Chalkbeat

Find out where the 2024 Memphis school board candidates stand in Chalkbeat’s voter guide

2024-06-14T22:51:14+00:00

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Five of the nine seats on Memphis-Shelby County Schools board are on the ballot Aug. 1 at a time of great transition for the school district, which is under the leadership of a new superintendent.

In the last year, the board rebooted a botched superintendent search process to choose a successor to former Superintendent Joris Ray, who departed in scandal in 2022. The board selected Marie Feagins, an education administrator in Detroit, as the new superintendent. She officially took the helm in April.

The process put intense pressure and scrutiny on the board. Now, 20 candidates are vying for board seats for Districts 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7. Each of the five races is contested.

On the horizon for Memphis are the end of federal pandemic relief funds and budget cuts that will impact staff and programs. Aging facilities in the district continue to be a priority, as costs to improve and build new schools are rising. And academic outcomes for Memphis students are under new scrutiny, with new accountability systems from the state.

The board is sure to have at least one new member to represent students and families in District 4, which includes parts of East Memphis, Hickory Hill, and southeast Shelby County. Longtime board member Kevin Woods, who was appointed in 2011 and served through the historic merger of the city and county school systems, is the only incumbent not seeking reelection.

Althea Greene, the District 2 representative and chair of the board for the last two years, as well as Stephanie Love, a longtime board member for District 3, both joined the board during successful runs in 2020.

Board member Frank Johnson of District 7 and Mauricio Calvo of District 5 are both seeking election to their seats for the first time, after joining the board midway through the last four years through appointments to vacancies.

Chalkbeat asked each of the 20 candidates to share more about their positions on the issues facing the district and how they planned to approach their leadership.

Eighteen of them responded (Alvin Crook for District 4 and Chavez Donelson for District 7 did not), and you can read their responses in this voter guide.

Chalkbeat lightly edited and condensed their bios for clarity, but their responses to questions have not been edited by Chalkbeat, other than formatting adjustments to improve readability.

Click on a candidate’s name to read their responses to each question. To compare candidate responses to a specific question, click on that question.

Check your voter registration status here.

Find a sample ballot and polling locations here by entering your name or address.

To view all of the school district maps, go here.

The voter registration deadline is July 2. Early voting begins July 12 and continues through July 27, before Election Day on Aug. 1.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis board criticizes Feagins’ communication on 1,100 position cuts while budget deadline looms

2024-06-12T03:45:43+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Memphis-Shelby County Schools and statewide education policy.

With less than a month until the new budget year, Memphis school board members pressed Superintendent Marie Feagins for specifics about 1,100 position cuts that they say come as an 11th-hour surprise.

The budget issue came to a head Monday, when Feagins emailed Memphis-Shelby County Schools staff explaining the number of cuts, when jobs would end, and deadlines for accepting job reassignments.

The lack of public discussion about the cuts resulted in chaos and confusion for the thousands of staff who received the email, board members said during a special meeting Tuesday.

Districts across the country have been bracing for staff changes and layoffs with the end of one-time federal pandemic relief funds, often referred to by the acronym ESSER. Memphis knew these changes were coming, and the board and staff talked through potential cuts in a November retreat.

Marie Feagins, a longtime student advocate, faces new tests as Memphis superintendent

But since then, and throughout Feagins’ onboarding as superintendent this spring, few particulars have been publicly requested by the school board or offered by district administration.

The lack of public deliberation by board members as they appointed a new superintendent and many members face re-election has left the expansive changes to be ironed out as the clock ticks on the current budget year.

“When you are going to do something drastic, the board must be brought along,” Memphis board Chair Althea Greene said Tuesday.

Greene brought a resolution directing Feagins to pause the cuts until providing more specificity about them, which passed with one “no” vote by Mauricio Calvo. But the district’s general counsel Justin Bailey said MSCS would still have to notify staff in order to meet regulatory requirements about layoff notices, which effectively makes the resolution moot.

“I am excited to do this work. I am taking this with pride to bring before you the hardest decisions that have not been made in previous years before me. … I take this serious,” Feagins told the board. “You could take the ($325,000 salary) from me today and I’ll show up tomorrow.”

Feagins’ proposal to cut 1,100 positions will result in about $68 million in savings for the district, MSCS officials told Chalkbeat. Of the roles, about 41% are vacancies, leaving some 650 people facing a job loss or reassignment.

The district of nearly 110,000 students will still employ about 14,000 people.

Feagins said she inherited a proposal of 812 position cuts from the prior administration led by then-Interim Superintendent Toni Williams. (Williams now is a consultant on district finance matters, but her role in the current cuts appears unclear.)

Feagins said her additional proposals include cutting 156 early-career teachers whose permits are expiring. She also wants to sunset the district’s use of Proximity Learning, in which students learn in school classrooms from online teachers. That would result in cutting another 70 staffers who worked as in-person monitors for those students, she said.

Among the 812 cuts are likely some of the 675 positions that were initially proposed during the retreat last November. Those included several top-level management roles. Tito Langston, who has been the chief financial officer throughout the superintendent transition, presented those cuts again to board members Tuesday.

“If we don’t make key decisions today, we can punt it, but we’ll be right back here next year,” Langston said. “Matter of fact, even if we don’t punt it, I hate to say this, but I’ll give a preview: We’re probably going to be back right here next year anyway.”

According to the Monday email, about 280 staff still needed to be informed of their job change. Of the 363 staff who had been informed of the cuts, about half had accepted a reassignment, Feagins said.

As budget cuts loom, Memphis raises minimum teacher pay to $50,000

“Communication is the key,” said Vice Chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman.

Dozens of people attended Tuesday’s meeting wearing black in support of staff who were being cut.

Both Williams and Feagins said they expected to be able to keep many staff through reassignments, but the replacement jobs could pay less. Board members have pushed Feagins in the wake of job cut announcements to make plans that ease salary cuts those staffers may face.

Barbara Beloch, who told the board she was an 18-year employee, petitioned the board to reconsider replacing her role as a parent liaison who helps families navigate the district.

“We are the voice of and for so many parents who feel they do not have a voice in their child’s schools,” Beloch told board members.

The board is expected to vote on the budget and formally approve the cuts before the new fiscal year begins July 1.

A community meeting about the budget — the first this year — is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Thursday in the board auditorium, 160 S. Hollywood St. You can view the proposed budget on the district’s website.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis’ iZone school turnaround program appears to be on the way out

2024-06-10T02:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Memphis-Shelby County Schools and statewide education policy.

A longtime turnaround program that supports the Memphis district’s lowest-performing schools appears to be winding down, and it’s not yet clear what will replace it.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ Innovation Zone, known as the iZone, will no longer offer schools an extended hour of instructional time each day, Superintendent Marie Feagins recently told staff. The reduction in hours is likely to end the additional compensation teachers in those schools received for their time. That would remove two key pillars of a program that received national attention in its early years for outpacing efforts of the state-run school takeover model, the Achievement School District.

Some of those gains stalled as the Memphis program expanded — and as it struggled to maintain funding — illustrating the challenges of improving multiple chronically low-performing schools.

The changes at MSCS coincide with an upheaval in Tennessee’s school turnaround efforts, leaving major questions about how the lowest performing schools will be prioritized. Tennessee was once considered a turnaround pioneer, thanks in part to a $500 million award in 2010 from the federal Race to the Top competition to implement various education reforms.

But a new hire in Memphis, announced late Friday, suggests new plans for improvement could be on the way after all. Feagins selected Roderick Richmond, a career education administrator in Memphis, to oversee the district’s lowest performing schools.

She recently laid out her plans to reorganize the district’s schools into three new categories based on their state letter grades, which were assigned to schools for the first time last fall under a new formula that stresses achievement more than growth.

In recent years, Memphis' iZone program has absorbed returning schools from the Achievement School District, the state-run turnaround district.

Richmond, an architect of the iZone, will take on D and F schools in his new role as Transformation Officer. The schools are now in the “Supe” category, short for superintendent. Schools with C grades will be called “Ignite” schools, and A and B schools will be called “Soar” schools. The categories could help determine how resources are allocated to schools and offer what Feagins says will be more appealing labels than letter grades.

“It’s tough when your school has been branded and labeled as an ‘F,’” Feagins told board members during a May meeting.

While the district’s budget proposals have suggested additional staff will be available to the Supe schools, they haven’t been specific about how the offerings will compare with existing iZone resources.

The Supe category comprises more than 70 schools, Feagins said, or about double the iZone’s current 36 schools.

The iZone started out with just eight schools, and by 2019, it had grown to 23. At that time, researchers found that gains for the iZone and the ASD had stalled, and pointed to high teacher turnover and the struggle to recruit top teachers as replacements as possible challenges. The model wasn’t necessarily unsuccessful, the researchers said, but they raised concerns about being able to replicate its features at a large scale.

Even so, in recent years, the iZone has continued growing, absorbing schools that languished in the state’s ASD. At least one of those schools, Whitney Elementary, has since moved off of the list of the state’s lowest performing schools since returning to the district. More ASD schools and students are coming back to MSCS as the state takeover district continues to unwind.

Reflecting on Tennessee’s turnaround programs in 2021, Richmond told Chalkbeat that more collaboration among communities, the district, and the state could have improved outcomes for struggling schools.

Schools have struggled to add learning time after COVID. Here’s how one district did it.

It isn’t clear what Feagins believes any new turnaround model should include. Asked by Chalkbeat if removing the extra hour of instruction would effectively end the so-called iZone program, Feagins struggled to respond.

Tito Langston, the district’s chief financial officer, said at the time that MSCS will continue to receive the federal funds it receives for its lowest-performing schools. But those funds are disbursed based on a federal accountability system that separated from the state’s system when Tennessee leaders revamped the letter grade formula. That means that not all D and F “Supe” schools will have access to additional federal dollars.

The district did not respond to questions seeking clarification in time for the publication of this story.

Changes for the upcoming academic year are expected to be final once the school board votes on its budget later this month. The meeting has yet to be scheduled. Look to the school board’s website for a date.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Marie Feagins, a longtime student advocate, faces new tests as Memphis superintendent

2024-05-28T10:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Memphis-Shelby County Schools and statewide education policy.

To dig in to her new job as superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, Marie Feagins took her seat at a desk.

Not her own desk at district headquarters, but a student desk in a classroom. She sat amid Northaven Elementary School students learning how to put together and define compound words like “horsefly” and “blackbird,” and later with Grandview Heights Middle School seventh graders solving math word problems about super-cold temperatures.

“I really want to see — and feel, more importantly — what the experience is like for you all,” she told a group of Grandview Heights students in April.

It wasn’t all just for the cameras. Feagins, 42 years old, came to Memphis having established a long record as an advocate for students, starting with an internship in Alabama serving youth entering the workforce and more recently as a top academic official in Detroit’s public school district working to boost high-school graduation rates.

She’s putting that record to the test in a district that needs to boost stagnating academic outcomes for students and restore the trust that has been eroded by scandals and school board discord.

Feagins has officially been superintendent for only about two months, but has been gearing up for this role for a long time. She published a doctoral dissertation in 2020 that examined challenges for Black women in getting hired and succeeding as superintendents. She secured her Tennessee teaching license before returning for the second round of interviews for the MSCS job, and arrived in Memphis within weeks after her selection, even before she had a final contract.

Marie Feagins watches a student work at Grandview Heights Middle School on April 23. She began her official term with a nine-day school and community tour.

She began her official term with a nine-day school and community tour, seeking to build relationships and trust as the first outsider to run the merged district since it was formed a decade ago. She has chronicled her experiences in social media posts and comments, even responding to others’ posts about her.

She has called upon a team of current and former superintendents to guide her through the transition, and assembled a much larger group of local stakeholders to help develop a long-awaited strategic plan for the district. And she has a team of about 100 students advocating for their 100,000 classmates across the district.

Between her school visits, community meetings, and the early teambuilding, Memphians are beginning to learn more about how the new leader will exercise her power over Tennessee’s largest school district, how she will build bridges in a community where she has never worked before, and how she will turn research and vision into action and change.

Michelle McKissack, the school board member who nominated Feagins for the job, took early note of the new superintendent’s intensity.

“I felt that she captured having vision for this district, and for our children, and bringing people together. I think what she has already done in just a few weeks’ time, before she even started officially, that is exactly what I was looking for,” McKissack told Chalkbeat in early April.

Feagins is already being tested. She started three months earlier than the board initially planned. So her first month coincided with a last-minute announcement of a school closure and a contentious Tennessee legislative session that heaped new measures on Memphis. She’s shaking up top leadership with open applications for new job titles and is the face of hundreds of expected position cuts and realignments needed to reduce spending by $150 million.

Though Feagins has had some wins, such as increased teacher pay, building her own leadership team could be a chance to quell early concerns from some school board members that her leadership style was based more on theory than evidence. Her district administration experience is limited to a recent three years in Detroit, where she held four different roles.

Supporters from throughout her career said Feagins’ strengths are her communication and people skills. She celebrated her most recent birthday — her fifth day as superintendent — by organizing a Habitat for Humanity build with teams of student athletes.

Marie Feagins speaks with Grandview Heights students during her April 23 visit. At one time, she told students there, “I didn’t even know I could be a superintendent," since every superintendent she had encountered was "a man who didn't look like me."

Feagins, who declined to speak with Chalkbeat for this story, has been open about wanting to be a superintendent. She applied for the Memphis role during the first search in 2023, and has pursued the top job before elsewhere. A previous job application impressed Michael Hinojosa, a former superintendent of nearly 30 years in Texas and Georgia who was part of the search team.

Feagins didn’t get an interview, but Hinojosa thought, “This lady is going places.” He kept her number, and is now leading a team of current and former superintendents, including Carol Johnson Dean, the former superintendent of Memphis City Schools — who are helping Feagins strategize her first moves.

For all her determination, Feagins didn’t always picture herself as a superintendent, she told an inquisitive Grandview Heights student during that April visit.

“I didn’t even know I could be a superintendent,” she said.

“Every superintendent I’ve ever had or seen has been a man, and a man that didn’t look like me,” she added. But she knew she wanted to be a leader, she told the students, and run a large organization. As superintendent, she said, she’ll mix the art of leadership with the art of teaching.

Feagins stood out as an advocate for students

Feagins, who graduated from the University of Alabama, began her career in the South, and has focused on education and related roles, except for brief stints in business and local journalism. The curated biography she shared notes that she once won a guest co-anchor position with Katie Couric, and has appeared in films including “Selma.”

One of her first jobs was with the youth services division of Birmingham, Alabama, working under another young leader, Cedric Sparks, who is now chief of staff for Mayor Randall Woodfin. She began as an intern, Sparks said, helping with programming for students entering the workforce. Creative and attentive, Feagins took direction well but also developed and implemented her own ideas advocating for students.

“You couldn’t put her in a box,” recalled Sparks, who has since received regular career updates from Feagins.

Sparks credits his own rise to someone seeing and nurturing his potential. Of Feagins, he said, “I would hope that they would give her the same grace.”

As her career advanced, Feagins kept up with her colleagues and mentors, and cited testimonials from dozens of them on a website she listed on her resume. Sparks was among them, as was Clarence Sutton, Jr., the longtime principal at Central High School in Tuscaloosa, which has struggled with academic performance and integration.

Sutton, now superintendent of Huntsville City Schools, remembers Feagins’ brief stint as a counselor for the way she could connect with each student, and expose them to new opportunities.

Marie Feagins joins students eating at Northaven Elementary School on April 23. Supporters from throughout her career said Feagins’ strengths are her communication and people skills.

Feagins arrived in the Midwest in 2017 as an assistant principal at Cleveland’s John F. Kennedy PACT High School. The school’s students were predominantly Black and came from poor families, as with many Memphis schools, and its academic performance was among the lowest in Ohio, according to state data.

Aaron Talton, who was a student at JFK PACT at the time, recalls Feagins creating a stir at first with her Southern accent, bright clothing and smile, and establishing herself as an advocate for students.

Importantly, he said, she tried to fill in their gaps.

“She came and she dominated the place,” Talton said, describing a leader who “stood out in ways that were controversial” because people weren’t used to the type of accountability in leadership she displayed.

When students were banned from convening after school at the library in the shopping center around the corner, Feagins expanded tutoring hours after school, Talton said. She helped provide him a dress shirt and slacks, making him more comfortable in professional spaces.

Talton became a first-generation college student and graduated from Ohio’s Central State University.

During her February interview for the Memphis job, Feagins told board members about her efforts to increase parent engagement at JFK PACT High, by creating programs that translated education jargon to terms that families could better understand. Part of that was communicating data about the school’s failing letter grade.

Feagins took over as principal in 2019-20, the year interrupted by the start of the pandemic. Clarke Perkins, who was new to teaching and Cleveland then, remembers Feagins having to step into the principal role at the year-round school without much notice.

Feagins offered guidance, Perkins said, but didn’t lower expectations. She was the kind of leader who wanted to make change, despite systemic barriers facing the school. Together, they stayed late to wrap packages with sweatshirts for students. They organized Black History Month programming and a mock election.

“I’m telling you, she’s like superwoman,” said Perkins, who is now an attorney.

Feagins capped off her first year as principal with a drive-thru graduation. She was the last principal of the school before it closed and merged into a new building a mile away.

Marie Feagins participates in a pep rally at Ed Rice Community Center on April 23.

In Detroit, Feagins pushed for more students to graduate

By the next summer, she was in the Detroit public school district, where she spent nearly three years. Half of that time was in a role overseeing high schools and leadership, and the other half was split between three different roles, including as a special assistant to the superintendent.

During interviews with the Memphis school board, Feagins touted her work in Detroit to improve outcomes for high schoolers after the pandemic, especially graduation rates. Detroit’s efforts during that period included close monitoring of student progress and increased attention to credit recovery, where students who are not on track to graduate shift to make-up options for coursework.

The graduation rate, a four-year metric, began to bounce back and came to 74% for the 2022-23 school year. That was about a percentage point away from the pre-pandemic rate, and the first couple years of improvements that the district’s graduation rate had seen in years.

In a recommendation letter written in May 2022, Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti praised Feagins for the “improved cohesion” she brought to those reforms.

Feagins began by sharing data with the principals, closely auditing student transcripts, and getting to know the specific stories about why schools were behind, so she could assign additional staff, she told Memphis board members. By tracking the data daily, Feagins said, she and school staff were able to make quick improvements to the number of students who were on track to graduate.

The most successful strategy, she told board members in February, was “operation graduation,” which included a final push to the finish line: Schools competed with one another to decrease the number of make-up courses students needed to be on track for graduation. They were celebrated with public recognition and a trophy, Feagins said. The winning school hosted a basketball game between teachers and staff, whose evaluations also included these high school success metrics.

“I did whatever we needed to do to make the work fun, because that’s not fun work,” Feagins told board members in February. “I also didn’t want kids to feel like because they were so far behind that it was impossible.”

The dropout rate declined in 2021-22, but increased to a recent high of 16% for the 2022-23 school year, Michigan data show.

Although the data on four-year graduation rates was promising, Chalkbeat Detroit reported in March 2023 that it came with costs. Credit recovery courses helped students get back on track to graduate. But because many were online, they could be disruptive to high school learning experiences. Students who transferred to other schools to focus on recovery courses missed out on clubs and other programs at their former schools.

Feagins appears poised to bring some of the Detroit strategies to Memphis, in hopes of boosting the district’s graduation rate from near 82%. She’s proposed $1.5 million in resources toward increasing the frequency of transcript audits, and adding staff who can focus on freshman and sophomore students at the district’s lowest performing high schools, and counselors who can help keep students on track.

“All of those (career) experiences have afforded me a pretty wide lens,” Feagins told reporters in May, “so that nothing really surprises me other than we’re not a little farther along than we are. And we’re not where I believe we should be.”

During her tenure in Detroit, the school district launched a competition among schools to encourage credit recovery and improve graduation rates after the pandemic. “I did whatever we needed to do to make the work fun," she said, "because that’s not fun work.”

Feagins’ early steps aim to rebuild trust in MSCS

Feagins, though new to Memphis, knows about the importance of establishing trust — both among school board members and the community. She wrote about that in that doctoral dissertation, noting that lack of trust can prompt superintendent departures.

Already, Feagins has acknowledged that 10% of teacher positions are vacant, sharing a figure that the district historically has been reluctant to publicize. Transparency with the school board, Feagins found in her research, is one way to improve trust.

“People generally don’t care what’s on your resume, really,” said Johnson Dean, the former Memphis superintendent. “They care about how you interact with people and how responsive you are to their needs.”

The ability to reestablish trust in the school system was a consistent theme during Memphis’ tortuous search for a superintendent to replace Joris Ray, who resigned in 2022 amid an investigation and scandal.

Feagins, for her part, has sought to meet the challenge by keeping a full schedule of school tours and community meetings, and by surrounding herself with advisers who understand the city and the job.

And the community has responded to her openness.

“A change is gonna come,” a chorus of Melrose High School students sang to Feagins on the morning of April 1, her first day on the job.

The Orange Mound high school welcomed her with balloons and performances by the band and the cheer team, and other communities showed similar enthusiasm. Parking lots overflowed as school leaders and families showed up to see top students celebrated and hear from Feagins, who entered to a Tye Tribbett track proclaiming “new, new, new everything.”

“We wanted her to feel comfortable, like she’s at home, like she’s walking into her own school,” Melrose junior Rhyan Brown told Chalkbeat. His peers hope Feagins can keep alumni involved in the school, and find ways to more meaningfully address student behavior and bring more teachers to the school, rather than virtual teacher alternatives.

Feagins walks with students at Grandview Heights Middle School. To build trust in her leadership, Feagins has kept a full schedule of school tours and community meetings, and surrounded herself with advisers who understand the city and the job.

It’s early yet, but Feagins’ tenure so far has offered refreshing harmony among the superintendent, board, and community, said Venita Doggett, director of advocacy for the Memphis Education Fund. Doggett had closely scrutinized the superintendent search with requests for more transparency and authentic community engagement. Now she’s looking toward the team Feagins assembles to help her execute in the role.

