UPDATE! Marcus and Joey will finally make their national debut! Thursday, Dec. 20, a special segment highlighting their time working with Brad Paisley will air during the CMA Country Christmas Special on ABC.



Live television, folks! CMA Week (a.k.a “Country Music’s Biggest Night™”) cast a national spotlight on two Metro high school students – even if they didn’t end up playing with Brad Paisley during the broadcast.



Marcus Wanner, a student at Nashville School of the Arts, and Joey Santoro, a student at Hume-Fogg Magnet High School, were hand-selected to perform with Brad during the The 46th Annual CMA Awards on Thursday. The performance was meant to draw attention to Keep the Music Playing, a program that has donated more than $6.1 million to support music education on behalf of the hundreds of Country Music artists that perform at CMA Music Festival for free.



But the hectic world of live television forced the performance to be cut from the show, though they still had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rehearse with Brad and appear with him on Good Morning America.



Isaac Litton Middle School, home of the Marching 100, was also to be featured, though that video segment was cut from the broadcast, as well. Teachers Allison Winstein and William McMillan - along with more than twenty students - participated in a video shoot promoting the Keep the Music Playing partnership with MNPS.

Litton was selected to participate for its long and rich history of excellence in music. Litton is now redeveloping its music program as part of its overall school improvement program and in partnership with Music Makes Us, a city-school partnership that aims to reinvigorate music education in Nashville.



“The support and generosity of our Nashville community is remarkable,” said Laurie Schell, director of Music Makes Us. “We are so grateful to the Country Music Association's Keep the Music Playing program for ensuring our students have access to quality musical instruments. Having a good instrument is the first step toward becoming a music-lover for life."



About Keep the Music Playing

Keep the Music Playing is an initiative of the CMA Foundation, which exists to provide financial support to worthwhile causes that are important to the Country Music Association and the Country Music community. The CMA Foundation places special emphasis on serving the needs of CMA's core constituents and nonprofit organizations with initiatives that preserve the legacy of the format, music education, and respond to such other needs that may be identified in the future by the CMA.



Since 2006, KTMP has contributed more than $6.1 million to Metro Nashville Public Schools. The funds have been used to build music labs, provide sound and lighting equipment for school auditoriums, and purchase more than 4,000 instruments for the schools.



About Music Makes Us

Music Makes Us promotes, supports and advances student engagement and achievement through robust, high quality music education with both a traditional music curriculum as well as a contemporary curriculum track that uses new technologies and reflects a diverse musical landscape. A public/private partnership among Metro Nashville Public Schools, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, and music industry and community leaders in Nashville, Music Makes Us is committed to becoming a worldwide leader in music education, bringing the resources of the Nashville music community together to enable participation and foster student success for all of its 81,000 students.



Building on a model partnership and the generosity of the Country Music Association’s Keep The Music Playing program, Music Makes Us seeks to establish groundbreaking new contemporary curriculum pathways as well as create a strong alignment with the instructional goals of MNPS, enhance existing chorus, band and orchestra programs, facilitate strong partnerships among the business and nonprofit music communities, develop a facilities master plan, and improve the support infrastructure for teachers, students and community partners.

Want to help great students earn their high school diplomas?



A school that gives students their second chance to graduate is getting a second chance itself. The Academy at Opry Mills had to move across town after the historic flood of 2010. But it is being reborn with a lot of hard work and help from Metro Schools and our partners at the Simon Youth Foundation.



Now you can pitch in, too.



Simon Youth has set up a “gift registry” of sorts where you can make donations that will go directly to finishing The Academy’s space inside Opry Mills Mall. Have $50 to contribute? You just “bought” a lamp or other classroom support item for students to use. $100? That’s good for a set of group seating. Big spenders can sponsor high-tech items like interactive white boards, teacher workstations or even an entire media center that students will use directly.

Furnish the Future of The Academy at Opry Mills

“This is not about buying fixtures for classrooms; this is about furnishing the future of Nashville by keeping young people in school so that they can prosper to become active members of the community who secure well-paying jobs that positively impact the local economy,” says SYF President and CEO J. Michael Durnil, Ph.D.



The donations all go toward a $350,000 grant from Simon Youth to Metro Schools. That grant is what will help The Academy at Opry Mills break new ground in classroom design. The school is being built using the principles set forth in The Third Teacher: 79 Ways You Can Use Design to Transform Teaching & Learning. It will be a collaborative and engaging environment far removed from the traditional high school classroom. Please take a moment to look at the donation page and make a contribution, no matter how small (or big!).

And look for a lot more bragging about The Academies at Old Cockrill, Hickory Hollow, and Opry Mills in 2012-13!



