Christiane Buggs

Chair
Metro Nashville Public Schools Board of Education

Christiane Buggs is chair of the Metro Nashville Public Schools Board of Education. She is a Nashville native and former MNPS student who went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in physics and two master’s degrees in education – from Tennessee State University and Vanderbilt University respectively – before returning to MNPS as a middle school math teacher. As board chair, she manages a $1.2B budget that serves the social, emotional and academic needs of 83,000 students across 159 schools who speak 141 different languages and live in households whose incomes range from poverty through affluence. She proudly oversaw an increase of $84M in the city’s education budget that constituted a median $7,000 per year pay increase for Nashville’s public school teachers. The management of this system through a tornado, pandemic and changing of superintendents led to the development of a number of collaborative partnerships that have supported and produced an increase in student achievement throughout her two years in board leadership.

Christiane was named a member of the 2021 class of Nashville Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 because of her public service leadership and serves on myriad nonprofit boards across Nashville that focus on the development, resourcing, or general support of historically underserved community groups. She is a founding board member of The Equity Alliance, a Nashville based 501c3 that seeks to educate, engage, and empower people of color around the civic process. Her most recent full-time role at United Way of Greater Nashville has kept her heavily involved in supporting Nashville’s young people and engaging stakeholders as she regularly surveyed the literacy landscape, both nationally and locally, to coalesce and elevate best practices. She served as the manager of literacy partnerships for the Blueprint for Early Childhood Success, Nashville’s citywide initiative focused on increasing literacy proficiency in our youngest learners.

Christiane approaches her role as director of strategic partnerships for TECA as a lifelong learner and collaborator. Young people, and the community of adults who support them, are better when groups work together. Curating spaces and opportunities for development will make it possible to sustain education long term.