Ultimately, Doggett said, how she assembles her cabinet and advisory teams “will tell us what her leadership looks like,” Doggett said. “Right now, she feels very inclusive.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

A new curriculum on desegregation teaches elementary students the legacy of the ‘Memphis 13’

2024-05-17T10:00:00+00:00

Read more of Chalkbeat's coverage of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Memphis-Shelby County Schools and statewide education policy.

When elementary schoolers learn about Dwania Kyles, they’re struck by her bravery. When Kyles was in first grade, she and 12 others became the first Black students to walk into all-white classrooms in Memphis to begin desegregating the city’s school system.

Another thing the elementary students marvel at about those pioneers, Kyles says: “They’re still alive!”

The milestones of the Civil Rights Movement may seem like part of a long-ago history — it was 70 years ago this month that the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education against forced segregation. But it took years of battles before the so-called Memphis 13 made it into the all-white schools, with all-Black schools persisting long after the ruling. And the battles didn’t end there.

Kyles, for her part, has been working to make sure that complete history is better understood, spearheading a new curriculum to teach the city’s story of school desegregation.

Taught in public elementary school classrooms in Memphis — including the very ones the Memphis 13 desegregated — the curriculum’s lessons localize themes of the Civil Rights Movement by encouraging students to make a difference in their own communities and learn from their elders.

The goal is for students and teachers to develop a richer understanding of Memphis’ pivotal role in American history, at a time when most Memphis schools have become segregated again, and state laws can make teachers feel uncomfortable helping students investigate racial issues.

Every state, every district, every school, every classroom has its own school desegregation story. And school desegregation impacted everyone differently.
Gina Tillis, creator of 'Memphis 13' curriculum

Curriculum architects Gina Tillis and Anna Falkner developed the community-focused lessons alongside surviving members of the Memphis 13 and other educators, with initial support of a grant from the Library of Congress. The curriculum is a product of the newly created Memphis 13 Foundation, which supports the first graders’ legacies in other ways — including in towering murals of the students at the schools they desegregated.

Another important aspect of the curriculum: Children get to learn about other important children, not just important adults, Tillis said.

“How often do children see themselves?” Tillis asked. “... And children in your neighborhood, that went to your schools, that had a profound impact on society? Isn’t that powerful?”

Curriculum connects students to neighborhood, family stories of desegregation

Tillis said the professional development courses she leads on the curriculum leave teachers invigorated and eager to take the lessons back to their students and make them their own. One teacher who helped develop the curriculum wrote a play for her students to perform. Another who attended the training created a bulletin board that mixed historical photos and newspaper clippings with student responses.

The second grade curriculum includes a picture book project. For fifth graders, students conduct oral-history interviews. As part of the lesson, students learn to develop interview questions, conduct their interviews, and then evaluate what they learned as a class.

To create the Memphis 13 curriculum, some of the first graders who desegregated Memphis' public schools weighed in on how their legacy should be remembered.

Students have returned to their Memphis-Shelby County Schools classrooms with stories from their own elders about school desegregation in Memphis and other American cities, as well as international ones, Tillis and Kyles said.

“If you are not connected to the Memphis 13, then you probably are connected to another elder that desegregated a school,” Tillis said. “Because every state, every district, every school, every classroom has its own school desegregation story. And school desegregation impacted everyone differently.”

Tillis has plans to eventually expand the curriculum to include older students.

For Kyles, it is important that students learn how to listen well, and with compassion. What if, she wonders, there had been town halls and public-service ads after the Brown v. Board decision, to help society navigate the change?

“We can change all the laws. We can come up with all the policies in the world that we want to,” Kyles said. “We’ve now got to really focus on: How do we change people’s hearts and their belief systems?”

How Tennessee ‘prohibited concepts’ law affects discussions

The Memphis curriculum is aligned with Tennessee social studies standards and focuses on the role of primary sources, like newspaper articles, interviews, and other original documents.

The Memphis 13 Foundation has received funding from the state for its curriculum and other programming, which includes other community events.

But race is still a sensitive topic for many Tennessee teachers, now that lawmakers have placed restrictions on what they can say. Tillis includes a discussion of the 2021 “prohibited concepts” law — which Tennessee teachers are challenging in court — in training teachers to use the new curriculum.

The law restricts teachers from discussing 14 concepts that the Republican-controlled legislature deemed cynical or divisive, and the punishments can include stripping teachers of their licenses and cutting off funding to school districts.

The ‘Tennessee 3’ created a historic teachable moment. Will schools be allowed to teach it?

In practice, the law has made teachers more conscious about how they approach the material, Tillis said. And concerns about compliance have led to more scrutiny of reading lists associated with the curriculum as it has been implemented at MSCS, she said.

MSCS declined to make its staff available for an interview in time for the publication of this story.

While the curriculum falls within the law, student questions could push the boundaries. For instance, one of the prohibited concepts is inherent privilege based on race. Elementary school students who are just beginning to understand history may ask: “Why couldn’t they all go to school together?”

“We don’t have to say we’re talking about privilege,” Tillis said, “but it’s going to come up.”

Tillis has encouraged teachers to explain the law itself when prohibited concepts come up in classrooms. The students are “so smart. They know when something is not fair,” Tillis said. And they’re picking up on inequities in their own schools — even small, simple things — just like the Memphis 13 did when they began desegregating Memphis schools nearly 70 years ago.

It reminded Kyles of Memphis 13 student Alvin Freeman, who desegregated the white Gordon Elementary in North Memphis.

“Ice cream at Gordon wasn’t different from ice cream at Klondike,” the neighborhood’s Black school, an adult Freeman said in “The Memphis 13,” a documentary film that’s part of the curriculum. “Klondike didn’t have ice cream.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

MSCS’ $200 million funding request reflects soaring cost of new high schools

2024-05-02T21:15:28+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools is asking the county for more than $200 million in funding for school buildings, both to address maintenance needs at existing schools and to support construction of two new high schools.

The request exceeds even the expanded school buildings budget supported by a county wheel tax increase last year, and it’s not clear how much of it the county can provide. Projected costs for the two new high schools have risen by tens of millions of dollars since county commissioners approved initial funding for them.

Completing construction of the two new high schools would deliver on a promise to Frayser families, plus the communities at three Germantown schools that the state is forcing the district to close.

MSCS’ building strategy in the works: See which schools may be affected

The request is also aimed at tackling a long backlog of existing facility needs, including new fire alarm systems, roofs, and heating and air upgrades. That list is expected to grow once school officials receive results of an expansive building assessment later this year.

Superintendent Marie Feagins and Chief Financial Officer Tito Langston brought the request to the Shelby County Commission, the group that approves the county funds MSCS receives, on Wednesday. The pending capital request — of which $97 million is for immediate maintenance needs — is a major item in the district’s proposed $1.8 billion budget.

Feagins says existing buildings are the priority

Feagins pushed back on the notion that the district would have to choose between the deferred maintenance projects and the new high schools, but said the existing buildings are the priority. This fiscal year, MSCS dipped into its own fund balance to cover $64 million in building projects after the county committed dollars only to the new high schools.

“We have immediate needs in several buildings, almost 100 buildings, right now,” Feagins told reporters after the presentation.

The district is petitioning others for funding, too, she said, including the City of Memphis, which has not had a funding relationship with the district in years.

“There are multiple ways to move this forward,” Feagins said. “I’m confident that we’ll get it done.”

The proposed new high school in Frayser will replace Trezevant High School and MLK College Prep High School, which is closing this year after its term in the state-run Achievement School District. The new building is to be built at the MLK College Prep campus on Dellwood Avenue.

In his own budget presentation Wednesday, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris proposed to continue the existing commitment to the new high schools, but said he’d offer an additional funding proposal in December to give county and district officials time to find cost saving options.

“We want to see new schools in more neighborhoods, and the best way to do that is to make sure that you spend appropriately on the first two new schools,” Harris told reporters.

In an interview last week, Commissioner Mick Wright, who chairs the facilities committee, told Chalkbeat that it appeared that the county and district could be at an impasse over the schools, especially given the county’s promises to another construction project, the region’s new trauma hospital.

Wright told Chalkbeat Wednesday that he could see the additional funding for the schools being approved if other county projects don’t move forward as planned.

Commissioner Edmund Ford, Jr. also expressed doubts about meeting the district’s capital funds request, but agreed that schools’ maintenance needs should be met.

“I don’t want to get to the point to where we abandon those students, those existing schools, and then we decide to only look at the two new schools,” Ford said.

Feagins outlines budget cuts, investments

MSCS presented a balanced budget that eliminated a $150 million shortfall through a series of position and program cuts meant to focus resources on initiatives that are working well.

Feagins described her message to staff: “You can have a job. It just may not be the title that you have right now, or the respective department or work location that you’re in.”

In April, Chalkbeat requested updated information about how the proposed job cuts match up against the 675 cuts district officials proposed to board members in November. The district has not responded to the inquiry.

At the same time, MSCS proposed some investments to go along with a new salary increase for teachers, including:

$4.2 million for attendance specialists, an average cost of $53,000 per school
$1.5 million toward support personnel at high schools that earned D and F letter grades from the state
$29.3 million in literacy supports, with a focus on small group instruction, family communication, and low performing schools

Feagins also proposed $1.6 million to expand course offerings at Hope Academy, the school inside Shelby County’s juvenile detention center.

District officials expect to offer a more detailed look at the budget during meetings later in May and June with school board members and county commissioners. Both bodies have to vote to approve the budget before it takes effect in July.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

As budget cuts loom, Memphis raises minimum teacher pay to $50,000

2024-05-01T18:09:33+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools is raising its minimum teacher salary to $50,811 under a new agreement with its two teachers unions, delivering on their salary goals despite a $150 million budget shortfall next year.

The pay bumps are an early win for Superintendent Marie Feagins, and could make teaching positions more attractive for central office staffers whose jobs are on the line because of the expected budget cuts.

But the vote on the new agreement spotlighted concerns over one board member’s potential conflicts of interest. Keith Williams, who represents District 6, is also executive director of one of Memphis’ teachers unions. He was one of the seven board members who voted to approve the agreement at Tuesday’s meeting. (Two board members were not present.)

Keith Williams, shown here at a 2022 hearing, voted as a school board member Tuesday to approve an agreement with unions to raise teacher salaries. The vote spotlighted concerns about conflicts of interest for Williams, who heads one of those unions, the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association.

Williams told Chalkbeat after the meeting that a state attorney general opinion “cleared” him to participate in such votes. He did not cite any of the specific analyses given in the opinion.

The opinion calls for recusals when a school board member who is also a union leader has conflicting interests on a matter such as employment contracts.

Teachers, administrators, and board members, meanwhile, cheered the agreement, which raises the district’s starting salary by 8% for teachers with undergraduate degrees and ensures that veteran teachers receive raises once they have hit the top of the district’s 19-step salary scale.

In practice, the pay increases are likely to be even higher in percentage terms when the agreement takes effect in July. Employees who would have received a raise by advancing to the next “step” of the scale will also benefit from the increased salaries on the new scale.

“Teachers make magic happen daily in our classrooms, and it is my intention to continue to find ways to show our appreciation for their work,” Feagins said in a statement following the meeting. She said during the meeting that the raises were an early priority.

“I think that was probably the first thing I said when we sat down in February,” she said, referring to a meeting with MSCS’ chief financial officer, Tito Langston. “‘Get me to 50.’”

School districts across Tennessee are raising salaries to keep in line with the minimums championed by Gov. Bill Lee, which aim to get teacher pay to $50,000 by 2026-27. Memphis has historically paid more than the state minimum, as it competes for staff to fill teacher vacancies. About 10% of the district’s 5,800 teaching positions are vacant.

The current contract for Memphis teachers offers union representatives a chance to bargain over certain items each January, but district officials and teachers didn’t return to the table until April, when Feagins’ term as superintendent officially began.

Leaders of both unions praised the district and school board in public comments ahead of the meeting Tuesday.

“We were able to achieve our goal in such a short time,” said Danette Stokes, president of the United Education Association of Shelby County. Addressing Feagins and her administration, she continued: “I want to express my gratitude for your leadership and your dedication to making MSCS a competitive and an attractive place for educators.”

Anntriniece Napper, president of the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association, called the new salary schedule “magnificent.”

The new schedule is available online. District officials say it will cost an additional $28.4 million to implement the new salary schedule. Meanwhile, district leaders are working to cut $150 million in spending from next year’s budget to account for the expiration of federal COVID relief funding for education, which amounted to $776 million since 2020.

Williams told Chalkbeat that he saw no reason to recuse himself from the vote to approve the agreement with the union he heads, noting that he was not part of the committee that negotiated it.

“I am a citizen of this city and I am a retired teacher of 40 years. And I know what I’m doing and how to do it. I’m not violating any policies … because it doesn’t benefit me. It benefits my profession, that I gave my life to. So, I’m good,” he said.

The attorney general’s opinion he cited, issued in February 2023, suggests that because teacher unions and boards of education enter agreements on teacher employment, “it is foreseeable — and indeed likely” that a person in Williams’ position would face conflicts of interest and conflicting fiduciary duties. The opinion says that recusal is appropriate when obligations to the teachers union and to the school board arise.

Williams did not cite any particular analyses of the opinion to explain his participation in the vote.

Toni Williams, former interim superintendent for Memphis-Shelby County Schools, will return to the district as a financial consultant.

The board Tuesday also approved a consulting agreement for former interim superintendent Toni Williams, who will advise the district on budget matters for the next year.

Documents show Williams will earn $187,272 for her consulting services, an amount equivalent to her annual pay as chief financial officer before she became interim superintendent in August 2022. She will also receive funds for COBRA health benefits.

The consulting agreement was an expected benefit outlined in Williams’ interim superintendent contracts.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Superintendent Marie Feagins selects team to develop MSCS strategic plan

2024-04-25T21:04:22+00:00

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Superintendent Marie Feagins said Thursday that she has assembled a 63-person team of Memphis leaders and educators to help develop and execute a new strategic plan for Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the first such plan since 2021.

The new strategic plan is part of Feagins’ 100-day plan published online, where she is logging progress on dozens of initiatives.

Feagins has said she expects the school board to approve a new strategic plan in September, after the Aug. 1 school board election, in which five seats are on the ballot.

“It is important for me to hit the ground running and see results fast where possible,” Feagins said in a statement announcing the team Thursday. “I know my vision is strong and will yield positive outcomes. But the ‘how’ is equally important to the ‘what.’ These seasoned educators, students, and community and business leaders will share their journeys and provide sharp recommendations for solutions.”

Here’s who will guide Marie Feagins as she takes on new superintendent role in Memphis

The district and board have faced pressure to specifically communicate their priorities and goals, as stakeholders particularly want to see improved academic results and a comprehensive plan for school buildings.

Board members recently offered to provide such a plan to state Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican, in response to his proposal to expand the Memphis school board with state appointed members. White ultimately set the proposal aside.

Feagins’ team is divided into five committees, which each have roughly a dozen people. (You can find the full list on the district’s website.) The group will receive support from a smaller transition team that includes former and current superintendents.

Among the co-chairs for a new team developing a strategic plan for Memphis-Shelby County Schools are district officials Angela Whitelaw and Tito Langston, pictured here sitting on either side of Superintendent Marie Feagins.

Memphis City Council Chairman JB Smiley Jr. is co-chairing Feagins’ new, expanded team alongside Stefani Everson-Phillips, a longtime communications official with the school district.

Smiley’s presence is notable. Memphis-Shelby County Schools has been more vocal in the past year about wanting to reestablish a relationship with the City of Memphis. The city has not had a funding relationship to the district since the old Memphis City Schools merged with the county school system.

Among the committee co-chairs are two current members of the MSCS cabinet: Angela Whitelaw, the top academics official, and Tito Langston, the district’s chief financial officer.

The team also includes elected and government officials, business and philanthropic leaders, and representatives from local colleges, but not the University of Memphis. Directors of local education organizations and other educators complete the group. Some are former district employees.

It was not immediately clear if the meetings would be open to the public.

There are no students on the team. In Feagins’ 100-day plan, she lists a series of three meetings in May with a “student transition team.” It is unclear whether that group is involved with the team working on the strategic plan.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

University of Memphis plans to launch new K-12 district this fall

2024-04-25T00:51:41+00:00

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The University of Memphis announced plans Wednesday to launch its own K-12 school district in the fall after the passage of new state legislation authorizing certain public universities to create innovative school districts.

But it’s unclear how the university’s contract with Memphis-Shelby County Schools, which doesn’t expire until the fall of 2026, will affect the rollout.

Officials from both entities did not comment when asked about the contract’s status.

The legislation introduces a new school governance model in Tennessee in which universities can scale up proven innovations in K-12 teaching and learning.

It passed out of the Senate on a 27-3 vote Wednesday, after the House approved the measure a day earlier. It now heads to the governor’s desk for his signature.

The university hailed the passage of the Innovative School District Act as a “new era” for its University Schools, which currently operate as training and laboratory schools under its contract with MSCS.

“While this is certainly a new concept for our state, being innovators in public education is not new to the University of Memphis,” said Sally Parish, associate vice president for educational initiatives. “We have always been trailblazers in education, and this opportunity is truly a testament to that.”

But during legislative committee hearings in March, Tony Thompson, a lobbyist for Memphis-Shelby County Schools, said overriding the contract with legislation would be unconstitutional.

It’s unclear whether the district was considering mounting a legal challenge.

Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican who sponsored the bill, told lawmakers that while MSCS representatives are split on the proposal, he doesn’t expect opposition, based on conversations with new Superintendent Marie Feagins.

“Some are for, some are not so much for, but they — from the information they gave me — they understand what we are trying to do, and they are not pushing back,” White told lawmakers in a House Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee meeting last week.

The creation of the new district will impact enrollment for MSCS — and take away some of the Memphis district’s highest academic scores. Each of the university’s schools, for instance, have average proficiency rates that, in most cases, are triple that of MSCS’ district average. Critics, though, point out how few students from poor families the university’s schools serve in comparison to the rest of the district.

Under its current contract, University Schools can only enroll 1,050 students. But Parish has said the program has a waiting list of 1,500 students, including for its other early education centers. It is not clear how many students the university could accommodate at its current facilities on the campus of the University of Memphis.

Any changes to enrollment policies would come as the university considers an expansion.

Supporters of the legislation have said they don’t anticipate school takeovers with the formation of the new district, which will become the 10th public school district operating in Shelby County.

In earlier subcommittee meetings, White said he expects the university to expand, potentially through vacant school buildings. The university, he said, wants to build a new high school about a mile away.

White, who has been developing the legislation for the last three years, called the new district “one of the most notable pieces of legislation we have passed this year” in a press release from the university Wednesday.

“This legislation has the potential to impact the lives of thousands of students, and I am excited to see the University of Memphis carry this forward,” said University of Memphis President Bill Hardgrave.

Board Chair Althea Greene, who has supported the legislation, said in a statement she values the district’s partnership with the university, and is confident the pair “will operate in a way that is beneficial for our students.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis’ Humes school, Elvis Presley’s alma mater, is closing after yearslong turnaround attempt

2024-04-16T22:16:54+00:00

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Humes Middle School in North Memphis will close at the end of this school year as it returns to the Memphis Shelby-County district’s control after a decade in Tennessee’s failed turnaround district for low-performing schools.

The last-minute decision to shutter the nearly 100-year-old building, where a young Elvis Presley attended high school, is a change in plans since the fall, when teachers were told the school would stay open, said Bobby White, head of Frayser Community Schools, the charter company that runs Humes for the state’s Achievement School District.

“I just wish it had been sooner,” White said of the decision.

The school has long struggled with low enrollment. Students will be rezoned to Booker T. Washington, a grade 6-12 school 3 miles away in South Memphis, according to Memphis-Shelby County Schools documents.

The decision, shared with families and staff in recent days, happened with little to no public discussion in the community or by the school board. And the prospect of students having to shift to a faraway school has some education leaders concerned.

White and district leaders have known for years that they would need a plan for Humes’ students and the building. Schools like Humes that are taken over by the state typically spend a maximum of 10 years in the ASD.

Students set to attend Humes Middle School will be rezoned to Booker T. Washington, a school for grades 6-12 in South Memphis, about 3 miles away.

Humes is one of five Memphis schools that are reaching the end of their 10-year term this summer. Of the other four, one will remain open and operated by MSCS, one received approval to operate under another state-run charter district, and one will continue to operate as a charter school under MSCS.

The fourth, MLK College Prep High School, operated by the Frayser charter network, is also set to close in its current building, but families have received more regular communication from the Memphis district about the changes there. MLK is set to merge with Trezevant High in the fall while a new neighborhood high school is built.

Meanwhile, the Humes community has been waiting for clarity. Last summer, the Memphis district rejected White’s application to continue running the school under Frayser Community Schools.

“When you’re dealing with poor, marginalized folks,” White said, “you respect them enough to communicate with them as soon as possible, and think through things in a way where they’re going to be valued and respected, where you’re doing right by them.”

For Humes, conversations changed after the district faced renewed concerns about the physical condition of the building, which turns 100 years old next year. When another charter school inquired about leasing the building during a January board meeting, then interim Superintendent Toni Williams said the building had “major issues.”

Around that time, Chalkbeat reported that a draft plan for all district schools suggested that Humes would close. Still, the district hadn’t communicated any new plans to Humes teachers and families since an earlier fall meeting, said White.

MSCS did not respond to Chalkbeat’s inquiries in time for the publication of this story. During a meeting with board members Tuesday, Superintendent Marie Feagins said the district reviewed several factors including the capacity of the buildings. Feagins, who became district leader on April 1, told board members she was under the impression the news about Humes had already been shared.

Elvis Presley is a graduate of Humes, which was once operated as a high school. The building, which is nearly 100 years old, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The building is on the National Register of Historic Places because of Presley, who graduated in 1953 from Humes when it was a high school.