Full release from the Simon Youth Foundation:

“Furnish the Future” Public Giving Campaign Launches in Support of Simon Youth Academy at Opry Mills NASHVILLE, Tenn. – After being closed for more than two years following the historic Nashville flood in May of 2010, the Simon Youth Academy at Opry Mills will reopen this August and once again serve Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) students who are at risk for dropping out. Now, Nashville area residents can help write the story of the school’s return by making a gift to Simon Youth Foundation, the nonprofit organization supporting the school’s reconstruction. In the style of a gift registry, a donation page has been established at SYF.org to allow the Nashville community and other supporters to directly contribute to the construction of the new school, including the purchase of student desks and seating and learning resources like white boards and monitors. “Gifts supporting the Academy at Opry Mills are a sound investment in the city’s future, and we are hopeful that Nashville residents will take ownership of this new school by contributing to the cause,” said SYF President and CEO J. Michael Durnil, Ph.D. “This is not about furnishing classrooms; this is about securing the future of Nashville by keeping young people in school so that they can become active members of our community.” In a first for Metro Schools, the Academy at Opry Mills will utilize concepts from the book The Third Teacher: 79 Ways You Can Use Design to Transform Teaching & Learning. With innovative use of space and design, the Academy will promote collaborative and active learning while offering flexibility in the layout of learning spaces. The environment will engage students in new ways and benefit student-teacher interaction. “For the students at the Academy, the traditional classroom setting did not work,” Durnil says. “We will be creating a non-traditional environment that will ignite hope in students, giving them the confidence to be successful and earn their high school diploma.” Gifts made through the gift registry page at SYF.org will help fund a $350,000 grant from Simon Youth Foundation to Metro Schools for the Academy build out, and the school will operate in partnership between the two organizations with support from Opry Mills. To support the reopening of the Academy at Opry Mills, donors can log on to http://www.syf.org/support-syf/donate-in-support-of-the-simon-youth-academy-at-opry-mills. While suggested gift amounts are posted at the page, donations at any level are encouraged. SYF is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization, and all gifts to the Academy construction are tax deductible. The Simon Youth Academy at Opry Mills is one of two Metro Schools supported by SYF. The second is the Simon Youth Academy at Hickory Hollow, which opened to serve the students displaced by the flood-forced closure of the school at Opry Mills in 2010. Between the two Academies, SYF and MNPS will annually serve as many as 500 at-risk Nashville youth. The reopening of The Simon Youth Academy at Opry Mills follows the recent return of Opry Mills as the largest outlet and value retail shopping, dining, and entertainment destination in Tennessee. With more than 200 popular stores, plus an unmatched selection of family-friendly dining options and entertainment venues, Opry Mills is a top destination and a vital economic force, providing jobs, impacting tourism, and generating revenue. About SYF Simon Youth Foundation, established in 1998, operates 23 academies in 13 U.S. states that give at-risk students the same education they would receive in a traditional classroom while offering the flexibility that their individual circumstances require. Recipient of the Crystal Star Award of Excellence in Dropout Prevention from the National Dropout Prevention Center, the foundation has helped more than 8,000 students earn their high school diploma and provided more than $10.7 million in college scholarships to 3,500 students in 42 states. The Education Commission of the United States has recognized the Foundation with its Corporate Award for sustained and substantial investment in improving public education.

Here's a great way for you to make a difference through the LP Pencil Box this week.

Bring your school supply donations to the Nashville Predators pre-season game against the Carolina Hurricanes. There will be areas set up inside of Bridgestone Arena to collect your donations for the Pencil Box.

The LP Pencil Box is a free school supply store that provides learning materials for students in Metro Schools. Teachers are allowed to "shop" at the Pencil Box one a semester. More more information on the LP Pencil Box is available on the Pencil Foundation website.

The LP Pencil Box has another great chance for you to help bring school supplies to the students and classrooms who need them. This time it comes with the chance to buy beautiful artisan jewelry, gifts, and home decor from around the world.

Ten Thousand Villages will be donating a portion of its sales to the LP Pencil Box this Sunday, August 21 from noon to 5:00 p.m.

Ten Thousand Villages is a non-profit, fair trade store in Green Hills that supports artisans across the globe. Their products help these artisans attain a fair wage to pay for for food, education, healthcare and housing.



The LP Pencil Box is a free school supply store for educators in Nashville. Teachers can shop at the Pencil Box and bring supplies back to their classrooms. They rely on donations of supplies and cash to keep their operations going.



Head over to Green Hills this Sunday to support our teachers and students!