Ready to start your teaching career with us? Our students are ready for you, our district is ready for you, Nashville is ready for you. Find out what working in MNPS will look like for you with all the details you need from salary, to benefits, to licensure.
What does a teacher in MNPS earn?
2019-2020 MNPS Certificated Salary Schedule based on years of experience.
Teacher Benefits
Metro Nashville Public Schools offers teachers an incredibly robust benefits package, including comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, flexible spending accounts, retirement savings plans, and paid leave. Additionally, the district operates a world-class fitness center available free to all employees. The district’s unique partnership with Vanderbilt University includes five Vanderbilt clinics in schools across the district, providing onsite care and clinics for teachers and staff.
How to Become a Teacher in MNPS
- Complete an educator preparation program at one of Tennessee’s undergraduate ed programs and be recommended for licensure by the program
- Receive qualifying scores on the edTPA or Praxis assessment that correspond to your endorsement area
- Register for a TNCompass account with the Tennessee Department of Education and apply for your license
- Complete a master’s degree in teaching or education at one of Tennessee’s graduate ed programs and be recommended for licensure by the program
- Receive qualifying scores on the edTPA or Praxis assessment that correspond to your endorsement area
- Register for a TNCompass account with the Tennessee Department of Education and apply for your license
- Apply to NTR, complete a one-year residency in the classroom alongside a mentor teacher, and be recommended for licensure by NTR
- Receive qualifying scores on the edTPA or Praxis assessment that correspond to your endorsement area
- Register for a TNCompass account with the Tennessee Department of Education and apply for your license
- Apply to TFA, get accepted, and request Nashville
- Complete summer training and be recommended for licensure by TFA
- Receive qualifying scores on the edTPA or Praxis assessment that correspond to your endorsement area
- Register for a TNCompass account with the Tennessee Department of Education and apply for your license
- Register for a TNCompass account with the Tennessee Department of Education
- Apply for an out-of-state license on TNCompass
- Verify that your edTPA or Praxis scores have been submitted
- Verify that your transcript from your education preparation program has been submitted
- Attach a copy of your out-of-state license and experience verification form
Alec Woodhull, M.Ed
Dean of Students – IT and Engineering Academy
John Overton High School
Why I Teach in MNPS
I didn’t set out to be an educator. I came to Nashville as an undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University to be an international lawyer. I had dreams of traveling the world, of meeting diverse people, of being some powerful person. By accident, I was required to volunteer for a literacy non-profit that served MNPS elementary students in North Nashville to meet a set of course requirements. I begrudgingly agreed, although, to be honest, I saw nothing in it for my professional trajectory. Then I met my mentee, Taniya (name changed for anonymity). She was eight, tapped her right foot unceasingly, dove under church pews to hide if she couldn’t read a word in a Magic Tree House book, and grinned for minutes at a time when I gave her an encouraging word for her perseverance in tackling a tough word or sentence. Each week we met, I had to focus intently on what she needed to support her growth, as a reader and individual. I was jarred out of my self-absorbed worldview. And somehow, mysteriously, she awoke in me the realization that careers, professions, jobs… they’re not about me. They are about something else- something harder to grasp at first than the desire to reach self-fulfillment. It’s about service. About leveraging skills, experiences, and relationships to meet the needs of others. I had to reframe everything. My desire to be powerful was transformed into a longing to understand what it means to be a servant leader. At the end of that semester, I changed my major to Education. I was hired at an MNPS high school as an English teacher at the end of my undergraduate career.
MNPS has provided unique opportunities for servant leadership over the past seven years. I was honored to consistently work for principals who not only sharpened my instructional repertoire, but also challenged me to grow in my capacity to lead. They asked me to facilitate teams and chair departments. At every turn, I was grounded with reminders of our central purpose as educators- to serve. Whether discussing what effective differentiation looked like in writing instruction or deliberating on the content for a faculty PD session, both school and district-level leaders highlighted our student-centered mission. This commitment to excellence in humility allowed me to grow as a leader the right way. While getting my Master’s Degree in Education Administration, I shadowed multiple MNPS assistant principals outside my own school. Each of them, in their own way, revealed that their central driver was serving students well. Multiple of them mentioned leaders within the district who had ignited this passion to be servant-leaders, mirroring my own journey. This past year, I moved into an administrative role at an MNPS high school. My executive principal, and the administrative team I joined, pair a passion for serving students with a commitment to excellence instructionally and within the school building that continues to stretch me. If you long for such servant-leadership, consider MNPS. There are robust roles and systems to facilitate your development, but more importantly, there are servant-leaders who want you to grow. And, most importantly, there are so many other students like Taniya who will benefit from your service and remind you of that calling.