But enrollment at Humes has remained low since even before it was taken over by the state. It can serve more than 1,300 students, but only 193 are enrolled. A previous charter operator, Gestalt Community Schools, also struggled with low enrollment at Humes.

White says the district’s plans to send students from Humes’ zone out of the neighborhood for middle school could result in lower enrollment at Manassas High School in North Memphis.

Memphis board members Stephanie Love, who has kept a focus on schools in the turnaround district, and Michelle McKissack, whose district includes Humes, Manassas, and Booker T. Washington, both said the board should revisit the district’s policy on school zoning.

“The culture in South Memphis and North Memphis is not the same,” Love said, adding that she understands why families and teachers could be upset by the last-minute closure.

The district and board face more decisions about remaining Memphis schools in the ASD, as their charters expire in the next two years. The takeover district itself could wind down, too.

In a letter to parents, Feagins suggested that they consider Cummings K-8 Optional School and Grandview Heights Middle School as alternatives to Booker T. Washington. White said some of the students have considered nearby charter school options as well, including KIPP Collegiate Middle or Frayser Community Schools’ Westside Middle.

The district is holding online meetings for family members on April 17 at 12:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. A community meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at the Porter Leath location at 628 Alice Avenue.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s who will guide Marie Feagins as she takes on new superintendent role in Memphis

2024-04-11T11:02:00+00:00

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New Memphis schools leader Marie Feagins plans to rely on a group of former and current superintendents for support during her transition to the role by working with the Council of the Great City Schools, a national coalition of big-city districts.

The council’s work in Memphis could serve as a pilot project for future educators new to the superintendency.

Speaking about the transition team Tuesday, Feagins said, “That’s who I will depend on to give some of those sharper recommendations of how we move forward, as to not impede the progress based on a learning curve that I will continue to lean into.”

Feagins, a former administrator in Detroit’s public school system, took over as Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ superintendent on April 1, and has been visiting schools and communities to build relationships in her new city. She has also pointed out expected reviews and changes to staffing, budgeting, and academic programming, specifically for students with learning disabilities.

Feagins’ 100-day plan calls for a new strategic plan for the district by September, plus an academic audit. She has also pledged to streamline the central office and continue the district’s plans to close and consolidate some schools and build new ones.

The team from the Council of the Great City Schools is expected to “complete a systems review with a focus on operations, engagement and communications, and equity and inclusion” in the coming months, MSCS said.

Michael Hinojosa, a superintendent-in-residence at the national council who has helped lead the transition team, has nearly 30 years of experience as a superintendent, most recently with Dallas Independent School District. The team was born from a congratulatory text he sent Feagins after she was appointed superintendent in February, he said.

Hinojosa supports professional development for school superintendents — many of whom, like Feagins, are new to the role — and works with coaching programs. Hinojosa said the council wants to help prepare the new leaders and keep them from “rookie mistakes.”

“It’s very important to have a good launch,” Hinojosa told Chalkbeat.

The eight-member team will be “very organized,” he said. “We’re not going to spend months studying things, because she’s got to get some things done, and she’s got to get the right things done.”

Historical context is vital, Hinojosa said, sharing advice from his own mentor: “Before you take that fence down, you better know why it was put up.”

Hinojosa said he hopes this transition team can be an example of another way the council can support new superintendents.

Also among the members are Adrienne Battle, superintendent of Metro Nashville Public Schools, and Carol Johnson Dean, a former Memphis superintendent who has already helped facilitate meetings for Feagins.

The broader council includes superintendents who have navigated the role from “a blue city, in a purple county, in a red state,” Hinojosa said, which will be a necessary perspective for Memphis, where city and district leaders are often at odds with the legislative proposals of the GOP-dominated General Assembly.

Feagins told reporters earlier this week she expects to follow up the team of superintendent experts by selecting a team of local community members, including students.

“There aren’t very many decisions that I’ve made in my career as an educator that didn’t include students,” Feagins said. “And so this is not for show. This is really the type of leadership style that I have.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Restored Craigmont High School planetarium enriches solar eclipse for Memphis students

2024-04-09T01:06:19+00:00

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At 12:39 p.m., as the moon took its first bite of the sun, a group of Craigmont High School students looked up at the dome of the school’s planetarium to watch a video showing them exactly what would happen over the course of the day’s solar eclipse.

This time, it wasn’t the “missed opportunity” school staff sensed during the last solar eclipse in 2017, when Craigmont’s planetarium was still in disrepair.

Following a successful fundraising campaign several years ago, the Raleigh community jewel has become operational again, allowing students to visualize the perfect alignment of the sun, Earth, and moon that makes a solar eclipse happen.

High school students Teko Fair, Nijah Means, and Jada Lloyd pose for a photo outside the renovated planetarium at Craigmont High School.

The Craigmont planetarium is a one-of-a-kind offering in Memphis’ public school system. And it’s an example of how school building improvements can enrich student learning. Since the restoration, science teacher Wayne Oellig has been able to teach a new Earth and space sciences class. Enrollment in the course is maxed out, he said, and more students want to be able to take the class.

“A big struggle with any science class is just putting a visual to what’s going on,” Oellig said. “It’s hard for kids to imagine orbital mechanics.”

What the students see in the planetarium “pretty much directly translates” to what they see outside, he said.

A marching band performs while students view the solar eclipse at Craigmont High School.

Teko Fair, a senior at Craigmont, considers himself a visual learner, and said the planetarium helps him make better sense of concepts he learns in Oellig’s class. He and classmate Nijah Means said they’re glad they don’t have to leave their high school for the planetarium experience.

“And with the teacher that we have, he’s pretty cool explaining lessons and showing us stuff,” Nijah said.

After the lesson indoors, students headed outside to observe the actual phenomenon they saw depicted in the video, with the moon eventually covering 98% of the sun.

Both Nijah and Teko agreed this experience was better than in 2017, when they didn’t know exactly what was happening.

“I’m trying to catch it move,” Teko said as he observed the eclipse through his glasses.

Principal Derek King joins the students viewing the solar eclipse at Craigmont High School.

Opened with the new school in 1975, Craigmont’s planetarium is one of a handful of district-run planetariums in Tennessee. Under longtime director Duncan Teague, Craigmont students produced a newsletter about the cosmos, presented plays using the planetarium’s special effects, and even hosted an astronaut for a special event. In 1986 when Halley’s Comet was visible from Earth, the planetarium hosted hundreds of people one night to locate the comet on a star map on the dome, then walk outside to view the real thing through a telescope.

Soon after Teague retired in 2008, the planetarium stopped functioning. But after an investment by the Memphis school district and a local fund-raising campaign, the facility came back to life in 2018 — just missing the last solar eclipse in 2017.

Oellig said the planetarium is still only about 70% to where it needs to be: He’d like to update the seats, which are original to the planetarium and don’t tilt backward. The audio could be improved, and the dome could be cleaner, he said.

But he hopes soon to have approval from district officials for field trips to return to the planetarium, so Craigmont can once again host other Memphis students.

The planetarium also opens up new areas of study or hobbies for students at Craigmont, said principal Derek King.

“We want to make sure that we’re utilizing it well, respecting it, maintaining it, and then finding a way for other people to be able to come in and utilize it as well,” said King, who viewed the eclipse outside with students from the band and the science class.

Craigmont science teacher Wayne Oellig views the solar eclipse through a telescope. Oellig has been able to teach a new Earth and space sciences class using the school's restored planetarium.

Having a real-life scientific event for students to experience is something of a “Super Bowl for science teachers,” Oellig said.

“Y’all,” he shouted minutes before the peak eclipse, “this is about as good as it’s gonna get!”

At 1:58 p.m., students in the band joined the students in Oellig’s science classes to stare up at the sky through their glasses and see what was by then just a golden sliver of the sun.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Too many Memphis students in juvenile detention aren’t attending school, advocates warn

2024-04-05T10:00:00+00:00

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Shelby County officials are coming under fresh pressure to deal with education deficiencies in the juvenile-justice system, where advocates say not enough young people who are detained are regularly attending school or learning what they need to graduate.

A group of those advocates sent a letter this week to Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner warning about the low rates of school attendance and demanding improved conditions for youth in detention beyond just their education.

The county’s Juvenile Court has known about the issues at the county’s Youth Justice and Education Center, and at the school inside, called Hope Academy. A consultant it worked with to identify issues facing youth in the facilities reported that just half of them were attending school each day, and that course offerings weren’t comprehensive enough to give students the classes they need to graduate, according to Stephanie Hill, the court’s chief administrative officer.

The findings were also shared with the Countywide Juvenile Justice Consortium last fall.

But the problems raised by the consultants, from BreakFree Education, can’t easily be solved without collaboration between the sheriff’s office, which oversees the detention center, and Memphis-Shelby County Schools, which operates the school.

Youth crime has been at the center of public discussion in Memphis and across Tennessee. Arrests of young people are down over the past decade, but more of them involve gun-related crimes that draw added law enforcement attention.

Meanwhile, detention facilities in Tennessee have faced intense scrutiny for failing to provide appropriate care to young people. In detention centers like Shelby County’s, where detainees have not yet been tried, missed school days put students who are already facing challenges outside of class at a greater disadvantage for long-term success.

Cardell Orrin, who leads Stand for Children Tennessee, one of the organizations that signed the letter, said part of the issue with improving youth attendance at school is knowing which agency to approach.

“Whose responsibility is it, and then how are they held accountable?” Orrin told Chalkbeat.

In a reply to the organizations, Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon said that staffing issues at the facility have contributed to low school attendance rates of 50% to 60%, much lower than the court’s goal of 90%.

Bonner wrote in his own response that the 110 youth currently there were “far more than we had ever expected or planned for.” Instead, he said, 40 to 60 youth were expected to be in the facility.

Sugarmon called that “erroneous,” pointing out that the facility was newly built to accommodate some 140 youth. “It appears there are no physical facilities limits to school attendance,” he wrote.

The young people detained at the center are awaiting trial, and the number of students can vary day-to-day as trials progress.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools told Chalkbeat that it plans to keep working with the court and sheriff’s office to address concerns about Hope Academy. Marie Feagins, who took over as MSCS superintendent on Monday, toured the school last week, and said in a video interview that leaders should consider strengthening rehabilitative programs and expanding opportunities within the facility.

“When I think about education and the power thereof, it’s important to make sure that education, a quality education and experience, to the degree possible, is happening in all of our spaces and places,” she said, pledging to return often to speak with Hope Academy students.

Marie Feagins, center, toured the Youth Justice and Education Center in Memphis, the week before she took over as superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Beyond the education issues, the advocacy groups said they wanted the sheriff to address complaints that youth aren’t allowed outdoors, and parents are being denied in-person visits with their children in detention.

They also said efforts to collect research that would improve programming for youth have been stymied by the sheriff’s office.

Shirley Bondon, the executive director of the Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis, is hoping to conduct research with the youth at the facility to help improve their access to effective diversion programs, as an alternative to detention, and also get a better understanding of what youth need.

“Part of that research requires me to talk to youth in detention and have them complete a survey and get their perspective about why crime occurs, and what resources they need to keep them out of trouble,” Bondon told Chalkbeat.

“We need to scale those programs, and those programs need more funding,” she added. “We also found that the programs often aren’t evidence-based and don’t collect the correct data.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

New Memphis superintendent’s contract includes ethics clause, reflecting lessons of Ray’s exit

2024-03-27T02:54:59+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools board members say the contract being finalized for incoming Superintendent Marie Feagins reflects the lessons learned after former Superintendent Joris Ray departed the district in scandal.

For starters, the proposed contract includes a new ethical conduct clause, board members say. The board voted unanimously to approve terms of the four-year contract on Tuesday.

“I think that ethics clause was necessary,” Board Chair Althea Greene told reporters Tuesday. “It’s necessary for the district. And so it covers the district in the event that something unfortunate happens. We’re able to terminate a contract and not have to go through a long, drawn-out process.”

Feagins, a former administrator in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, is set to begin her term on April 1, and will earn a $325,000 annual salary. She has already begun working for the district under a per-diem agreement.

Feagins’ salary is 5% higher than the $310,000 Ray was earning at the time he left the district. Interim superintendent Toni Williams also earned $310,000 for the role.

Ray departed as superintendent in August 2022 while under an investigation into allegations that he abused power and violated policies. The board ended the investigation and provided him severance pay of nearly $500,000 when he agreed to resign.

Since his departure, and the appointment of Williams as interim superintendent, board members have reviewed elements of their own governance policies — lowering the dollar threshold for approval of professional service contracts, for example, and creating a board policy on nepotism.

The school board approved a new superintendent salary and contract transparency policy after a report from The Commercial Appeal found that Ray’s final salary — used to calculate his termination pay — included an unconventional raise.

Greene said the language of Feagins’ contract would be online within the week. Outside attorney Herman Morris explained its terms to the board Tuesday.

Morris said negotiations were taking place up until the start of the meeting. He said the terms and provisions of Feagins’ contract — which he said was still a “work in progress” — are fairly standard.

Feagins will be visiting schools and community centers across the nine elected board districts throughout April. Details about the tour and instructions for attending it are on the Memphis-Shelby school system’s social media pages.

Williams is expected to join the district as a consultant. She declined to discuss the scope of work with reporters.

Greene said a special called meeting is forthcoming for board members to approve the terms of Williams’ consulting agreement.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

University of Memphis district wouldn’t lead to school takeovers, supporters pledge

2024-03-26T21:44:52+00:00

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Supporters of a proposal in the legislature to recognize the University of Memphis as its own K-12 school district say the move wouldn’t lead to takeovers of schools in the surrounding Memphis-Shelby County system.

That’s critical reassurance for Memphians and district leaders concerned about the troubled legacy of state intervention in the city’s schools, from failed turnaround efforts under state takeovers of low-performing schools to a law that forced Memphis-Shelby County schools to give up control of several school buildings.

But there are still some lingering concerns about the proposal. For one thing, it threatens to disrupt the university’s existing agreement with MSCS to operate the campus schools, which runs through 2026. Others have questions about what the new district’s enrollment policies would be, and whether it would draw students and resources away from MSCS.

The MSCS board is divided on the legislation.

The proposed University Schools district would become the 10th public school operator in Shelby County, alongside MSCS, two state-run charter districts, and six smaller municipal districts.

“I have fears that this could lead to others wanting to do the same thing,” Joyce Dorse-Coleman, vice chair of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board, told Chalkbeat.

Dorse-Coleman also questioned whether the schools now overseen by the university serve enough of the neediest families of Orange Mound, a historically Black neighborhood that borders the University area.

White sees opportunity to ‘expand what’s working’

Since its introduction earlier this month, the legislation has sailed through early hearings and become a “high priority” item for state Rep. Mark White, the East Memphis Republican who chairs the House Education Administration Committee. Sen. Brent Taylor, a Republican representing suburban Shelby County, is the Senate sponsor.

Supporters say the bill would allow the university to expand its model and offer improved educational experiences to more students. The university’s training or laboratory schools produce some of the best student test scores in the city. Students from low income families make up a small share of the enrollment, compared with other MSCS schools, but they perform better than their peers at many other schools in Memphis, according to state data.

“We just wanted to expand what’s working, and not take over anything,” White told Chalkbeat.

White removed a provision that would have allowed the university to authorize charter schools but said that could change in the future. (White told Chalkbeat he is likely setting aside another Memphis education bill that would have expanded the school board with appointed members.)

MSCS board member Mauricio Calvo thinks the legislation could be beneficial to the district.

“Our district quite frankly is way too big, whether it’s by design or by default,” Calvo told Chalkbeat. “It’s almost impossible to manage so much. So if somebody can help us, by all means do it.”

School board Chair Althea Greene also supports the bill.

University schools leader pledges a ‘slow growth’ approach

The University of Memphis’ Campus School first opened more than 100 years ago. It has more recently added early childhood education centers, a middle school, and a high school.

Sally Parish, the university official who oversees its K-12 school programming, said that the proposed University Schools district would take a “slow growth” approach that takes community needs into account.

The current contract between MSCS and the university sets a 1,050 enrollment cap for the university’s schools. It is not clear how many students they could accommodate in their current buildings if that cap were lifted.

“We are not interested in any takeovers,” Parish told lawmakers last week during a Senate Education Committee hearing. “We are not interested in opening a school next to an existing school and trying to put anyone out of business.”

Memphis-Shelby County Schools and the University of Memphis signed a new contract in 2021, when the school board approved plans to add high school grades on campus. Its elementary school has been on campus for more than a century.

The goal, Parish said, is to “meet a local need — to be able to evolve with the needs of the community.”

She likened the school’s current admissions process to those of Memphis’ optional schools, but without any academic requirements for students who apply. Those requirements were removed from a proposed enrollment process after the MSCS school board wanted the university to diversify its K-12 student body.

In an email last week, a university spokesperson said that if the schools become part of their own district, they plan to adjust enrollment rules “with the goal of increased access for all students.”

Legislation would conflict with existing contract

MSCS and the university signed a new contract in 2021, when the school board approved plans to add high school grades on campus. The contact runs through fall 2026.

Some lawmakers and MSCS representatives are concerned that the legislation — which would allow University Schools to operate as its own district in time for the 2024-25 school year — would disrupt that agreement.

Tony Thompson, a lobbyist for Memphis-Shelby County Schools, acknowledged that relations between the district and university have worsened recently but said overriding the contract with legislation would be unconstitutional. “We should be in a partnership situation,” Thompson told lawmakers.

He pointed to comments by Sen. Todd Gardenhire, a Chattanooga Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Gardenhire ultimately voted for the legislation in the education committee last week, but said, “We don’t pass laws here that are retroactive. We cannot undo a contract that’s been signed before we pass a law.”

Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat who voted “present” on the proposal in the education committee hearing, said “it would ease a lot of minds” if the legislation took effect after the contract expired.

District status could bring buildings funds

Making University Schools its own district would not materially change funding levels for student instruction, said Michael Whaley, a Shelby County Commissioner and advisory member for the University of Memphis’ K-12 schools. Under the current structure, the university schools receive their allocation of state and local per-pupil funding through the contract with the Memphis school district.

“The funds follow the students, and they would continue to do so,” Whaley told Chalkbeat. “The county would simply route the funds directly” to the new school district.

But capital funds — for building improvements and construction projects — are a different matter, Whaley said.

As a designated district, University Schools would likely be eligible, alongside MSCS and the other school districts, for a proportional share of capital funds from the county. The change would elevate a University of Memphis K-12 schools district as another competitor for funds that MSCS has lobbied for to pay for its effort to close or upgrade aging schools and to build new ones.

Currently, the Memphis district’s needs often dictate the total amount of money set aside for school building projects across Shelby County’s districts. While the university has sought funds for improving its K-12 school buildings, MSCS hasn’t brought those requests to the county, Whaley said.

White, the bill’s House sponsor, said last week he was still clarifying how capital funding would work.

You can track the legislation on the General Assembly’s website. It still would need votes from both the full House and Senate and the governor’s signature to become law.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Incoming Memphis schools leader Marie Feagins begins work, set to assume superintendent role April 1

2024-03-13T22:28:00+00:00

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Update: This story has been updated with details of Feagins’ per diem contract.

Incoming Superintendent Marie Feagins has started working with Memphis-Shelby County Schools under a per diem agreement, allowing her to begin a transition to the superintendent role while the school board hammers out her contract.

Feagins’ temporary employment took effect March 1, according to a press release from school board Chair Althea Greene on the same day. Greene said she expects Feagins, a Detroit public school district administrator, to begin officially as MSCS superintendent on April 1, months ahead of the July 1 start that board members had targeted during the search process.

Greene said it is important for Feagins to begin work soon, especially as Tennessee’s largest school district faces major budget decisions and state lawmakers consider several changes to education policy, including a major expansion of private school vouchers that could affect district revenues.

“Dr. Feagins is excited to be here now to start making Memphis and Shelby County her home,” Greene said.

Memphis school board appointment bill on hold amid talks with state lawmakers

Since the board selected Feagins on Feb. 9, she has been in Memphis for several meetings, including a lunch Friday co-hosted in part by former Memphis schools Superintendent Carol Johnson-Dean.

“Everybody wants to welcome her, and they want her to be successful,” Johnson-Dean told Chalkbeat, adding that several community leaders attended, including both the city and county mayors. She said school board members did not attend.

Feagins also attended part of the Memphis school board’s February business meeting and received a standing ovation. A separate press release at the time said she was working on a plan for her first 100 days on the job.

But at the time of the per diem announcement, the school board had not otherwise discussed her employment in a public meeting, and board members had taken no votes on a contract.

Board members Mauricio Calvo and Stephanie Love said that they had not seen the per diem contract. The following week, Calvo shared a copy of the contract to social media with a caption that said: “...Transparency is key as we work to build confidence and trust.”

The document showed Feagins can earn up to $20,000 in March, as she transitions into the role. Greene, in a statement on March 13, also shared the contract.

Chalkbeat’s attempts to reach Feagins for comment on March 1 were unsuccessful.

Greene has said she expects the board to take action on Feagins’ superintendent contract at a meeting scheduled for March 26. The per diem contract also requires board approval, according to the document.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis school board appointment bill on hold amid talks with state lawmakers

2024-03-01T11:00:00+00:00

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A state lawmaker is giving the Memphis-Shelby County school board time to devise an improvement plan before pursuing legislation to empower Gov. Bill Lee to appoint up to six new members to the locally elected body.

Rep. Mark White said he has spoken with several current board members and the district’s incoming superintendent, Marie Feagins, since Chalkbeat reported in early February that he’s consulting with the state attorney general’s office on a school governance bill aimed at his home county.

“I’ve told them you’re going to have to manage the district better, and they indicated that they understood,” White said during a recent interview in his office at the state Capitol.

The Memphis Republican wants the board to deliver an action plan to him in March, before the legislature is expected to adjourn in April. The plan, he said, should include how district leaders are addressing challenges with literacy, truancy, graduation rates, teacher recruitment, underutilized school buildings, and a backlog of building maintenance needs, among other things.

MSCS building strategy is in the works. See which schools may be affected.

