religious schools . Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti declined to defend the 2002 law earlier this year after publicly calling it “likely” unconstitutional , leaving Knox County Schools to face a lawsuit challenging a state law it was required to enforce. Tennessee lawmakers also loosened the state’s restrictions on religious charter schools this year, allowing religious organizations to operate charter schools as long as the schools themselves remain nonreligious. Wilberforce, however, aims to open an explicitly
wvlt.tv
nonprofitquarterly.org
When opioid-settlement grants turn nonprofits into public contractors
In March 2024, Tennessee’s Opioid Abatement Council (OAC) approved a three-year grant worth about $1.7 million for a Knoxville nonprofit called Next Step Initiative Tennessee. The state’s own grant workbook classified the organization as “small.” Its Trenches 2 Treatment project was approved for $566,566 in the first year alone, and a little more than a year later, the same grant appeared in a very different kind of state record.