SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS: Newman hopes to help upward trend of JMCSS continue

Ken Newman has served on the Jackson-Madison County School Board for three years, ever since being appointed to the Board by the County Commission in 2021.

But his involvement in public education started long before he began representing District 2.

“Well I guess you could say it started when I was 5,” Newman said. “But even in the three years that I was at Union between high school and when I started teaching in the county school system, my younger siblings always had something going on that I would attend or be involved in.”

Thirteen years of being educated by JMCSS plus three years of peripheral involvement while at Union equals 16 years.

Then Newman started his teaching career, which included 30 years teaching for public schools in Madison County including North Side, East, West, back to North Side and eventually to the Central Office.

But after his 30-year career as a teacher, he started teaching at Union and helping develop the next generation of teachers, which includes going to districts all over West Tennessee – including JMCSS – and observing student teachers in the classroom.

“There’s one quote that I really like that says, ‘Be fearless in your pursuits of what sets your soul on fire,’” Newman said. “Education does that for me, and it’s why I never want to stop doing it if I’m still effective in it.”

After 54 years of teaching, Newman has developed multiple styles of teaching to ensure he’s connecting with students. Sometimes, connecting with students isn’t about teaching the content as it is about connecting with them on a personal level and getting them to a point where they want to be instructed.

“I had one student at North Side one year that I had him in the last class of the day, and every so often when he’d come in, he’d ask if we were doing anything that day in class,” Newman said. “After a few times hearing this question, I asked him why he asked it.”

It turns out the student had a vocational class earlier in the day, and if he didn’t finish a project, the teacher would allow him to return and finish if he had the opportunity to.

“I had him for an hour, and I told him if he’d give me 45 minutes of his undivided attention, he could have 15 minutes to get to his other class and work on the project,” Newman said, adding that the student did pay attention in class, began to grasp the material better and improve his grades.

While that student was in class decades ago, Newman said that’s almost a precursor to what JMCSS is doing now by offering several options throughout the district for educational choices. Newman said he appreciates the various vocational training classes that are offered in different schools including cosmetology and agriculture at Liberty, shop classes at South Side, vehicle mechanics at North Side and one at Early College High he’s fond of.

“There’s a class program there called ‘Teaching as a profession,’” Newman said. “And students in the program take classes for three years regarding teaching.

“Then if they make it to the fourth year of the program, they’re placed at Alexander Elementary and are student teachers in classes there. So they’re getting student-teaching experience before they ever get out of high school.”

Newman said he hopes to see the District build on that program and possibly produce more like it in other schools.

“One thing I wanted to see for the District is to stop the revolving door at the Superintendent’s office,” Newman said. “And so far, it looks like we’ve done that.

“If we can keep [Superintendent Marlon King] and he continues his vision for JMCSS, I think we’ll continue to see improvements throughout the District at every measurable scale. We’re starting to see that already, and hopefully those trends will continue.”

Early voting is from July 12-27, and election day is Aug. 1. Anyone who hasn’t registered to vote but wants to vote in this election has until July 2 to register.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news