“Our city is begging for change when it comes to education, and I want to know that this school board has a plan,” said White, who chairs a House education committee.

If the board doesn’t deliver, White plans to file his legislation in the next few weeks.

Several board members have said White’s proposal smacks of state overreach — but they want to collaborate with the lawmaker, who is also locally elected, to advance the school district’s work. Still, there’s confusion about exactly what White wants and when he wants it.

“We do have to come up with those agreements or deliverables that he’s talking about,” said board member Mauricio Calvo, who tried unsuccessfully in January to get the board to set priorities for its next superintendent.

“It’s not just because he is saying that. It’s because we want to get to better outcomes for children, for students,” Calvo continued.

Althea Greene, the board’s chair, did not respond to Chalkbeat’s questions about the status of the talks. She sent a statement through the board’s external communications firm saying, in part, that “we are currently in the process of engaging our community with Rep. White regarding his plan.”

White has cited prolonged frustration with the board’s leadership. His legislation would keep the board’s current elected members, but add others through Lee’s appointments based on recommendations from local officials and stakeholders.

The East Memphis lawmaker met with six of the district’s nine school board members, including Greene and Calvo, during a previously scheduled Feb. 14 meeting at the Capitol, which he called “very productive.”

Six school board members for Memphis-Shelby County Schools pose with Rep. Mark White and Sens. Raumesh Akbari and Brent Taylor during a meeting at the Capitol on February 14, 2024.

Days after, White spoke by phone with Feagins, a Detroit school leader picked by the board in February to be the next leader of the state’s largest school system. Her selection came in spite of White’s 11th-hour request that the board keep interim Superintendent Toni Williams and delay hiring a leader for a second time.

Michelle McKissack, another school board member at the Capitol meeting, is hopeful for more discussions with state officials that include Feagins. More specifically, she wants to understand White’s expectations.

“I would love to have a meaningful meeting with Rep. White,” she told Chalkbeat Thursday, “but I have no idea what his plans are.”

Feagins, who is scheduled to start her new job by July 1, impressed board members during interviews with booklets that included her review of the Memphis district. (Chalkbeat’s request for these public records has not yet been filled.)

Though she does not yet have a contract, Feagins was introduced at Tuesday’s board meeting and has been meeting this week with Memphis leaders. She is also building a plan for her first 100 days on the job, according to a press release from the board’s communications firm.

White has emphasized the need for urgency and expects to meet with Feagins next week to “get better communications.”

The Feb. 14 meeting with school board members included two other state lawmakers representing Memphis: Democratic Sen. Raumesh Akbari and Republican Sen. Brent Taylor. Taylor is listed as the Senate co-sponsor of White’s proposed legislation.

“We all want the same thing: for our kids to read and write and compete on a national and international level,” Akbari said.

“But the elephant in the room was the pending legislation,” she continued, “and I suggested that we set that aside because I don’t think it’s necessary. School board members are elected by the people, and their constituents should hold them responsible.”

White agrees.

“The best fix would be if the citizens of Memphis elect some strong school board members,” he told Chalkbeat. “Five seats are up [for election] this year. We shall see.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee lawmakers are increasingly ready to ditch the Achievement School District. What’s next?

2024-02-23T11:00:00+00:00

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After a decade of painful takeovers of neighborhood schools, contentious handoffs to charter networks, and mostly abysmal student performance, Tennessee’s Achievement School District appears to be on its way out.

Several of the GOP-controlled legislature’s top Republicans are acknowledging that the state’s most ambitious and aggressive school turnaround model has failed — and should be replaced eventually with a more effective approach.

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to push for legislation designed to end the so-called ASD, created under a 2010 state law aimed, in part, at transforming low-performing schools.

“I expect we will move in a different direction,” Sen. Bo Watson, the powerful chairman of his chamber’s finance committee, recently told reporters.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bo Watson

The Hixson Republican called the charter-centric school turnaround model an “innovative” idea that fell flat, at least in Tennessee. It would be foolish, Watson added, to keep spending money on an initiative that isn’t working and already has cost the state more than $1 billion — a sentiment echoed by Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton.

But if the legislature decides to shutter the ASD and Gov. Bill Lee signs off, important questions remain about how Tennessee will support thousands of students in its lowest-performing schools.

How quickly will the shutdown occur?
What will happen to ASD school communities? Currently, the district serves 4,600 students in 12 schools in Memphis and one in Nashville.
Will the state honor remaining contracts with charter operators, the last of which end in 2026?
What statewide improvement strategy will replace the ASD for schools in the state’s bottom 5%? Ninety-five schools currently fall in that category and many have undergone a variety of interventions, with limited success.
And will the U.S. Department of Education approve the change as part of Tennessee’s plan for complying with the 2015 U.S. law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA?

In order to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal education funding to support Tennessee students and schools, the state is required to have a rigorous improvement plan for schools that are struggling the most. Since Tennessee’s ESSA plan was approved in 2017, the ASD has served that purpose.

The turnaround district “serves as our most intensive intervention for priority schools,” declares the 401-page plan, the state’s guiding document for K-12 accountability policies. It also commits Tennessee to making school turnaround a priority.

“Students can’t wait,” the plan says. “Schools that have been historically underperforming and are not showing adequate growth must have state intervention.”

Brian Blackley, a spokesperson for the state education department, said scrapping the ASD would require two things: a change in state law and an amendment to Tennessee’s ESSA plan.

If the legislature changes the law, ESSA revisions are doable, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education.

“Tennessee has the ability to make changes to the design and structure of its local educational agencies, including the Achievement School District, without first seeking approval from the U.S. Department of Education,” the spokesperson told Chalkbeat.

That said, because the ASD is central to Tennessee’s federal accountability plan, the state would have to submit an amendment to the federal government, and “the department will work with the state as needed,” the spokesperson said.

The process likely would take months, since a period of public engagement on potential changes is required.

ASD brought high hopes, hard lessons

While the ASD’s demise has been looming, its birth was filled with hope when Tennessee passed the First to the Top Act, a sweeping education reform package that was the cornerstone of its winning federal Race to the Top grant application.

Taking cues from the successful turnaround of schools in New Orleans and using tens of millions of federal dollars to pay for the rollout, Tennessee’s new law created a state-run district with the power to take over struggling schools and recruit charter management organizations to run them, giving those operators autonomy to design and implement plans for curriculum, instruction, and school leadership. KIPP and Green Dot Public Schools were among national networks that signed on, and the model inspired several local charter groups to form and join the work.

Unlike incremental academic gains associated with school improvement, school turnaround calls for dramatic gains in a short period of time. Founding ASD leaders set an extraordinarily ambitious goal: to move those schools from the bottom 5% to the top 25% of performers within five years.

But the large academic gains never came.

Removing schools from local governance didn’t improve student outcomes. In fact, most ASD schools performed no better than low-performing schools receiving no intervention, according to researchers.

High teacher turnover was a constant challenge, and it became increasingly hard to recruit high-quality charter networks to do school turnaround work.

Community backlash was also significant, especially in Memphis, which became the hub of the ASD’s work and has a long history of charged racial dynamics. ASD critics viewed the takeover of neighborhood schools — and introduction of charter operators who often came from out of state — as another example of racism and reckless social engineering.

The level of poverty in Memphis was another major challenge.

“I think that the depth of the generational poverty and what our kids bring into school every day makes it even harder than we initially expected,” founding superintendent Chris Barbic told Chalkbeat in a 2015 interview. “We underestimated that.”

Chris Barbic, a former charter school leader in Texas, was the founding superintendent of Tennessee's Achievement School District.

The ASD has been shrinking for awhile

The state-run district had a peak of 33 schools after taking control of its last four campuses in Memphis in 2016.

While there’s been no official decision on its future from lawmakers or new recommendations from Lee’s administration, the ASD has been unwinding on its own, especially since 2022, as schools began to complete 10 years under the model.

Originally, the state promised to return ASD schools to their home districts in better shape than when they left. But that policy changed over time, and now there are multiple ways to exit, and even remain a charter school, depending on academic performance.

Some non-charter ASD schools began returning to Memphis-Shelby County Schools, while three charter schools pivoted to the oversight of the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission, another state-run entity, after showing enough improvement to exit on their own. The Memphis district also regained control of a charter school and placed the campus in its own turnaround program known as the Innovation Zone, an initiative created in part to keep the ASD from taking over more schools.

As for remaining ASD campuses, the charter contracts for operators of seven schools are scheduled to expire this summer; two schools after the 2024-25 school year; and four schools at the conclusion of the 2025-26 school year.

But the pandemic complicated an already complex exit process by disrupting state testing. ASD leadership also turned over frequently and downsized staff in the summer of 2022. The chaotic unwinding has put thousands of students, families, and school staff in limbo.

Of the contracts expiring this year, for instance, only two charter schools are set to continue operating in Memphis. Journey Coleman will stay with Journey Community Schools through a new agreement with the Memphis district, while Cornerstone Lester Prep will continue to be run by Capstone Education Group through the state-run charter school commission.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools plans to close MLK College Prep High School, currently run by Frayser Community Schools, and those students are still deciding where they’ll attend school in the fall.

Fairley High School, which lost its bid to remain with Green Dot Public Schools, is expected to return to MSCS oversight. Green Dot has other schools still in the ASD, and the network’s executive director in Tennessee, Jocquell Rodgers, expects their charter contracts will be honored.

“Has it been emotional? Absolutely,” Rodgers said of the lengthy unraveling.

School turnaround work is a difficult and time-intensive process that requires constant engagement with families and the community, Rodgers said. Ideally, there should be collaboration with the local district, she added.

“It is extremely important to bring something to people that they really want, but at the same time, really help them understand what they need,” Rodgers said.

If not the ASD, then what?

Tennessee has doggedly stuck with the ASD, even as its performance has been mostly lackluster.

But January’s abrupt departure of Bren Elliott, Tennessee’s first statewide turnaround superintendent who was hired last August after a three-year search, cast doubts about the future of the state’s school improvement work, especially regarding its most intense intervention tool.

And GOP leaders such as Sexton, the speaker of the House, fueled speculation by hinting that a mechanism for closing the ASD could be part of upcoming legislation for creating a new statewide school voucher program.

There’s little consensus, however, on a replacement strategy for supporting struggling school communities — a requirement under federal ESSA law.

RELATED: School turnaround lessons from Memphis zero in on the need for collaboration at all levels

Rep. Antonio Parkinson and Sen. Raumesh Akbari, both Memphis Democrats, have proposed legislation to prevent the state-run district from taking over more low-performing schools. Instead, the ASD would become a resource hub for school improvement work across Tennessee.

Rep. Antonio Parkinson has been one of the ASD's most vocal critics.

But the measure, which has cleared two key House committees, may not meet ESSA’s standard for a comprehensive school turnaround strategy. Akbari said this week that she’s working on changes before introducing their proposal in Senate committees.

Sen. Ferrell Haile, a Republican from Gallatin, has pointed to Tennessee’s small school turnaround pilot project, approved by the legislature in 2021, as one possibility. Two private vendors, Georgia-based Cognia and Ed Direction of Salt Lake City, Utah, are working with two schools in Memphis, two in Nashville, and one in Chattanooga, as part of the five-year initiative.

But it’s uncertain whether that program can scale statewide. And while four of the schools have shown promise, Hamilton County lawmakers say it hasn’t gone well in Chattanooga. They are shepherding a bill to pull Orchard Knob Middle School before the pilot ends in 2025.

Tennessee Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds, who has the authority to take over more schools and place them in the ASD under current law, has not commented publicly about the district’s future, or a potential new strategy.

If the legislature lets the state-run district run its course through the 2025-26 school year, when charter contracts expire for its last four schools, her department would have more time to develop a plan. The agency would then work with the U.S. Education Department to revise Tennessee’s ESSA plan accordingly.

One important step, according to federal ESSA guidance, is to give the public opportunity to comment on the proposed revision. And educators who are doing turnaround work hope state leaders will take their observations to heart.

Bob Nardo was an early ASD staff member who left to operate Libertas School of Memphis, one of the state-run district’s few success stories.

Just because the ASD didn’t work, he said, doesn’t mean the state should walk away from trying to address persistent challenges that led to its creation. Nardo believes one question should be central to discussions when developing a new plan.

“Are the most vulnerable and at-risk children in our society getting the best opportunity to transform their lives?”

Nardo worries the state could shift to piecemeal interventions, such as grant programs aimed at small-scale improvements, that wouldn’t be as effective as a comprehensive, schoolwide turnaround strategy.

“We have to confront the paradox here that this is both a critically needed and indispensable type of work,” Nardo said, “with the sobering reality that most efforts have not been successful” in Tennessee and across the country.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach her at ltestino@chalkbeat.org.

Some Tennessee fourth graders have to meet individualized ‘adequate growth’ measure or risk retention

2024-02-17T00:43:57+00:00

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Thousands of Tennessee fourth graders will have to show during state testing this spring that they’ve made progress toward becoming better readers in order to move to the fifth grade, according to an “adequate growth” policy measure approved by the Tennessee board of education Friday.

But continued pushback against Tennessee’s 2021 reading law could prompt new advocacy and recommendations for changing it. Some board members said they would support lawmakers revisiting key pieces of the legislation meant to help struggling readers.

Their deliberations Friday suggested many members made their votes so that school districts and families could plan for what is coming, and not because they support the required growth measure in the law, which is the only pathway thousands of students may have to advance to fifth grade.

“Clarity is better than ambiguity,” said board member Nate Morrow, an education administrator.

Tennessee’s reading law gets pushback again as thousands of students could repeat fourth grade

Last year’s third graders were the first to face the threat of retention since the law took effect. While 60% of students were marked at-risk because of their scores on the state’s English and language arts subject test, just 1% of third graders were ultimately retained, according to state data.

About 15% of students advanced to fourth grade with the expectation that interventions like summer school or tutoring would help boost their reading skills. Retention in fourth grade will be unavoidable for these students, however, if they don’t score proficient on the test or meet their individualized “adequate growth” testing metric approved Friday by the state board.

David Laird, assistant commissioner of assessment and accountability at the Tennessee Department of Education, presented the proposed calculation for determining a student’s growth on the TCAP test. While the calculation is much more complex than the straightforward growth measure required for some third graders, it is individualized to each student, he explained.

The calculation looks at where a student was in third grade and makes a determination of how far that student has to go to reach proficiency during their public education, a metric that is “objectively a high bar … in Tennessee,” Laird said. He said recent tweaks to the calculation include consideration for retake exams and, for parts of the calculation, students’ scores in other subject areas. Department officials plan to provide districts with these growth projections for each student by the end of the month. (Read the specific calculation in part 7 of the policy.)

Laird said, “In all the different places we could have put the line for adequate growth, what does that actually help us understand in terms of kids actually becoming proficient at some point in time in the future?”

What remains to be seen, he said, is how effective the high dosage tutoring interventions have been for this student group.

Tennessee’s 3rd-grade retention law requires ‘adequate growth’ to advance. Here’s what that means.

Some board members voiced support for a set of resolutions board member Ryan Holt said he plans to bring to the board’s next special meeting in March. Holt, appointed in 2022, encouraged the board to exercise its advisory capacity and propose to the General Assembly a re-evaluation of the literacy law and to call on lawmakers to create more pathways for students to advance to the next grade with reading supports rather than be retained.

Krissi McInturff, a state board member who has been a fourth grade teacher, criticized the law’s lack of continued supports for fourth graders who still aren’t meeting Tennessee’s benchmarks and said she hoped lawmakers would consider changes.

“I believe up until the fourth grade growth component, they have done an amazing job getting students the support they need,” McInturff said. Tennessee third graders, for instance, can avoid retention by enrolling in summer school or tutoring. “But unless there is a pathway for fourth graders to move to fifth grade, this will be in all aspects a retention law.”

The Tennessee State Board of Education will hold a special meeting on March 4. Find the full meeting schedule and agenda information on the board’s website.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis school board selects Marie Feagins as superintendent

2024-02-10T01:14:07+00:00

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Marie Feagins is the school board’s choice to be the next superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools and the first outside leader to direct Tennessee’s largest school district since it was created through a merger a decade ago.

In a meeting Friday, school board members ended the Memphis superintendent search with a vote to select Feagins for the role. With successful contract negotiations, Feagins will join the district from her current position as chief of leadership and high schools for Detroit Public Schools Community District.

The board’s search went well into a second year and included no shortage of twists, turns, and disputes. Ultimately, the board rebooted the application process last fall and narrowed the finalist pool to three out-of-state candidates who returned to Memphis earlier this month for a final round of public interviews.

As the new superintendent, Feagins will oversee a district of 100,000 students at a pivotal time. Students have made some progress since the pandemic but have yet to totally rebound to scores that have historically lagged behind state averages. And, like other districts, Memphis is projecting a large budget gap as federal pandemic relief funds expire, leaving leaders to decide which academic programs and personnel they can afford to cut or keep. Plus, the current administration has launched a major facilities overhaul that could involve school consolidations and closures.

The new leader will also have to deal with direct challenges to local control from state leaders and lawmakers, who have stepped up the pressure on public school systems. A new proposal would specifically target Memphis by expanding the school board with additional members appointed by state officials.

Community member Tikeila Rucker (middle) celebrates during a Feb. 9 Memphis-Shelby County Schools board meeting where Marie Feagins was chosen as the school system’s new superintendent.

Eleventh-hour letters from Rep. Mark White, the Memphis Republican who plans to sponsor the proposal, as well as from Shelby County Commission Chair Miska Clay-Bibbs, also a former school board chair, urged the Memphis board to take no action Friday.

Said MSCS board Chair Althea Greene: “While we are interested in hearing from state legislators and other elected and business leaders, the time for critical input and action has passed.”

Board member Michelle McKissack nominated Feagins as a “visionary changemaker” the district needs.

In a statement issued by the school district, Feagins said she is honored and grateful to become the next superintendent.

“I am committed to doing whatever it takes to move us from good to phenomenal because that is what OUR city and county deserve,” Feagins said. “Together, we will defy the odds and become a national model of bold, transformational education.”

Feagins was in competition with Yolonda Brown, chief academic officer in Atlanta Public Schools and Cheryl Proctor, deputy superintendent of instruction and school communities for Portland Public Schools in Oregon. The Memphis board worked with outside search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates to solicit applications.

Feagins is expected to start by July 1.

She will follow in the steps of interim Superintendent Toni Williams, whose contract allows her to retain a role with the district through the next year. Williams, the district’s former finance chief, has had an active interim tenure, negotiating plans and financing for new school buildings, embarking on a plan for all of the district’s facilities, and reorganizing the district’s procurement and finance departments.

In August 2022, Williams was the single nominee for interim leader while the board committed to a national search for a successor to former Superintendent Joris Ray, who agreed to resign from the post in a cloud of scandal.

Feagins shined for ability to endear teachers, Memphians

Tomeka Hart Wigginton, part of the Memphis school board during its last superintendent search more than a decade ago, worked with the board on the rebooted search this summer and then helped evaluate the candidates.

Feagins received resounding support from the teachers surveyed, according to feedback presented by Hart Wigginton. Of the three candidates, Feagins was also the finalist who garnered the most support from board members as an appropriate fit for the district. On that point, community members who attended the interviews ranked Feagins similarly. Of the three finalists, Feagins had the smallest gap between how the board and interview audience evaluated her fit for Memphis.

Brown and Proctor received strong feedback about their academic experiences, but constituents weren’t convinced either finalist had a strong vision specific to Memphis, according to Hart Wigginton. Feagins, however, shined for her leadership and communication style – although there were some concerns about whether she has the experience necessary to deliver.

Hart Wigginton stressed that the presentation was not scientific, but a comprehensive review of the materials collected by the interview process that was meant to help guide the board’s discussion — not make the decision for them.

“You have three candidates with varied levels of strength. … Now you just have to be articulate and clear about what you need and which candidate matches that for you,” she said.

Each of the candidates received nominations from board members Friday, and it took board members two rounds of voting to arrive at the six required votes to select Feagins. Board members Amber Huett-Garcia and Mauricio Calvo, who cast votes for Brown, and Keith Williams, who voted only present, agreed to update their votes for Feagins in an effort to show a united front of support.

In an email to Chalkbeat Friday, Brown thanked the board and wished them success “as they continue the journey to ensure that all students ‘see the future.’” Proctor didn’t respond to Chalkbeat’s invitation for comment.

What to know about new Memphis school superintendent Marie Feagins

Feagins works in Detroit’s public school district with high school academic programming, and acts as a liaison for the district with the mayor’s office and state education department, she wrote in her application. Before coming to Detroit, she was a principal in Cleveland, and started her education career in Alabama.

“The right leader at the right place at the right time changes everything,” she told MSCS board members in December.

Feagins told board members in February that she increased the number of students who were on track to graduate in Detroit by monitoring data regularly and introducing a competition among schools.

Of managing teachers, she said: “People are okay with being responsible for the things that they can directly contribute to and own … I think that when you tell people what to do, you get robots. And when you empower them, then you get the type of creative leaders that we need in our spaces. And that’s how we get the results that we’re ultimately seeking.”

Feagins explained her approach to leading Memphis public schools like this: “I want people to get to know me first, and so that you know that the heart of the decisions are good, they’re pure, the intent is right. But you also know that I honor that the impact is what is felt most, and is what matters most ... and that’s where the leadership begins.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit schools administrator Marie Feagins chosen to lead the Memphis school district

2024-02-09T21:51:07+00:00

Said MSCS board Chair Althea Greene: “While we are interested in hearing from state legislators and other elected and business leaders, the time for critical input and action has passed.”

Board member Michelle McKissack nominated Feagins as a “visionary changemaker” the district needs.

After two rounds of voting, Feagins eventually earned votes from board members Michelle McKissack, Chair Althea Greene, Stephanie Love, Kevin Woods, Mauricio Calvo, Keith Williams, Frank Johnson, Amber Huett-Garcia, and Vice Chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman.

Feagins is expected to start by July 1.

