Alignment Nashville Moves To Mayor's Office

Posted: March 6, 2008 11:07 PM CST (Channel 5 News) NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Alignment Nashville, a group that coordinates community organizations to help students in Nashville's public schools, will move to the mayor's office. Mayor Karl Dean and the organization's leaders hope the new partnership will help them more efficiently focus on problems such as dropout and graduations rates. The four members of Alignment Nashville will begin reporting directly to the mayor in four to six weeks. "This move makes a lot of sense. Alignment Nashville is well positioned to assist the mayor with his agenda to connect the community and public education," said Sydney Rogers, executive director of Alignment Nashville. Presently, Alignment Nashville shares office space with the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and Metro Schools. "When you get a community actively engaged in a coordinated way around youth, you can't help but have an impact on graduation rates," said Jeffrey Dotts, director of children's health initiative for Alignment Nashville. "What we need to be doing in Nashville is working to be sure that we are maximizing all the resources we have available in this community, to partner with our schools, to offer better education to our kids," Dean said.