What to know about new Memphis school superintendent Marie Feagins

“The right leader at the right place at the right time changes everything,” she told MSCS board members in December.

Feagins told board members in February that she increased the number of students who were on track to graduate in Detroit by monitoring data regularly and introducing a competition among schools.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee lawmaker to file legislation to add appointed members to Memphis school board

2024-02-07T01:40:58+00:00

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A Tennessee lawmaker said he plans to introduce legislation giving Gov. Bill Lee’s administration the power to appoint up to six new members to the board of Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Rep. Mark White of Memphis cited prolonged frustration with the board’s locally elected leadership when explaining his plans to Chalkbeat on Tuesday.

The nine members currently on the board of the state’s largest school district would remain in office under the proposal.

And the additional members would be appointed later this year based on recommendations from local officials and stakeholders, said White, a Republican who represents parts of East Memphis and the suburb of Germantown.

“I’m very concerned about the district’s direction, and I just can’t sit back any longer. I think we’re at a critical juncture,” said White, who chairs a powerful education committee in the House.

In a statement Tuesday, board Chair Althea Greene said White’s proposal is unnecessary.

“We may have had some challenges, but more interference from the General Assembly is not warranted at this time,” she said. “We have to stop experimenting with our children.”

White’s comments come as the school board is days from selecting a district superintendent to end a tortuous 18-month search process. All three finalists came from out of state last week for final public interviews.

The proposed bill also represents another attempted state foray into oversight of Memphis, spotlighting historic tensions rooted in race, politics, and power, in which both sides claim the moral high ground.

White said he is unhappy with the board’s handling of the superintendent search for a district where strong, stable, and timely leadership is especially critical. Most MSCS students are considered economically disadvantaged and continue to significantly trail state benchmarks in reading and math following devastating pandemic-related academic declines.

“I’m concerned about the three people they’ve whittled it down to, and I’m just not impressed,” said White, who did not specify the candidates’ shortcomings.

There are “highly qualified people in Memphis who know how to improve the system,” White added.

His criticisms echo recent frustrations from some local educators and community members at the prospect of an out-of-state candidate leading Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Some have called for a local candidate or for the board to permanently hire interim Superintendent Toni Williams, the district’s former finance chief.

Board member Michelle McKissack expressed surprise about White’s plan and his comments about the finalists. She praised their qualifications.

“This has been an extraordinarily robust search, and we have listened to all members of the community every way we know how to,” McKissack said.

Adding board members — particularly appointed candidates who don’t have constituents to answer to — would only complicate board governance, she said.

“It’s not going to make board operations any easier when you have a 15-person board,” McKissack said, pointing to the challenges of the previous 23-member body that oversaw the historic merger of the city and county school districts and created Memphis-Shelby County Schools a decade ago.

She added: “They think they have a problem now? Well then get ready.”

White and Sen. Brent Taylor, a Memphis Republican, expect to file their legislation this month and have been working with the state attorney general’s office “to get the language right,” White said.

The legislation could affect upcoming nonpartisan school board elections in which five seats are up for grabs. Greene is the only incumbent to have pulled a petition for the August election since the filing opened on Monday, according to Shelby County Election Commission officials.

White drew a distinction between his proposal and a 12-year-old state initiative to take over low-performing schools, mostly in Memphis, to place them with charter school operators under the oversight of the Tennessee Achievement School District.

“This is not about taking over schools. It’s about putting in place stronger governance over the elected bodies for low-performing districts,” he said.

The Memphis school board is responsible for hiring the superintendent, but also charting the direction for the district, often by prioritizing how to use the $1.2 billion it receives each year, plus the additional hundreds of millions in one-time federal funds. Board members also play a role in addressing issues of their community and educator constituents.

The board struggled with its first superintendent search for a successor to Joris Ray, who left in August 2022 amid a scandal over allegations that he abused his power and violated district policies. Last spring, board members were dissatisfied with the slate of final candidates and chose to scrap the list and reboot the selection process.

The board’s second search last fall generated 22 applicants, according to the search firm the board hired to oversee the process. Just one local candidate, Angela Whitelaw, the district’s top academics chief, was among the five finalists. Following the guidance of their own evaluations and the community’s input, the board selected three finalists:

Yolonda Brown, chief academic officer in Atlanta Public Schools
Marie Feagins, chief of leadership and high schools for Detroit Public Schools Community District
Cheryl Proctor, deputy superintendent of instruction and school communities for Portland Public Schools in Oregon

It’s not the first time that White has introduced bills to give the state the power to intercede in local matters.

He successfully sponsored legislation in 2022 that forced the Memphis district to cede four schools to several nearby suburban districts, including in Germantown, which serves mostly white and affluent students. The move reignited persistent criticisms that the decade-long tug-of-war over the valuable school properties was essentially about race and class. Ultimately, Shelby County commissioners increased taxes, in part to help pay for a new high school for the urban district’s mostly Black students from low-income families.

White also asked the Tennessee attorney general to weigh in last year about potential conflicts of interest for Keith Williams, the executive director of a local teacher union in Memphis who was elected to the board in 2022.

Memphians have long been wary of Tennessee lawmakers who have repeatedly singled out Memphis on education matters. For instance, a controversial 2019 law created a private school voucher program that only applied to Memphis and Nashville, even though local officials overwhelmingly opposed it.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach her at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis school board poised to select new superintendent Feb. 9

2024-02-03T03:24:25+00:00

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At last, the Memphis-Shelby County Schools superintendent search has an end date in sight.

Board members are set to select a new public schools leader from a slate of three out-of-town finalists in a meeting on Feb. 9, signaling a resolution to a process that is well into its second year.

Finalists Yolonda Brown of Atlanta Public Schools, Marie Feagins of Detroit Public Schools Community District, and Cheryl Proctor of Portland Public Schools in Oregon made their final cases to board members in public interviews on Friday, the culmination of a days-long return visit to Memphis that also included private interviews with community leaders and educators, as well as a tour of school buildings.

Choosing one of the three candidates will be a final step for the Memphis school board, and could be a testament to the work board members did to relaunch a second, smoother search process for a successor to former Superintendent Joris Ray.

A successful appointment requires votes from six of the school board’s nine members, and Joyce Dorse-Coleman, vice chair of the board and co-chair of the search committee, said Friday she had the “utmost confidence” in the board agreeing on a candidate.

“It’s been a journey, and we’re ready to move on,” Dorse-Coleman said, adding that she has appreciated the “strong leadership” of Toni Williams, the district’s former finance chief who has held the interim role since August 2022 following Ray’s exit.

Successful contract negotiations with the board’s selection will bring an outside leader to helm Memphis public schools for the first time in more than a decade. The new superintendent is expected to start by July 1.

Two of the three finalists in Memphis’ restarted search also applied to the role back in the spring. Feagins was among a public list of applicants during the initial search. Proctor revealed during her interview Friday that she was also a contender in the spring, but withdrew before finalists were announced because of a family emergency. Brown appears to be a new applicant.

Board members tailored questions during the second-round interviews to each of the three finalists’ experiences, but themes emerged that reflect the district’s needs and community’s concerns. Chalkbeat selected a highlight of each candidate’s two-hour interview process for publication.

Yolonda Brown, chief academic officer in Atlanta Public Schools

Brown told board members she would consider conducting an academic audit for Memphis-Shelby County Schools, similar to one by the Council of Great City Schools she used to implement changes in Atlanta.

“We were able to streamline the support, and schools knew exactly who they could call, reach out to, and get support from ... and they knew what services we could provide. And so that was the biggest impact,” Brown said.

Speaking about how she would lead as a newcomer to Memphis, Brown said: “It doesn’t matter how great you know academics or the strategy. If the culture is not right, it doesn’t matter ... And so you don’t come in and automatically say, ‘Everything’s bad, and I’m here to fix it,’ because leadership is not about one person.”

Marie Feagins, chief of leadership and high schools for Detroit Public Schools Community District

In Detroit, Feagins said she increased the number of students who were on-track to graduate by monitoring data regularly and introducing a competition among schools.

Cheryl Proctor, deputy superintendent of instruction and school communities for Portland Public Schools in Oregon

Proctor told board members that her experience in large Florida school districts make her familiar with rigorous state accountability systems like the third-grade retention law and letter grades, as well as school voucher programs.

“We need to stay focused on what’s happening in our local environment, and in our local community,” Proctor said of responding to education vouchers in Tennessee. She added: “My priority is going ... to be that our district schools are schools of choice … All of our schools should have high-quality learning programs with specializations.”

Proctor told the board: “I bring perspective … having to find my niche of belonging as a child and as a student — as a student, who also at some point fell through the crack, fell victim if you will, to that soft bigotry of low expectation.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis superintendent search nears close with final set of candidate interviews

2024-02-01T02:08:12+00:00

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When the top three candidates for superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools make their final cases to community and board members later this week, they will not only be explaining their leadership and academic successes, but also proving how well they can get to know a new community.

The school board’s current attempt at a national search for superintendent has produced three out-of-state finalists, positioning the district to have its first leader from outside Memphis in more than a decade. While new-to-town leaders have helmed Memphis public schools in the past, internal candidates have been favored in the last decade.

Being considered for the role are Yolonda Brown of Atlanta Public Schools, Marie Feagins of Detroit Public Schools Community District, and Cheryl Proctor of Portland Public Schools in Oregon.

Now in its second year and on its second round of candidates, Memphis’ search process for a successor to former Superintendent Joris Ray has been long and winding. It buckled last spring as board and community members disputed interim Superintendent Toni Williams’ eligibility for the role. But now, almost a year later with a smoother search process underway, some Memphians have wondered why a local candidate isn’t in the mix.

“There’s a lot of reason for the community and the educators to be wary of anyone coming in” after such a long process, said Rachel S. White, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Community members and educators could wonder how long a new leader may stay, why they want to be here in the first place, or how to build trust.

The school board can drive a successful transition for the new leader they select with support, resources, and patience, White said. That could look like a contract with clear evaluation expectations and more than a year to execute changes, plus mentorship by another superintendent.

Whoever emerges as the next leader has a challenging job: Like other public school districts, Memphis is projecting a large budget gap as federal pandemic relief funds expire, leaving leaders to decide which academic programs and personnel they can afford to cut or keep. Plus, the current administration has launched a major facilities overhaul that could involve school consolidations and closures.

The new leader will also have to deal with direct challenges to local control from state leaders and lawmakers, who have stepped up the pressure on public school systems. New policies from the GOP-led state government include restrictions on classroom instruction, changes to school evaluation criteria, and an expansion of private school vouchers.

White’s research suggests that contentious political environments in education are responsible for a growing proportion of superintendent departures in recent years. White, a former school board member, has studied the superintendent position as the founder and director of The Superintendent Lab.

Superintendents “don’t get in this job to be politicians, and to manage politics of communities and boards,” White said. “They get into this job because they want to serve kids.”

National data also show an increase of new-to-the-job superintendents, White said. None of the three finalists for the Memphis role have been superintendents before.

The final round of interviews in Memphis includes a public meet-and-greet on Thursday evening, plus a two-hour long interview with the school board for each finalist during the day on Friday. Community organizations will also meet with the candidates in private sessions, according to the school district.

School board members are expected to vote on a final candidate by the end of February, said co-chair of the search Joyce Dorse-Coleman, but no date has been set yet. The finalist will need support from at least six of the school board’s nine members to become superintendent. The new leader will start by July 1, and is expected to receive support transitioning into the new role from current interim Superintendent Williams, whose contract allows her to return to her former role as finance chief or stay on as a consultant.

Dorse-Coleman and search co-chair Stephanie Love said the tortuous search process has been worth it.

“We have had hiccups along the way, speed bumps along the way,” Love said, “but I am happy with the way it’s going now.”

Having three newcomers has ushered in renewed calls from some community members and educators for a candidate with local expertise. At a recent board meeting, Southwind High School Principal John Bush said he represented Memphis’ principals association in making a plea for a “candidate who has worked and lived in this community.”

Sarah Carpenter, a vocal education advocate who is the executive director for parent group Memphis Lift, said she’ll be watching to see how the finalists can support Memphis’ Black and Hispanic students. But she trusts that one of the three finalists can do the job.

Carpenter said, “We asked for a national search, we got it, and they can’t mess it up this time.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Future of Tennessee school turnaround work uncertain with departure of first statewide leader

2024-01-31T00:17:47+00:00

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Six months after Tennessee hired its first leader to manage school improvement work statewide, the position is now vacant.

On Tuesday, the state education department confirmed the departure of school turnaround superintendent Bren Elliott, one of Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds’ first major hires. A spokesperson for the agency declined to comment further or answer questions about whether the vacancy will be filled.

When Elliott stepped into the powerful new position, which took multiple searches across three years to fill, she was tasked with overseeing school improvement work in hundreds of schools in urban, suburban, and rural districts as well as Tennessee’s high-profile Achievement School District, or ASD.

Her abrupt departure raises questions about the future of school improvement work in a state that was once considered a turnaround pioneer, thanks in part to a $500 million award in 2010 from the federal Race to the Top competition to implement various education reforms.

The ASD, the state’s most intensive intervention model, was launched in 2012 using mostly charter school operators, and its lackluster performance has dimmed Tennessee’s star considerably in school turnaround circles.

Elliott’s hiring, announced last August, had been viewed as a way to jumpstart the work.

Elliott had been the school improvement chief for District of Columbia Public Schools since 2017. She also worked as a school administrator in Nashville from 2001 to 2007.

In her new job, chief among Elliott’s responsibilities was overseeing the ASD, which at one time had more than 30 schools in its portfolio but has since dwindled to 13 campuses and 4,600 students, mostly in Memphis.

State officials informed ASD operators last week that Elliott was leaving and that Shannon Gordon, the department’s chief operating officer, will assume her responsibilities.

“They did not say anything about … reposting that same position by that name,” said Brett Lawson, executive director of Frayer Community Schools, a Memphis-based charter operator with three ASD schools.

Drew Sippel, chief executive officer of longtime ASD operator Capstone Education Group, was also on the call.

“[Gordon] took all the operators’ questions and committed to giving schools the support and resources needed to be successful,” he said.

Elliott also was responsible for supervising interventions for all of the state’s so-called priority schools — those that score in the state’s bottom 5% academically — as well as schools needing targeted support due large gaps in test scores among groups of historically underserved students, such as English language learners, students with disabilities, or those from low-income families. That encompasses nearly 300 schools.

ASD is at a crossroads

Rep. Antonio Parkinson, a Democrat from Memphis, said Tuesday that Elliott’s swift departure highlights “disarray” in the education department, especially regarding its oversight of the ASD.

Most ASD schools have performed no better than low-performing schools receiving no intervention, according to researchers.

“It’s incredibly alarming given that we’ve invested over a billion taxpayer dollars in a failed experiment,” he said. “We’ve had superintendent after superintendent after superintendent of the ASD. And yet, it has the highest teacher turnover rate and the lowest graduation rate of any district in our state.”

Last year, Parkinson sponsored a bill that would prevent the state-run district from taking over more low-performing schools. Instead, under his legislation that cleared two House education committees, the state would turn the initiative into a resource hub for school improvement work across Tennessee.

Parkinson said he hopes Elliott’s departure will garner more legislative support for his bill, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Raumesh Akbari, also of Memphis.

“What we’re doing now just isn’t working,” he said.

Rep. Mark White, a Memphis Republican who chairs a House education committee, declined to comment when asked about the personnel change and the future of Tennessee’s school improvement work. He said he wanted to confer with agency officials first.

The ASD hasn’t taken over new schools since 2016. Meanwhile, the district is expected to shrink by half later this year as schools reach the end of their 10-year charter agreements and either exit the ASD or close.

There have been at least five ASD superintendents in a decade. The district’s lack of steady leadership has complicated the complex exit process, creating uncertainty for students, staff, and families in ASD schools in Memphis and Nashville.

Another issue is whether or how the state-run district will grow in the future.

State law gives Reynolds, as education commissioner, the authority to identify schools for takeover and place them in the ASD. But since starting her job last July, Reynolds has not publicly discussed her plans for the turnaround district.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach her at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

MSCS’ building strategy in the works: See which schools may be affected

2024-01-29T12:00:00+00:00

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Nearly 50 Memphis-Shelby County public schools would receive new investments for their physical buildings or their academic programming under an ambitious plan that district leaders are developing in an effort to improve learning experiences for children.

Another 21 school buildings could close under the plan, district documents show, meaning their students would have to go to school elsewhere.

In all, nearly half of the district’s buildings, and their communities, could be affected if the district follows through on the plan.

The facility plan is described in general terms in draft documents and maps compiled by Memphis-Shelby County Schools that Chalkbeat obtained through open-records requests. Chalkbeat used further research to identify the specific schools targeted for new investments or closure. (To learn more about how Chalkbeat reported this, see below.)

The broad plan has been shown to select community members convening for early rounds of input, along with maps showing the school locations, but the documents haven’t been shared in any public forum. Chalkbeat’s analysis of the documents provides the general public with the first look at which schools the district is considering for possible closure or consolidation, all identified by name.

The plan is still in the draft stage as district leaders collect feedback from some community partners. But as described in the documents, it represents an effort by district leaders to formulate a comprehensive strategy to tackle a complex set of problems: academic struggles that undermine faith in public schools, persistent funding shortages for capital projects, enrollment shifts, and the high cost of maintenance for aging buildings.

“I think it’s appropriate to have an investment discussion before you have a closure discussion,” interim Superintendent Toni Williams recently told a group gathered at Colonial Middle School to discuss the draft plan.

In touting their approach over the past year, school district leaders have said they want their infrastructure vision to stand out from previous ones in key ways: They want the community to feel involved in the decisions. They want to play a more active role in facilitating redevelopments when schools close, so that neighborhoods aren’t left with empty buildings.

And they want the plan to stick.

Community partners are helping to shape the facilities plan

In presentations in the fall and winter, officials have suggested that a first round of building changes would take place over the next five years, with more to come. Board policy describes a set of community meetings and reports that must take place by the end of February for any school to be closed by the following fall.

The district has been active in engaging community partners, and has convened one steering committee and nine neighborhood-based subcommittees to solicit input on the general draft plans. Many of the roughly 100 people across those committees — comprising school board members, other elected and government officials, plus business leaders, community leaders, parents, and students — have already received the district’s early proposals, which include the maps that show where major changes would take place.

The maps produced by the district use color-coded dots to show the locations of schools targeted for investment or possible closure, but the district documents don’t identify the schools by name. Using other public records, Chalkbeat was able to connect the dots with the school names to give Memphians a clearer picture of the proposals the school district is making.

Chalkbeat’s review did not include preschool locations or administrative buildings, which are also set for changes.

Chalkbeat gave the district an opportunity to review the matched data that it compiled based on the district’s documents, to check its accuracy, correct any discrepancies, and provide updates. District officials did not dispute the specific information we shared.

The district responded with a copy of a statement from Williams that was published to social media on Jan. 24 and distributed to district employees. The statement broadly dismissed any reporting about plans for Memphis school buildings.

“Any potential changes to our educational landscape will only be brought forth after thorough evaluation, community engagement, and formal board approval,” the statement said.

Several MSCS board members contacted by Chalkbeat said that figuring out how to deal with the district’s building issues is a critical step, but stressed that the plan is still being worked out with the community.

“We need probably fewer schools so we can offer more things to the schools that we have,” board member Mauricio Calvo said. He said he recalled a school visit where students without desks were seated on filing cabinets, and their librarian was wearing multiple scarves to stay warm.

He said that difficult conversations about how the district uses its resources can lead to better learning experiences but that any board decisions about closures are still months away.

Board member Michelle McKissack said, “It’s going to take an entire community” to figure out how to deal with the legacy of decades of deferred maintenance and declining conditions in school buildings. “So that’s where we are right now.”

In an email to Chalkbeat, board member Amber Huett-Garcia said she was concerned that publishing the names of schools that may close could be “destabilizing” to communities amid district efforts to “build a culture of trust, safety, and achievement.”

“Nothing is decided right now,” she wrote, “and words such as draft or pending community input can be lost.”

Board Chair Althea Greene, pointing to the community meetings that are underway, said in a statement: “Our goal is to continue to be transparent throughout this process.”

How the Memphis district is analyzing schools

To sort out which schools would be affected and how, the draft proposal looks at a combination of criteria describing a school’s academic performance, enrollment, capacity, and facility needs. The district has said it analyzed those factors alongside how the school fits into district feeder patterns — the set of schools that students in a particular community are assigned to — and other neighborhood zoning and development trends.

Selected slides from a Memphis Shelby County Schools presentation on infrastructure planning discussions. The presentation explains the criteria and process district officials will use to make decisions about buildings.

Some 80 district schools would not see changes, and the district’s draft plan does not directly affect buildings or academic programs at most charter schools, which are managed by their own operators.

Many of the schools that stand to receive investments under the draft plan are ones that could get new students from other schools targeted for closure or consolidation. That means that the plan envisions reassigning some students to different schools based on where they live.

Some of the proposed closures and consolidations shown on the district’s map are expected, including six school buildings the district has said it expects to replace or sell. Another four are former MSCS schools that are currently operating as charters as part of the state-run Achievement School District. Some of these schools could remain open if they successfully apply to continue as charter schools after their 10-year terms in the ASD expire.

Delano Head Start, a preschool building, and Raineswood Residential Center, which has most recently been a service hub for students with disabilities, could also be closed.

The district has two new high schools in progress, in Cordova and in Frayser. The draft plans suggest a new Treadwell K-8 school, as well as a new Orange Mound elementary school, similar to the proposals for new school buildings made by former Superintendent Joris Ray’s administration in 2021.

Story continues after the table.

Success of new facilities plan depends on sustained support, funding

Williams has talked about a comprehensive facilities plan for a year now, and has just months to go in her term as interim superintendent. For her vision to materialize, the facilities plan her team is working on will have to survive the transition to a new superintendent, who is expected to take over this summer. (Williams’ contract allows her to stay on as finance chief or a consultant for one year after her superintendent term ends.)

It would also have to transcend any changes in the composition of the school board after this August’s election, when five of nine board seats will be on the ballot.

In her recent visit to Colonial Middle School, Williams met with a subcommittee of people representing school board District 9′s Orange Mound and Parkway Village neighborhoods. The interim superintendent criticized past facility plans that looked only at numbers.

Those plans erred in not incorporating the community, she said, and inflamed tensions between the district and neighborhoods — and, in some cases, among neighbors themselves.

Williams acknowledged that the district has left neighborhoods with vacant school properties, and that when closures happened, officials neglected to invest in schools that would be gaining additional students.

Shelby County leaders have also been talking about a comprehensive facilities strategy for a long time, and even considered setting up a separate agency to oversee school building construction projects across the county.

Williams thinks her vision will help rewrite the current dynamic where the district continually appeals to county commissioners for “piecemeal” funding for specific projects, or makes large capital budget requests that commissioners have been reluctant to grant.

A comprehensive plan that pitches investments in schools alongside redevelopment of old school buildings, she has said, could even bring access to new, nontraditional funding streams.

To that end, the district has been working on the plan with More for Memphis, a $100 million community development initiative spearheaded by the education-focused nonprofit Seeding Success.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Most Memphis students set to return to school after storm forces five-day closure

2024-01-23T04:29:06+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools said most of its schools would reopen Tuesday after a week of weather-related closures. But the wait isn’t over yet for students at one school, Hamilton K-8, which still has building issues.

A storm that blasted the region over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day long weekend heaped 3 to 5 inches of snow across Memphis and knocked temperatures close to zero degrees, snarling city streets and cracking water pipelines. The resulting low water pressure prompted a citywide boil-water advisory and impeded a return to school for students, especially at schools that rely on boilers for heat. Some child care centers also closed, forcing parents to miss out on work and wages.

As the school closures stretched into a second week Monday, parents had to adapt.

By Day 5, Raven Brown was ready to be out of the house.

For the sake of getting some learning done, she and her third grader, Genesis Pegues, set out for the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library to work on a cereal box school project for Black History Month.

At the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, third grader Genesis Pegues worked with her mom, Raven Brown, on a Black History Month project for school. They and several other families spent part of the day in the children's section of the library.

“I could have printed, and copied, and did all of this stuff at home, but we’ve been there so long that it felt good to just come out and see different people,” Brown said, wrapping red construction paper around a box of Frosted Flakes.

Memphis water pressure returned to normal levels on Monday, but ensuring that water quality is good enough to lift the boil-water advisory could take another day, according to city utility Memphis Light, Gas and Water. The district said late Monday that the water at Hamilton K-8 “is not at an operable level.”

When MSCS students return to schools Tuesday, they will have meals that don’t require water, the district said. Hand washing is safe under the advisory, MSCS said, pointing to health department guidance.

Memphis district officials repeated appeals for resources to upgrade old buildings. The district has been working for months on a plan to close and invest in buildings so students have better learning environments, but the proposed updates will need much more financial support than the district has recently received.

As of now, the Memphis district has no plans to extend the school year to offset the missed days, MSCS told Chalkbeat.

Brown said she agreed with the extended closures, in part because of the hazardous road conditions. But she wished there had been some kind of online option available for students who could access it. At home, she had Genesis do some kind of learning each day, reading books and doing practice school work on the i-Ready computer program.

A pandemic-era law governing remote learning restricts Tennessee districts to two days of online classes per semester each school year, with requirements for attendance, student meals, and special education services.

For Rickesha Williams, who balances her own classes at the University of Memphis with work while her children are at school and day care, the past week has brought added challenges. She works as a rideshare driver, and wasn’t able to drive because of the road conditions last week.

Closing school, she said, “was the right thing to do” to minimize car crashes.

By Monday, she was driving again, but took a break at the library so she could log into a class she’s taking toward a degree in criminal justice. The university was closed last week and switched to remote learning this week.

The weather interrupted emergency-services training for Rashard Jones, who drove to the library with his 6- and 4-year-old boys from Bartlett, a Memphis suburb that remained out of school Monday.

The 6-year-old has been reading to his brother, whose day care has been closed, too.

“I try to make education entertainment, not make it a chore — find the joy in learning,” said Jones, adding that he’s valued the slower pace for family time during the last week.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with information about Hamilton K-8 School.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Q&A: Public school leaders sound the alarm about vouchers, Lee’s education agenda

2024-01-04T23:39:40+00:00

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Tennessee state officials finally released their long-delayed letter grades for schools last month, just before the holiday break, using a new formula championed by Gov. Bill Lee’s administration.

But even before they knew their grades, leaders of a high-performing suburban Memphis school district denounced the system as a sham.

“This is all an attempt to paint Tennessee public schools as failing, thus ushering in a new era of vouchers for all,” a statement from Arlington Community Schools said. It was signed by Superintendent Jeff Mayo and school board members, including Dale Viox, president of the Tennessee School Boards Association.

Meanwhile, other suburban Memphis school districts have begun lining up against private-school voucher expansion, too, another key part of Lee’s education agenda. Lee’s voucher program uses taxpayer money to help families fund private school tuition, and the proposed expansion is expected to be a top legislative priority when the General Assembly returns on Jan. 9.

Lee’s proposal would remove income limits and ultimately extend the program statewide. It would be a huge leap forward for a program that was once billed as a pilot project and barely survived challenges in the legislature and the courts.

Viox said the TSBA is already instructing its members to pass formal board resolutions opposing vouchers. And it’s urging school boards to promote the strengths of their public schools and appeal directly to lawmakers.

“I think you’re going to find more and more people want to speak out about it,” Viox told Chalkbeat, “because there’s a lot of people in this area that I know personally and across the state that care a great deal about public education and doing right by students.”

Mayo and Viox talked with Chalkbeat about their opposition to the voucher program, and why they believe Tennessee’s new letter grade system is part of an attack on public schools.

This interview was conducted on Dec. 11 before school letter grades were released on Dec. 21. It has been edited for length and clarity.

What is it about the A-F letter grades and proposed voucher legislation that warrants the kind of statement you made?

Mayo: The best way that I’ve been able to describe the A-to-F grading system is it’s sort of the appetizer to what’s to come with the voucher system. And I think … if the state or the governor, or (the Tennessee Department of Education) — whomever is pushing for this — can paint the picture that school districts that are successful, high-performing, such as ours, are failing, then that sets the tone for support of the voucher expansion program, which, you know, ultimately, takes money away from public education. …

Jeff Mayo, superintendent of Arlington Community Schools, criticized Gov. Bill Lee for his proposal to expand a private-school education voucher program without plans to hold private schools to the same evaluation metrics as public schools.

We are held accountable for every penny that we receive from the state. … Every dime of it we have to say, ‘How is that contributing to students’ growth, or students’ achievement,’ whereas in a private school, that’s not the case. … They’re not held under the same state accountability that we are. There is no teacher evaluation accountability model that I’m aware of. …

And so to say that it’s going to even the playing field is inaccurate. And that’s the whole reason we’re calling this whole thing a sham. … I believe expansion of this has been part of the roadmap since day one.

Viox: It’s a bad idea to take taxpayer money and give it to private entities. … We know that across the nation … voucher programs are just rife with misuse. … And then if you want to talk about inclusivity and diversity: A private school can refuse you for any reason whatsoever. … So as many kids as you may think that you’re going to be able to include, you’re going to exclude twice as many under this program, because private schools are not going to take them, either for their religious beliefs or sexual orientation or whatever. …

You ask why it’s such a strong statement. Because we’re in a strong position. We have high-performance students, we have a very high-performance district, and this is probably not going to trickle down to us for a long time. But what it does do is it affects our educational partners in Shelby County. And if you think you can just forget about public education in Shelby County, and just focus on Arlington, Tennessee, you’re wrong. Because failing Shelby County schools will impact every one of these districts, and everyone in the state. … Across the state of Tennessee, we need to build up public education to what it can be, and not take money away and give it to private companies.

What do you hope the statement accomplishes?

Mayo: It’s debacle after debacle that we’re dealing with, with no guidance, no real assistance from TDOE when these new mandates are handed down. … My staff has to stop, they have to decide: ‘How are we going to do this? What are we going to do to help our students get on the other side of this?’ …

We keep piling on more ineffective accountability measures to pulverize public schools.
Jeff Mayo, superintendent of Arlington Community Schools

Even if we get an A, that doesn’t change my stance on this. It’s still, it’s a broken process. And instead of scratching that and rebuilding it, we keep piling on more ineffective accountability measures to pulverize public schools. That’s why this statement from my vantage point needed to be as strong as it is. … TDOE asks for input, but we never see our input in the end product of any of these new laws or mandates … . And so it’s exhausting.

Viox: At this point, it is difficult to ignore what the state is doing to attack public education. … And like he said, they’re tired. And as an advocate for public education, I am as well.

Is there any set of accountability metrics that would move you more in favor of voucher expansion?

Viox: Not me. … These guys can go out and raise money for anything they want in any way they want. And public schools can’t do that. … (TSBA is) going to the state to try and say, ‘Hey, look, at least let our PTAs and people do lotteries, because … we can’t do that now.’ But private schools can raise money however they want. ... And what we see with other voucher expansions throughout the U.S. is the private schools are turning around … and raising their tuition for those public school kids by that same voucher amount. So essentially, they’re double dipping.

Mayo: I think it’s a long range plan to continue to siphon money from public schools. … It’s not uncommon for the … TDOE to deliver down mandates that are unfunded, that districts are expected to scramble around and find the money to, you know, make it happen. So if you’re looking at, you know, already being very low-funded when you compare to the nation, what our state funds for education, and then this continuation of vouchers siphoning money away from that, you know, that’s the whole mantra behind this being a sham.

Viox: If you’re this … bent on getting a voucher program, fund it separately. We would have no problem with that. And I think if you look at across the nation, people that have expanded their voucher programs, it’s come with a really hefty price tag.

Dale Viox, the president of the Tennessee School Boards Association, said the organization is encouraging its members to push back against the governor's proposal to expand eligibility of private-school education vouchers.

Can you talk to me more about what specifically that (separate funding) would look like? … If Arlington loses any students, you are losing funding by a declining enrollment.

Viox: If you come to any of our schools and can’t find something you’re interested in, in the various clubs, and school sponsored sports, and all of the things that we offer — just hundreds and hundreds of activities for students. I feel like we would not necessarily lose students to … private schools. … As long as the funding is there and completely separate, that’s honestly not a concern for me. Now, that’s not to say it won’t be a concern for other school districts that are struggling. … There’s always going to be private schools. Any specific government money to help them expand, I wouldn’t be in favor for. …

When you look at all these other states, I don’t know what their oversight is, but I think Arizona in their first year before they expanded their voucher program, on the surface found almost a million dollars, it was over $700,000 in misappropriated funds. … And never forget, that if they give him a year’s worth of public funding, and they live within your district, and they go to that private school, and either don’t make it or don’t actually use it for those (school) funds, they come back to us, and we are going to educate those kids.

If the voucher expansion were to pass as it’s been proposed ... what challenges could you immediately see for Arlington’s district?

Mayo: It will not be immediately impactful to us. But as I stated earlier, I believe the expansion is to continue. I think that is the long-range plan. So eventually, we could be faced with losing students, which impacts funding, which impacts teacher layoffs, it impacts the diminishing of programs that we’ve invested a lot of money in through our capital improvement projects. …

I’m a long-range planner. And I think those are things that you have to look at.

Viox: I’m also a higher level view guy: If it affects Metro Nashville, and it affects Shelby County, then it will affect us. The greatest impact is going to be on them. They are our brothers and sisters in public education, and we cannot just completely discount how it’s going to affect them. Because as it affects Shelby County, it will trickle out into the municipalities as businesses leave.

Private schools are turning around … and raising their tuition for those public school kids by that same voucher amount. So essentially, they’re double dipping.
Dale Viox, Tennessee School Boards Association leader

Mayo: The A-to-F distinction that I don’t think we’ve really talked a lot about is the impact it has just on our local community. Because let’s face it, Arlington is growing because of our schools. Businesses are coming here. Parents are moving here, you know. And then if all they have to go by is they pull up our website … and they see that Arlington, well, looks like a really good community and everything, but their school district has an F. That’s the only piece of information that parents have, if they’re not familiar with what’s been going on in the state of Tennessee.

Is there anything this conversation is missing?

Mayo: It really takes creativity away sometimes from the school district, because I know we’re in the process of developing our 2025-26 school year calendar. …One of the people in the group said, ‘You know, have we ever thought about a year round school?’ ... If we wanted to do that, how could we ever do that, if we’re having to offer learning camps and all of that as a product of third grade retention? … If we wanted to be innovative and wanted to be creative and experiment with that, how could we do that? We couldn’t.

Correction: Jan. 4, 2024: A previous version of this story said Dale Viox is the president-elect of the Tennessee School Boards Association. Viox is the president of the association.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee issues its first letter grades for schools, after revamping formula

2023-12-21T18:31:43+00:00

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The typical Tennessee school received a high C under a new formula the state used to assign its first-ever letter grades to schools, according to data released Thursday.

The long-delayed letter grades from the Tennessee Department of Education satisfy the requirements of a 2016 school accountability law, which has been embraced by Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds as a simple, familiar way for families to assess local schools.

But just before the first grades were issued, Reynolds led a revamp of the grading formula to emphasize academic achievement, or proficiency, over academic growth. The earlier formula, which was never used to publicly assign grades, was more focused on growth.

The late change angered many educators across the state. Schools serving lower-income families in rural and urban communities have been particularly concerned about the prospect of earning lower marks under the new formula.

Schools that receive D’s or F’s do not receive any additional support from the state, but they are expected to face more scrutiny.

Among Tennessee’s 1,690 schools that received letter grades, 3 out of every 4 received a C or better. A Chalkbeat analysis showed that the median grade-eligible Tennessee school earned a 3.2 out of a possible 5 points, or toward the higher end of the C range.

For now, there is no way to directly compare this year’s letter grades with what they would have been under the old formula. The education department has not yet published the state testing data it used to calculate its letter grades.

An analysis from Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the state’s largest district, showed that sticking to the original formula “would have been more favorable,” said Bill White, the district’s director of planning and accountability. He said the district’s analysis also showed that low letter grades matched up to schools with higher proportions of low-income students.

“Many of our students face significant challenges outside of the classroom …,” said MSCS interim Superintendent Toni Williams. “So we need a more comprehensive assessment system that recognizes student growth, family engagement, and the unique context of each school and its students.”

The education department stood by its new formula when announcing the letter grades Thursday. Reynolds called it a “clear rating system” that gives families “a snapshot of how their child’s school is performing.”

Student academic growth is still a component of the new formula, but it is measured differently now. In the new calculation, Tennessee removed the option for schools to increase their grade by meeting individualized academic benchmarks, rather than the statewide targets.

Only 5% of Tennessee’s graded schools received F’s. Half of these schools are located in Memphis, a Chalkbeat analysis found. Most are within Memphis-Shelby County Schools, and six are charter schools operated under agreements with the state-run Achievement School District or the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission.

MSCS accounted for the largest share of F’s among districts with at least 50 schools, but the most common grade for district schools was a C, according to Chalkbeat’s analysis.

Metro Nashville Public Schools received mostly B’s, C’s, and D’s.

School letter grades are published on Tennessee’s State Report Card website. The dashboard offers additional information about how each school scored across the three or four categories that contribute to the overall grades.

Some schools were not graded because they lacked sufficient test data or served only adults.

You can search for grades by school in the table below.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Kae Petrin is data and graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools board narrows superintendent search to 3 finalists

2023-12-20T00:06:20+00:00

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The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board voted unanimously Tuesday to narrow its slate of superintendent finalists from five candidates to three, none of whom are from Memphis.

The three finalists advancing to the next round of interviews are:

Yolonda Brown, currently the chief academic officer in Atlanta Public Schools
Marie Feagins, chief of leadership and high schools for Detroit Public Schools Community District
Cheryl Proctor, deputy superintendent of instruction and school communities for Portland Public Schools in Oregon

You can read more about these finalists at the end of this story.

Carlton Jenkins, who recently retired as superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District in Wisconsin, and Angela Whitelaw, MSCS’ deputy superintendent of schools and academic support, the two other candidates who interviewed with the board Friday, won’t advance to the next round of interviews.

With Whitelaw off the slate, Memphis is poised to have a school superintendent from outside the city for the first time in more than a decade.

“This is just the beginning,” said board member Joyce Dorse-Coleman, who is leading the search effort along with Stephanie Love. “We’ve started on this, and we’re going to see it all the way through. … We will continue with our community engagement through this process.”

The top three candidates are expected to return to Memphis in the new year for a round of in-depth interviews. Board members are expected to select a permanent superintendent by the spring, and that person would start the job in time for the July 1 start of the new fiscal year and 2024-25 school year.

The three finalists emerged from a group of five leading candidates that search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates announced to the board on Friday. All five answered a series of questions from the board in interviews that were open for the public to watch. Most of the interviews were about 45 minutes long.

Board members evaluated each of the candidates on a rubric, and community members who attended — about 30 throughout the day — also filled out scoresheets. Tomeka Hart Wigginton, a former Memphis school board member who has helped the board throughout its superintendent search process, shared composite scores with board members Tuesday. Love called Hart Wigginton’s contributions “instrumental.”

The rubric called for evaluating candidates on student achievement (30%), business and finance (20%), governance and board relations (20%), staff relations and leadership (15%), and community relations (15%).

Rankings from board members aligned with the rankings from the community, she said Tuesday.

Brown, Feagins, and Proctor — the finalists the board voted to advance — received the highest marks from Friday’s interviews. None of them has been a superintendent before.

Of nine people who issued public comments before the board vote Tuesday — including two activists who have been critical of the board — most were supportive of the way the board has moved the search forward.

Some members of the community complained that the initial interviews were held during the workday on Friday. Community advocates have pushed for transparency and integrity in the search, and community members and educators want to remain part of the process.

“No superintendent will be successful without us holding them accountable. And so I want us to keep that in mind as we ask them questions,” said board member Amber Huett-Garcia.

“We still have a lot of tough questions for the candidates ahead of us,” she added.

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board is on track with the hiring timeline it set out over the summer, when it relaunched the search for a new superintendent.

Its first attempt unraveled in April amid a board dispute, partly over whether interim Superintendent Toni Williams, the district’s former finance chief, was qualified to take the permanent job. The board agreed to restart the process it began in August 2022, after former Superintendent Joris Ray resigned in a cloud of scandal.

Williams is expected to assist the new leader’s transition, and can stay on as chief financial officer or a consultant after her term as interim superintendent ends, according to her contract.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools hears from new slate of superintendent finalists

2023-12-15T15:51:02+00:00

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Editor’s note: Additional information about the finalists can be found at the bottom of this story.

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board interviewed five finalists for superintendent Friday — including one candidate from the district — as it tries to wrap up a tortuous search that began more than a year ago.

The finalists are:

Yolonda Brown, currently the chief academic officer in Atlanta Public Schools
Marie Feagins, chief of leadership and high schools for Detroit Public Schools Community District
Carlton Jenkins, who recently retired as superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District in Wisconsin
Cheryl Proctor, deputy superintendent of instruction and school communities for Portland Public Schools in Oregon
Angela Whitelaw, deputy superintendent of schools and academic support in Memphis-Shelby County Schools

The start of the interview process is a significant step toward hiring a new leader for Tennessee’s largest school district, which has been operating with interim Superintendent Toni Williams in charge since August 2022, when Joris Ray resigned under a cloud of scandal.

The search for Ray’s successor appeared to be nearing an end in the spring, only to collapse as some board members balked at an initial slate of finalists selected by search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates — and the process that produced them.

The five finalists who interviewed with the board Friday emerged from a group of 22 applicants who sought the job this time around, down from 34 applicants in the previous search attempt. Max McGee, president of Hazard Young, said the search drew candidates from outside Tennessee but also included “strong local interest.”

“I am especially impressed with the breadth and depth of the applicant pool,” McGee said in a statement released by MSCS in November.

Feagins, Jenkins, and Whitelaw also applied in the earlier part of the search process, according to a partial applicant list released at the time, and Jenkins was one of the initial finalists. Brown and Proctor appear to be new applicants.

If the interviews ultimately lead to the selection of a candidate who wins board approval, it will be the first successfully completed national superintendent search since the district was formed in the merger with Shelby County Schools just over a decade ago. The two previous leaders were internal candidates who got promoted: Dorsey Hopson in 2013, and Ray, who took over for Hopson in late 2018.

The board is expected to choose a permanent superintendent early in 2024, and that person would start the job by July 1.

The first attempt to find Ray’s successor unraveled in April amid a board dispute, partly over whether Williams, the district’s former finance chief, was qualified to take the superintendent job. The board agreed to restart the process.

Since then, the board has largely avoided controversy and maintained the revised timeline it laid out in June.

Williams’ contract spells out the ways she could stay with the district when her term as interim chief ends: The next superintendent or the board could reassign her to her previous role as chief financial officer, or give her a chance to stay on as a consultant.

Tomeka Hart Wigginton, a former school board member who helped the board get the search back on track this summer, is expected to play a role in the next phase of the search as well, said board member Joyce Dorse-Coleman, co-chair of the search.

Hart Wigginton will tally the board’s scorecards after this first round of interviews, and announce the results at a public meeting next Tuesday. At that point, the board will narrow the slate to three finalists, using their own evaluations and evaluations from community members to guide their decision.

Those three candidates are expected to be in Memphis in the new year for more extensive interviews in a process that will include more community engagement.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. Bill Lee short on details as he rallies for universal school vouchers in Tennessee

2023-12-14T01:51:50+00:00

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Gov. Bill Lee hit the road Wednesday to begin selling his universal school voucher proposal, but offered no new details about how much the program would cost over time, specific ways to hold private schools accountable when receiving taxpayer money, or what the impact could be to public schools.

However, the Republican governor, who announced in late November that he wants to take vouchers statewide, said he expects GOP leaders to file legislation on his behalf before Jan. 9, when the General Assembly reconvenes, answering many of those questions.

Despite skepticism and outright opposition to his plan from many corners of the state, Lee believes the pandemic has changed the calculus so that more Tennesseans — and their elected representatives — are ready to support universal school vouchers. In 2019, Lee’s scaled-down voucher program, using education savings accounts, barely squeaked through the House in a contentious and controversial vote.

“Through the pandemic, parents just became much more engaged with what was actually happening with their children and their education,” said Lee, adding that more parents are demanding more education choices for their children because of disagreements spawned by COVID over school closures and what kids are taught in public schools.

But the voucher proposal also has stoked fierce opposition across the state, especially in the Memphis area.

Last week, Arlington Public Schools released a fiery statement denouncing Lee’s plan as part of a systematic attack on public schools, while the director of Germantown Municipal School District recorded a video declaring that any private schools that accept voucher money should be held to the same standards as public schools. Lakeland’s school board passed a resolution this week opposing the plan, and the chairwoman of the board for Memphis-Shelby County Schools issued a statement Tuesday saying the board was “vehemently opposed” to Lee’s initiative.

Research is also mixed about whether vouchers help improve student performance.

On Wednesday, Lee was joined by House Speaker Cameron Sexton in Memphis at a panel discussion at New Hope Christian Academy, one of 80 private schools currently accepting vouchers through the education savings account program that began in 2022 in Davidson and Shelby counties, expanding this fall to Hamilton County.

While short on specifics, some comments by Lee and Sexton gave insights into the behind-the-scenes negotiations happening to garner support for Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act and to pound out a bill to put before the GOP-controlled legislature.

Academic testing requirements for voucher students unclear

Both leaders expressed openness to adding a facility component to the state’s new K-12 funding formula to help local governments pay for new public school construction or improvements to existing public school campuses — a chronic challenge in a state where schools need about $9 billion of infrastructure investments over five years, according to one recent government report.

Lee said he pushed for the formula overhaul in 2022 “to provide for more nuanced funding” and suggested that facility needs are in line with the new approach.

“If there are particular needs that school districts have, then we should look at that formula and how we more appropriately fund public schools going forward,” he said. “Not just more money, but more wisely spent money.”

The governor also said accountability for participating private schools would be part of his voucher bill, but he did not elaborate on what that would look like.

Currently, private schools participating in the ESA program have to administer annual state tests for math and English language arts to voucher students. But it’s hard to attract private schools to participate under that mandate. And results from those tests during the first year of the program indicate that participants performed worse than their public school peers in Davidson and Shelby counties, according to data from the state education department.

The governor’s press secretary, Elizabeth Johnson, previously told several media outlets that no testing requirements were in the draft legislation, though details were still being hammered out. Johnson did not immediately respond when asked Wednesday if any of those positions have changed as the proposal has evolved.

The draft also didn’t include other accountability measures that public schools must abide by such as third- and fourth-grade retention requirements for students who are deemed poor readers, or A-F grades for schools beginning this month, Johnson previously said.

Taking a different tact, Sexton suggested that Tennessee should rethink its accountability systems for public schools as part of any expansion of private school vouchers.

“Why don’t we treat the high-performing school districts the same as private [schools] and give them more autonomy and freedom to do their job?” Sexton told reporters after the panel discussion.

“Why not reward quality instead of trying to treat all school systems the same regardless of where they are?” he said.

Such a change would begin to unravel a fundamental education policy in Tennessee, where GOP officials previously credited the state’s vaunted accountability systems for historic gains on national tests between 2011 and 2013.

Suburban Memphis leaders oppose planned voucher expansion

The governor emphasized accountability through parental choice during his visit to New Hope.

“We do know that parents know best what’s best for their kids,” Lee said. “When parents have choice, the parents and the children are empowered to live a better life and to move in a better direction.”

Lee later traveled to Chattanooga to participate in a similar event at Chattanooga Preparatory School to promote his proposal.

Sexton, who voted against the 2019 voucher bill but now says he supports universal vouchers, stayed in Shelby County to meet with suburban leaders. Public school officials in those suburbs have been among the noisiest critics of Lee’s proposal.

“In my past 10 years as a superintendent, our legislature has passed hundreds of laws that are crushing the way that we run our schools,” Germantown Municipal School District’s Jason Manuel said in his video recording. “None of these laws will apply to the schools accepting this taxpayer money.”

Manuel called for an even playing field. “Either these schools have to follow all of the same laws we do, or our legislators need to take all the restraints off of our schools and let us get back to the way we have always served our children,” he said.

Private school choice programs have grown in recent years, with states such as Florida, Iowa, and Arkansas passing massive expansions of their voucher initiatives.

But do vouchers work?

According to an ongoing Chalkbeat review of the research, there’s little recent evidence that vouchers improve student test scores. In fact, they’ve sometimes led to declines. But older studies are more positive toward vouchers, and some show that vouchers have a neutral or positive impact on student outcomes later in life.

Research also suggests that targeted voucher programs may not be costly, but universal programs probably will be.

Other education advocates worry that that mostly GOP-driven drive to give parents more choices beyond public charter schools, magnet schools, and other optional programs will accelerate resegregation in schooling.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach her at LTestino@chalkbeat.org

Memphis’ school district needs to cut $150 million in spending. Hundreds of jobs are on the line.

2023-11-27T20:17:38+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools leaders have proposed eliminating 675 jobs along with a mix of student programs as they figure out how to cut $150 million in spending from next year’s budget.

The budget gap is an expected result of the end of federal pandemic relief programs, which were meant to help school districts manage the impact on student learning. District leaders have been preparing for this day with analyses of how they spent the money, so they can try to preserve what has been most effective for students.

All over the country, districts have been bracing for what they describe as a fiscal cliff: the sudden dropoff in funding from federal aid programs that have provided billions of dollars over the past few years to support construction projects, staff additions, raises and bonuses, and tutoring. The choices they make to compensate for that loss stand to affect high-poverty districts the most, researchers say, in part because students in those districts received a larger share of funding to address their greater needs.

Tennessee districts like MSCS will benefit from a new state school funding formula that came with a $1 billion infusion of new state funds, so the cliff won’t be so steep. But it’s still pretty tricky terrain, and MSCS is taking a harder look at which positions and programs it can afford to trim without sacrificing academic progress too much.

“We don’t have a $150 million problem,” interim Superintendent Toni Williams told board members at a budget meeting earlier this month. “We’ve just got to make some decisions on what’s working and what’s not working.”

MSCS seeks to preserve classroom assistants, tutoring

Board members assembled at a two-day retreat earlier this month to take stock of the district’s early budget proposals and provide their input and guidance. There, leaders provided an overview of how the district used its $776 million in relief funds. Some of the top-dollar initiatives were meant to be one-time expenditures, Chief Financial Officer Tito Langston explained — $176 million for building construction, for example.

But other expenses that the federal funds covered, like increased staff, are recurring costs. Those are the kinds of budget items that will warrant a closer look to see whether they can and should be sustained after the federal money runs out. Since the start of the pandemic, MSCS staff increased by almost 2,000 people, to some 14,700 budgeted employees this year, documents show.

The Memphis district spent almost $100 million of its federal funds to hire 750 specialized education assistants. The assistants have supported kindergarten, first- and second-grade classrooms by improving the adult-to-student ratio, at a cost that came out to $1,300 per student each year.

It’s been worthwhile, according to Bill White, the district’s planning and accountability director, who told board members the staff have particularly helped students in math.

Nonetheless, the district has proposed eliminating 1 of every 5 assistants to decrease the program cost.

MSCS district leaders want to preserve funding for tutoring, which has been especially effective for students who are the furthest behind in reading and language arts. And leaders said MSCS needs to continue funding more remote instruction to make up for a shortage of qualified teachers.

“This is a last resort,” White said of the program, where students in a classroom learn from an online teacher.

New state funding system won’t provide enough

Langston, the district CFO, said the state’s new public school funding formula, known as Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA, increased MSCS’ general operating budget by about $100 million. Without pandemic funding, the district expects to operate with $1.2 billion in revenue.

About a third of the new TISA funds went to charter schools, he said, and most of the rest has been focused on teacher recruitment and retention. Many Memphis teachers received raises this year through a new salary schedule. Some of the funds were used for one-time signing bonuses, so those expenses won’t recur next year.

Still, “TISA wasn’t enough to sustain the strategies” implemented through pandemic funds, Langston said. “We were always going to look at … other costs.”

For example, district officials are considering changing the way schools are grouped for administrative purposes, to eliminate some 323 leadership roles.

Even with those proposed cuts, MSCS board members and district leaders would have to cut another $60 million from a menu of $265 million in programs and initiatives that MSCS leaders say they aren’t required by law or policy to fund.

Details about MSCS’ and other districts’ spending of federal aid have been hard to come by.

A Georgetown University report shows Tennessee is among 20 states that do not report how school districts ultimately spent their federal aid.

The Memphis district publicized its intended plans for the funds, and has provided piecemeal updates. Still, meeting materials from the budget retreat, for instance, are still not published online. And there is no one place the public can go to see how each dollar has been spent.

School board members were scheduled to meet about the budget changes again on Nov. 29 and Nov. 30, from 3 to 7 p.m. each day. As of Monday morning, no meeting location or agenda had been posted.

Chalkbeat Tennessee Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee contributed to this report.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

How a George Floyd book event at Whitehaven H.S. got squeezed by Tennessee law

2023-11-07T16:24:27+00:00

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Students at Memphis’ Whitehaven High School got a chance last month to hear from journalists Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, authors of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on George Floyd — his life, his brutal killing by police in 2020, and its aftermath.

But the students didn’t get to hear any excerpts from “His Name Is George Floyd,” and they weren’t allowed to take home copies of the book from school. The authors had to give their presentation without going too deep into the book’s main theme of systemic racism.

Who determined the restrictions and why is unclear. The organizers of the event, a local partnership called Memphis Reads, said their instructions to the authors were based on guidance from the school district on complying with Tennessee law that requires that books used in school be “age appropriate.”

Memphis-Shelby County Schools officials disputed their account, but repeatedly declined to answer questions about what they told the organizers or how they interpreted the law. In an email to the authors after the event, district communications chief Cathryn Stout said MSCS did not run the book through its review process before the visit.

In the end, the authors told Chalkbeat, the students who gathered at Whitehaven that day were shortchanged by restricted access to the book and a censored experience.

“Neither Tolu nor I know who to cast blame on,” Samuels said. “I’m not sure we could, or we should.”

But the ambiguous restrictions in this and other Tennessee laws have caused concern at the local level about compliance, Samuels said, resulting in “messy, potentially explosive debates between entities that usually get along.”

What is Memphis Reads?

Memphis Reads is a 12-year-old community reading program based at Christian Brothers University.

Each year, a selection committee chooses a book and brings the author or authors to Memphis to speak at CBU and Rhodes College, another partner. The program focuses on first year students at each school, but expands to include students at one public high school. The selected book usually relates to Memphis in some way.

This year, for instance, a CBU assignment asked students to relate the book’s themes to Memphis, where five police officers were charged in the death of Tyre Nichols. Nichols died in January, three days after officers beat him during a traffic stop. His death brought on federal investigations that have pushed Memphis to reexamine the relationship between its police and its people.

The five officers were fired after an internal investigation. One of the officers accepted a plea deal Thursday.

“The whole point of it … . is that we want to build community one book at a time,” said Justin Brooks, who has led the event since 2021 as CBU’s director of community engagement.

George Floyd killing sparked a movement, then a backlash

Floyd was killed during an arrest in May 2020, when a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for several minutes. An onlooker’s video recording of the event went public, triggering a huge outcry and calls for and policing reform. The officer was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder.

Samuels and Olonnuripa’s book, written while both were reporters at the Washington Post, looks not just at the incident but also at how pervasive racism in education, criminal justice, housing, and health care systems shaped Floyd’s life. “We learned about the man himself … and much more than how he died,” Samuels said during a forum at Rhodes College.

They also wrote about what happened afterward: a season of demonstrations, dialogue, and unrest during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by what they call a “burgeoning backlash” to the racial justice movement, resulting in state laws across the country that stifled classroom discussions on race.

Tennessee was among the first states to legislate what public school students can — and cannot — be taught about race, gender, and bias. And the penalties are steep. Educators who violate the law may have their teaching licenses suspended or revoked. Districts can be fined for repeat offenses.

The authors of “His Name Is George Floyd” won 2023 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

MSCS officials and the Memphis Reads organizers did not specifically cite this law as a factor in what ultimately happened at Whitehaven, but the law nonetheless hangs over educators’ decisions about what topics are appropriate for classroom discussion. Two Memphis teachers are among five in Tennessee challenging the law in federal court.

Tennessee’s Age Appropriate Materials Act, meanwhile, requires schools to publish a list of what’s in their library collections online and develop policies to review and remove books that aren’t appropriate — a term that the law leaves undefined.

MSCS has leeway to interpret this law, but longstanding tensions between the majority-Black, Democratic-led city and the mostly white, GOP-dominated state government mean the district can ill afford to risk a fight with the state over the nuances of race and books.

Christian Brothers University runs the Memphis Reads program in partnership with other community groups. In communication with Chalkbeat, CBU cited the Age Appropriate Materials law as the reason it understood that books and materials couldn’t be distributed at the Whitehaven event and said that the guidance came from the Memphis school district.

CBU and other Memphis Reads partners “were under the instruction of MSCS leadership when completing the formatting and regulations concerning the Age-Appropriate Materials Act,” Justin Brooks, the CBU community engagement director who heads Memphis Reads, wrote in an email to Chalkbeat.

MSCS officials wouldn’t confirm that to Chalkbeat, or explain whether Tennessee’s law regulating classroom conversations about race influenced any restrictions.

In the email to the authors after the event, shared later with Chalkbeat, Stout wrote that time constraints prevented the district from going through its own process to approve the book. Stout wrote that the district regretted that their “experience was anything less than welcoming.”

“Given the new, more detailed process, it will take some time to coordinate, but please know that His Name Is George Floyd is now under consideration to be added to the Whitehaven High School library collection,” Stout wrote to the authors, “and we look forward to having conversations with other school communities as requests arise.”

Separately, Stout shared with Chalkbeat a copy of a description from library book distributor Baker & Taylor that categorizes the book as “adult” and among the American Library Association’s “Notable Books for Adults.”

Stout also wrote in a public social media comment explaining the district’s position that the American Library Association labeled “His Name is George Floyd” as “adult literature (18 and older).”

What the ‘adult’ label says about a book

ALA spokesperson Raymond Garcia told Chalkbeat that the group “does not rate books” for age appropriateness.

Booklist, a book review magazine published by the ALA — and listed among resources for librarians in an MSCS manual — uses its “adult” label not to be restrictive but to signal that a book would be of interest primarily to adults, Garcia said.

“His Name is George Floyd” is also categorized as “nonfiction” and “social sciences.”

If the label was a factor in the decision not to allow Memphis Reads to distribute the books at Whitehaven, then that’s an “inaccurate understanding” of the purpose of such book labels, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association.

“We can think of any kinds of works of literature that would have been originally rated as of interest to an adult reader that are absolutely fine for young people to read, and it’s not too controversial,” Caldwell-Stone told Chalkbeat, citing “To Kill a Mockingbird” as an example.

Nonetheless, the ambiguity in Tennessee’s standard of “appropriateness” creates gray areas and heightens the stakes for local districts concerned about avoiding a violation, Caldwell-Stone said.

If a person or district cannot risk breaking the law, “then you’re going to be very thoughtful about what books you offer,” she said, “and thereby limit the opportunities to learn and engage with all kinds of ideas, even controversial or difficult ideas.”

A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Education says MSCS did not reach out to the state for guidance, and MSCS didn’t respond to a question from Chalkbeat about that issue.

Thanks to a donation from the publisher, Viking Books, students who want a free copy of the book will be able to get one from Respect the Haven, a community development group in Whitehaven that’s part of Memphis Reads.

Whitehaven High School serves some 1,500 students and is known among Memphis for its school pride and focus on students’ post-secondary scholarship achievements. Almost all of its students are Black, and about half of them are from low-income families.

“This event basically got censored out of fear of violating some law,” said Jason Sharif, head of Respect the Haven. “With us being a predominantly Black city, a predominantly Black school district, you cannot keep books like this or stories like this from being told to Black students.”

Jason Sharif, head of Respect the Haven, a partner in Memphis Reads, said the Whitehaven H.S. event “got censored” out of concern about state law.

Students caught up in racial politics

By the time Samuels and Olorunnipa arrived at Whitehaven High School for the event on Oct. 26, they knew some of the restrictions they would have to operate under. The two reporters were prepared to tell students about the journalistic work that went into writing the book, but to avoid going into depth about many of the issues it raised.

Brooks, from Memphis Reads, had told them they wouldn’t be able to read directly from the book, or talk about the book’s discussion of how systemic racism created many barriers for Floyd, long before his arrest and killing. MSCS was involved in setting these restrictions, Brooks said. The district did not comment on its role.

Instead of an open question-and-answer period, five students were pre-selected to ask Samuels and Olorunnipa prepared questions, which was different from the open conversations at the two other panels that Memphis Reads organized. This was in line with MSCS protocol for events, Brooks said.

Brooks said it was CBU’s call to keep the event closed to media, out of concern for student safety. A Chalkbeat reporter attended two similar events at the college level.

Stout said Brooks and Sharif had created a narrative about the event that is “inconsistent” with the district’s point of view and its own initiatives. She highlighted a Memphis school integration curriculum and a social emotional learning curriculum involving the death of Tyre Nichols, a Black man who was fatally injured by Memphis police after a traffic stop in early 2023.

MSCS told Chalkbeat that it was glad Whitehaven students had the opportunity to hear the journalists speak, as did CBU in its own communication.

Authors Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa had early doubts about being part of an event at Whitehaven High School with restrictions on their speech, but said they were grateful for the opportunity.

And Samuels and Olorunnipa, who had early doubts about being part of an event with restrictions on their speech, said they were grateful for the opportunity, too. They were approached at the end of the event by a Whitehaven high schooler with a notebook full of questions who said he wanted to be a journalist. The authors relished the chance to expand what the student imagined for his future.

“Even through this period of backlash, we think it’s important to continue to push forward and continue to make a pathway for people who are caught up in the back and forth,” Olorunnipa said during another forum.

“A lot of these kids have nothing to do with the politics,” Olorunnipa added. “They are just trying to make it. They’re just trying to live their best lives. And sometimes they become pawns in our political fights.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee rushes to revamp its A-F letter grades for schools. Educators cry foul.

2023-10-26T10:00:00+00:00

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It was supposed to make things simpler.

A 2016 Tennessee law required the state to assign each public school a letter grade, A to F, based mostly on student test results. The intent was to give parents and communities an easy way to assess the quality of education at each school.

Nothing about it has been simple, though. Since the law took effect, the state hasn’t issued any grades, mostly because of testing glitches and the pandemic.

And now there’s a new complication: As the state prepares to finally issue its first grades in November, the education department and its new leader are revamping the grading formula. The changes likely will mean fewer A’s and generally worse grades than expected for many schools, especially those serving students from lower-income families in rural and urban communities.

The rollout will be a jolt to many Tennessee public school leaders, who have been waiting and planning for these grades for five years, thinking they understood what the criteria would be. And beyond the stigma, the grades could have real consequences: Officials representing schools that get D’s or F’s eventually may face hearings or audits of their spending and academic programming.

“It almost seems like we’re trying to change rules after the game’s already been played,” said Brian Curry, a school board member in Germantown, during an August town hall in Memphis to discuss potential changes with state officials.

Why the letter grades for schools matter

Tennessee’s 2016 school report card law didn’t include consequences for schools that get low grades.

That changed last year, when Tennessee passed a new system for funding K-12 education.

Under the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act, or TISA, school districts or charter authorizers can face hearings before the state Board of Education if their schools get D’s or F’s on the state report card, beginning with the 2024-25 school year.

Ultimately, administrators could have to submit a corrective action plan or undergo a state audit of spending and academic programming at the school in question.

State board member Darrell Cobbins, whose district includes Memphis schools, acknowledges that the increased funding that came with TISA warrants additional accountability. But he wonders about the feasibility of what the law asks of the all-volunteer board. Holding hearings for potentially hundreds of schools will be a “major undertaking,” he said.

The board is working with a consultant, Bellwether Education Partners, to develop a review process that Cobbins hopes will be logical, consistent, and explainable.

At the crux of the state’s late change is a long-running debate over proficiency vs. growth — whether students should be judged based more on whether they meet certain academic standards, or on how much progress they make toward those standards. Where the state lands in that debate is especially important for schools where students face extra challenges even before they walk into a classroom.

But many public school leaders believe there’s a larger political motive behind the sudden drive by Gov. Bill Lee’s administration to change the rules: advancing his school choice agenda.

Under a 2019 voucher law pushed by Lee, Tennessee now provides taxpayer money to help some families send their children to private schools. But the program has fewer than 2,000 students enrolled in the three counties where it operates, significantly below this year’s 5,000-seat cap. Lee wants to expand enrollment and eventually take the option statewide.

“School choice has got to be part of what’s driving all this,” said Mike Winstead, director of Maryville City Schools and a former Tennessee Superintendent of the Year.

“Think about it,” he continued. “If you have an A or B school in your community, that may not motivate parents to want to pull their kids out of public schools to use a voucher.”

Several other district leaders brought up the same concern to state officials at town halls hosted by the department in August and September to get public feedback about revising the grading formula. But state officials flatly deny there’s a connection between the voucher law and changes to the grading formula.

The grading law “was passed to promote transparency, and families should be able to know and to understand how their students’ schools are performing,” a department spokesman said in a statement to Chalkbeat.

Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds said the goal of the new formula is to generate grades that signify meaningful differences in school performance in a way that make sense to Tennesseans, whether they reflect proficiency, growth, or other criteria that are ultimately chosen.

“Whether you are a student, parent, teacher, policymaker, or an interested community member, school letter grades will empower all Tennesseans with the information they need to support K-12 public education and our local schools,” she said.

Tennessee initially adopted growth-focused model

State law requires that Tennessee’s model for grading schools take into account student performance and improvement, as demonstrated on annual state tests, and it allows inclusion of other reliable indicators of student achievement. The statute directed the education department to come up with a formula to turn those results into a single letter grade for each school, to be published online on the State Report Card.

When developing the calculation under former Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration, the department stressed achievement and growth in math and English language arts. And it created two pathways for schools to demonstrate achievement.

One way was based on what the state calls “pure achievement,” meaning that a certain percentage of a school’s students demonstrated a required level of proficiency, skill, or knowledge. By this metric, a school that started the school year with a high proficiency rate was likely to receive an A even if it had not improved student learning during the school year.

The other way rewarded schools that met certain goals to move their students toward proficiency from one year to the next. The idea was that all schools, especially those serving low-income students or that have historically performed poorly, should have an opportunity to get an A as long as they make strong progress toward the state’s achievement goals.

So even the achievement part of the grading formula could be fulfilled with strong growth. In this way, Tennessee was an early adopter of a growth-heavy model when developing its accountability system.

“All means all!” became the mantra of then-Education Commissioner Candice McQueen as she worked with education stakeholders for nearly a year to design a system to incentivize improvement for all students — whether they are considered low, average, or high achievers — as well as for all schools, regardless of their demographic makeup.

Tennessee had modest success with that approach, even though the actual letter grades were never issued. Before the pandemic hit in 2020, students were showing incremental growth in math and reading based on some of the nation’s highest proficiency standards.

But state lawmakers have become increasingly impatient with the pace of improvement, especially in reading. About a third of the state’s students meet grade-level standards on the English language arts test, which requires students to demonstrate the ability to read closely.

“School choice has got to be part of what’s driving all this. Think about it. If you have an A or B school in your community, that may not motivate parents to want to pull their kids out of public schools to use a voucher.” — Mike Winstead, Maryville City Schools director

“At the end of the day, I want to know: Can you add, subtract, multiply, and divide, and can you read, regardless of how much you have grown from one year to the other?” said Rep. Mark Cochran, an Englewood Republican, during one legislative hearing about the state’s emphasis on growth.

Meanwhile, the legislature has sought to provide more options for families dissatisfied with the performance of traditional public schools by introducing private school vouchers and allowing charter schools to open statewide.

Now as Tennessee revamps its school grading system, Lee’s administration is poised to shift weight in the equation from growth to pure achievement. Reynolds wants the state to do that by eliminating the growth pathway for demonstrating achievement. Growth would still be a component of the overall grade, as dictated by state law, but a much smaller part.

“I want to be very clear that when we’re talking about academic achievement, we’re talking about academic achievement,” Reynolds, the new education commissioner, said at an Oct. 12 meeting of education stakeholders.

State hears strong calls for retaining growth focus

Reynolds, who was sworn in to her post in July, launched the reevaluation of the grading system about a month later as her first major initiative. She invited Tennesseans to weigh in on how the state should measure a school’s academic success. At the time, state officials said all options were on the table.

At town halls, meetings with stakeholders, and in nearly 300 public comments from Tennesseans, state officials heard a common theme: Keep some kind of growth option as part of the achievement calculation. Measuring student performance with a single letter grade requires nuance, many educators said, and the growth-based model allows that.

“Is having a campus that has only 15% reading proficiency really a B school, if those kids cannot read?” — Lizzette Reynolds, Tennessee education commissioner

A formula that’s weighted too heavily toward pure achievement, they warned, would produce grades that essentially mirror the economic profiles of the schools — with high-income communities getting the A’s and B’s — and families wouldn’t be able to use the grades to differentiate the performance of one high-poverty school from another.

“Given the strong correlation between achievement and poverty, I think it’s really difficult to talk about just achievement in isolation. We really need to balance this with growth,” said Madeline Price, policy director for the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, at an Oct. 5 meeting of the stakeholders group.

“All schools, especially low-income and traditionally low performing schools, should have a very real opportunity to receive an A” if they significantly improve student performance, the leaders of Tennessee’s school superintendent organization wrote in a letter to Reynolds.

Meaghan Turnbow, who coordinates programs for English language learners in fast-growing Rutherford County Schools, south of Nashville, noted pitfalls in a model that emphasizes proficiency over growth.

“We have students come to our district from all over the world with various education levels and English levels,” she wrote in a public comment. “Year to year they grow, but it may be several years before they are considered meeting or exceeding expectations.”

Tennessee Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds speaks to a gathering of school superintendents in September. Reynolds has signaled that she wants to narrow the way the state judges student performance.

But soon after asking for public feedback, Tennessee’s new education chief signaled that she wanted to narrow the way the state judges student performance.

During an Aug. 29 town hall in Chattanooga, Reynolds acknowledged that the education department, before scuttling plans to issue grades in the fall of 2022 under former Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, had run the numbers but didn’t like what it saw. For instance, she said, a school with 80% of its students reading on grade level might have received a B, but so might a school that had only 15% of students reading on grade level, while also demonstrating high growth.

“Is having a campus that has only 15% reading proficiency really a B school, if those kids cannot read?” Reynolds asked.

“We should celebrate growth,” she continued. “We should also celebrate achievement, because at the end of the day, kids can grow. But if they never get on grade level, they don’t have much of a future, particularly when it comes to reading and math.”

How a single school could get conflicting evaluations

The A-F grading system, as required by the state, was billed as a simple, common-sense tool to help parents understand how their child’s school is doing and compare schools.

But changes the department is making could add a new layer of complexity for school communities.

When Tennessee developed its accountability plan in 2017, it opted for a single system to satisfy both the state law and a 2015 federal accountability law called the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA. That way, “we’re not sending different messages to parents and the general public,” said Winstead, the Maryville schools director who served on the state task force that developed the plan.

ESSA doesn’t require A-F grades, but it directs the state to use its own criteria to identify schools that are academically in the bottom 5%, plus other schools showing low performance or significant disparities across groups of students who are Black, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged, or English learners, or have learning disabilities. Such schools become eligible for additional federal funding.

Because of the link between the two laws, the schools that would earn the lowest grades under Tennessee’s current formula are the same ones that would get federal support to help them improve. And educators would work with a common set of goals, priorities, and incentives.

Changes that the Tennessee Department of Education is making could create two separate accountability systems, producing conflicting assessments of how a school is doing.

Under Reynolds, the Tennessee education department appears ready to decouple the state’s A-F system from its federal compliance plan. The change would result in Tennessee having two accountability systems, potentially producing conflicting assessments of how a school is doing.

For example, if the new state formula places less emphasis on certain student groups than the federal system does, a school that has big racial or economic disparities in student performance could still earn high grades from Tennessee based on overall proficiency rates. Meanwhile, a school with low proficiency rates would get a D or an F, even though it may serve certain groups of students better than an A or B school.

Mary Batiwalla, former assistant commissioner of assessment and accountability in Tennessee, says what’s going on here has parallels in Texas, where Reynolds used to be chief deputy commissioner. Officials there changed their grading criteria this year to apply to schools retroactively. However, after some school districts sued that state over the changes, Texas delayed the release of its grades.

Texas lawmakers are also in the midst of a special session on vouchers to debate whether students should be able to use public dollars to attend private schools. Batiwalla worries that officials in both states are hijacking the grading systems for political aims, not to incentivize school communities to improve.

“If you want to do vouchers, do vouchers,” said Batiwalla, an outspoken critic of Reynolds’ efforts. “Don’t take away this policy tool that has the potential to drive improvement from the rest of the public schools.”

Proficiency focus could shortchange some students

Other tweaks are likely when Tennessee releases its new equation in the days or weeks ahead, just before giving schools their first set of grades.

“If you want to do vouchers, do vouchers. Don’t take away this policy tool that has the potential to drive improvement from the rest of the public schools.” — Mary Batiwalla, former assistant commissioner, Tennessee Department of Education

The department has heard calls to include social studies and science scores in the calculation, as well as data related to third-grade reading, participation in tutoring programs, and postsecondary indicators like dual enrollment and career and technical education offerings, just to name a few. There’s also a growing consensus around ditching student absenteeism data, which is a factor in the current equation.

But most educators have their eye on the growth vs. proficiency debate. They worry that greater emphasis on proficiency will motivate schools to focus on improving “bubble kids” — those scoring just under proficiency — instead of working to improve students at all levels of achievement.

“You’re incentivizing bad choices that serve just a few kids instead of all kids,” Winstead said.

Winstead’s suburban school system should be fine. Maryville City Schools, near Knoxville, is one of the state’s highest-achieving districts and stands to benefit if Tennessee’s revamped grading formula puts more weight on proficiency. But Winstead philosophically disagrees with the approach that the state appears to be taking.

“This is going to demoralize a lot of school communities,” he said, “teachers, kids, and parents — folks who have done incredible things to move kids forward.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org. Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools facilities proposals envision $215 million in savings

2023-10-13T11:30:00+00:00

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Draft plans from Memphis-Shelby County Schools for overhauling its aging facilities include proposals to save the district more than $200 million by repurposing 20 academic buildings and consolidating administrative offices.

MSCS officials shared the plans on Wednesday during the first meeting of a new steering committee that’s helping the district develop its buildings strategy and generate community support for it. The committee is made up of a school board member and other elected officials, and leaders from government agencies, local nonprofit organizations, and community groups.

The final plan will include school closures and consolidations. But MSCS wants the committee to help the district broaden the scope of the plan to determine new uses for the buildings that will close, improve academic programming at existing schools, and enhance the role of schools as community centers. Such an overhaul could affect students in almost every MSCS school in some way over the next 10 years.

It’s a big, complex task that will have to navigate Memphis school traditions and overcome the controversial legacy of previous consolidation plans. Success will depend on the district’s ability to build support among school board and community members, find new funding sources, and see its plan through a leadership transition that will begin next spring, when interim Superintendent Toni Williams’ tenure winds down.

For months, Williams has been promising a comprehensive facilities plan to deal with underused buildings and a growing list of deferred maintenance projects. Previous district leaders made the same promise, but their plans never fully materialized.

Williams hopes the involvement of the steering committee will set the latest effort apart. She reminded the members that they weren’t there to create “Toni’s plan.”

During the closed-door meeting Wednesday, district officials avoided naming specific schools targeted for closure, consolidation or redevelopment, concerned that doing so would provoke “emotional decisions” rather than strategic ones, Williams told the committee.

“Let’s do this together,” she said.

MSCS proposes $215 million in savings from closures, consolidations

The draft proposals shared Wednesday broadly outline a first round of potential closures and investments over the next five years, affecting some 50 schools and administrative buildings. If additional funding comes through, the impact could spread to a total of 110 buildings and properties over the next decade, or roughly half of MSCS’ sites.

The most specific elements of the district’s proposals so far involve efforts to reduce costs upfront — before seeking new funding — which the district projects would produce a saving of $215 million.

The bulk of that would come from repurposing — likely closing — 23 buildings, and eliminating nearly $110 million in estimated deferred maintenance costs. The move would free up $24 million annually in operating funds.

District officials described these plans as “academic spaces for reuse,” rather than “school closures.” No one identified the proposed 23 sites by name.

District officials offered an overview of how the broader strategy could produce changes in different parts of town. The district has used a combination of factors — enrollment, building utilization, proximity to other schools, demographic trends, deferred maintenance needs, and feeder patterns — to determine which schools to consider for proposed closure or consolidation.

Schools that are set to receive new students would get new investments, as would schools with historically low academic performance.

For the buildings that do close, the district envisions being more engaged in determining what happens to them afterward, including vetting redevelopment proposals.

“You all have an opportunity to really ask for proposals that specify impact,” said Ernest Strickland, a steering committee member who heads the Black Business Association of Memphis.

The chair of the committee, school board member Kevin Woods, added that MSCS should consider ways that reusing closed schools could generate revenue and create excitement in the community, rather than leaving a blighted, vacant site.

“I think too often, the reason that these meetings aren’t often as courageous as we need them to be is because anytime you lead with the idea of closing schools, that’s the only image” shared by news media, Woods said.

John Zeanah, director of the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development and a former employee of the Memphis City Schools’ planning office, suggested that the district start earlier to find ways to reuse buildings, as enrollment drops below capacity.

“Let’s not wait until a building is ready to be closed to be thinking about adaptive reuse,” Zeanah said.

Another chunk of savings would come from consolidating nine of the district’s administrative buildings. This is what the district had in mind when the school board approved the purchase of the Bayer Building at 3030 Jackson Ave. in 2018 as a new district headquarters.

The consolidation would free up an estimated $65 million, counting savings on maintenance costs and proceeds from the sales of the administrative buildings. The plans did not make clear which buildings would remain, but suggested some 1,700 staffers would relocate. Currently, most of the district’s central office staff work from 160 S. Hollywood St., about 3 miles south of the Bayer Building.

Facilities overhaul hinges on funding

To execute the kind of broad, long-range strategy that it envisions, the district will need steady cooperation from the school board that carries through the expected superintendent transition this spring and summer. It will need the steering committee to remain engaged and united behind the broader objectives of optimizing the way the district uses its space. And it will need members of the community to buy in to a plan that is certain to disrupt routines and traditions in neighborhoods across the city.

But more than that, it will need money.

This summer, the Shelby County Commission approved a tax increase to help fund two new high schools in Frayser and Cordova, but those projects account for just a fraction of the district’s building needs. And the commission in recent years has approved only half the district’s requests for capital funds.

On Wednesday, Williams repeated calls for new funds from the federal government, plus the City of Memphis. Neither source is a sure bet.

The federal COVID relief aid that has helped many school districts around the country fund their construction projects is about to run out. And in Tennessee, a legislative panel is actually exploring whether the state can feasibly forgo federal education funding altogether rather than submit to the regulations that come with it.

Mayor-elect Paul Young has said he would support city funding for improved school buildings, but that would require support from the City Council. Council Chairman Martavius Jones is a former school board member who sits on the steering committee. But because of term limits, he won’t be on the council next year when Young takes over as mayor.

The district could benefit from private support through its collaboration with More for Memphis, a community development initiative spearheaded by the education-focused nonprofit Seeding Success.

“Our unique opportunity is to position this infrastructure plan at the heart of our total community redevelopment,” said Mark Sturgis, the CEO of Seeding Success. Sturgis explained how federal infrastructure goals align with the local incentives within the More for Memphis plan for community redevelopment.

More for Memphis is a five-year, $100 million investment that can be applied to this work, Sturgis said.

The final MSCS plans will reflect the results coming from an updated facilities assessment the school board approved last month. The district says its current estimate of deferred maintenance costs is $458 million, a figure that hasn’t budged much despite years of investments from Shelby County and the district.

“All this is simply a dream if we don’t have the proper resources to make it a reality,” Woods said.

Steering committee will meet again Oct. 31

The committee’s suggestions will inform meetings of subcommittees, groups that will include other board members, plus people from school campuses and the communities, MSCS leaders said.

Another steering committee meeting is set for Oct. 31. MSCS board members will be updated on the draft proposals and suggestions during a retreat scheduled for Nov. 3 and 4.

Wednesday’s committee meeting, facilitated by former politician and public relations professional Deidre Malone, was not open to the public. But a Chalkbeat Tennessee reporter learned of the meeting and attended it. No other media or members of the public were present.

Deborah Fisher, executive director for the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said that whether the committee is subject to open-meetings laws depends on how it was created and what it’s being asked to do.

Williams announced the steering committee during a school board meeting last month.

Documents associated with the committee should be public records, Fisher said.

“Closing schools is a big deal, and sometimes needs to be done. It’s a hard decision that school districts make,” Fisher added. “So it needs to be a transparent process.”

Committee members have access to additional information that wasn’t included in the district’s slide presentation Wednesday, and will receive more data and draft proposals. Williams cautioned them against sharing details of what they received.

Who is on the Memphis-Shelby County Schools facilities steering committee?

MSCS tapped a group of 14 people to help develop its plan for improving the district’s aging buildings. They are:

Kevin Woods, Chairperson: Memphis-Shelby County Schools board member
Raumesh Akbari: State senator from Memphis and minority leader of the Senate
Darrell Cobbins: President of Universal Commercial Real Estate, Tennessee State Board of Education appointee
Miska Clay-Bibbs: Chairperson of the Shelby County Commission
Martavius Jones: Chairperson of the Memphis City Council
Reginald Milton: Deputy administrator of the Shelby County Office of Education and Youth Services
Keith Norman: Vice president of governmental affairs for Baptist Memorial Hospital
Greg Spillyards: CEO and managing director of real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield Commercial Advisors
Ernest Strickland: President and CEO of the Black Business Association of Memphis
Michelle Stuart: Director of facility planning for Memphis-Shelby County Schools
Mark Sturgis: CEO of Seeding Success
Ted Townsend: President and CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber
Toni Williams: Interim superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools
John Zeanah: Director of the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis’ Peabody Elementary will remain closed for the school year, underscoring facility needs

2023-10-07T00:43:45+00:00

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Peabody Elementary School is closed until next fall due to issues with mold and to allow time for other building upgrades, Memphis-Shelby County Schools officials told families Friday.

School officials first located mold in the Midtown building in September, initially prompting a dayslong closure. When that wasn’t long enough to fix the problem, the 323 students were relocated to two nearby schools.

Relocating for the rest of the school year “is the best and least disruptive option as we restore this historic gem,” MSCS wrote in a letter to families, which was shared with the press.

Peabody students in K-5 will continue going to class at Middle College High School, which is located about a mile away from Peabody. (Until spring 2022, Middle College High also housed Maxine Smith STEAM Academy, which relocated permanently to East High School to alleviate overcrowding.)

Pre-kindergarten students from Peabody will continue going to W.H. Brewster Elementary, about three miles away.

Peabody Elementary will get some renovations in addition to the mold remediation, MSCS told school families Friday. When students return for the 2024-25 school year, the century-old building will have upgraded floors, ceiling tiles, duct work, and lighting, plus repaired brick and windows.

Upgrades could be coming to Middle College High, too, officials said. Constructed in 1930, the building is home to a sought-after optional program in partnership with neighboring Christian Brothers University.

This marks the second consecutive year that some MSCS students have had to relocate midyear due to issues with aging buildings.

Last fall, students at Cummings K-8 Optional School had to relocate after the school’s library ceiling partially collapsed just days into the new school year. The structure that houses the library was built in 1930. The building has since received some additional upgrades, but has yet to reopen. Students remain relocated at LaRose Elementary School.

More school building upgrades will be on the way as district leaders work with a new committee of elected officials and leaders in the nonprofit sector to develop a comprehensive plan to address facility needs.

Last month, board members approved funds for a new assessment that will provide updated data about each building. Interim Superintendent Toni Williams called the project a “massive undertaking.”

Chalkbeat Tennessee Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee contributed.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Paul Young will be Memphis’ next mayor. What will that mean for education?

2023-10-06T16:39:26+00:00

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Downtown Memphis Commission leader Paul Young will be Memphis’ next mayor, a position that gives him no formal authority over Memphis-Shelby County Schools, but could allow him to revive the relationship between city and district if he follows through on his campaign plans.

Such a change would come at a pivotal time, bringing additional dollars to the district as it faces hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance projects and seeks to develop a facility plan that better supports academic improvement.

“We need new revenue sources for our schools, and I want to bring my track record of creating coalitions to City Hall to do just that,” Young told Chalkbeat in September.

Those funds would support capital investments and upgrades to MSCS buildings, Young said, a proposal that aligns with the interests of the MSCS school board and interim Superintendent Toni Williams. A 14-person committee of government officials and nonprofit sector leaders is set to convene later this fall to develop the new facilities plan.

Young will take office on Jan. 1. The success of his plans would depend on support from the Memphis City Council, whose makeup will be settled after runoff elections in November. And the MSCS school board will need to carry the torch for the district’s infrastructure plans through the expected leadership transition this spring, when Williams’ tenure ends and a permanent superintendent takes over.

Young’s proposals distinguished him from several other frontrunners in the race, which he won with 28% of the vote Thursday, according to unofficial results from the Shelby County Election Commission. (There are no runoffs in Memphis mayoral elections.)

Others who got more than 20% of the vote include Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner (23%), former Memphis Mayor and school Superintendent Willie Herenton (22%), and attorney and former Shelby County Commission Chair Van Turner (21%).

Among them, only Turner proposed that the city fund MSCS through annual appropriations, the same way the county currently does.

Candidate Michelle McKissack, a current MSCS board member, received less than 2% of the vote.

Chalkbeat posed questions to all the candidates about their positions on education, and published the responses it received in a mayoral voter guide. Here are the responses Young submitted on Sept. 1:

In 150 words or less, describe your campaign platform and positions concerning Memphis’ youth and education.

I am committed to providing a strong foundation for our youth through quality education and investing in youth development. This means equitable access to resources, teacher support, and innovative learning environments that empower every student to succeed. I believe in engaging directly with educators, parents, and community members to collaborate on and champion effective policies that address the unique challenges our students and young people face.

Who and what will inform your mayoral administration about education and youth-related issues? How will you ensure and measure progress toward your administration’s goals?

My mayoral administration will draw insights from a diverse range of stakeholders including educators, students, parents, and community advocates. Through open dialogue and collaboration, we will craft informed policies to continue to do better by our young people. Progress will be measured through data-driven indicators such as improved graduation rates, literacy and test scores, and increased community engagement. Transparency and accountability will guide us toward achieving our educational goals.

Students and families in Memphis deal with barriers to learning caused by poverty, gun violence, policing and related ripple effects. How would your administration help alleviate these barriers?

Many Memphis students and families confront barriers like poverty, gun violence, and over-policing that hinder learning. By offering comprehensive support services such as mental health programs, after-school initiatives, and community-centered efforts, we will create safer environments where learning can thrive. Collaborating with local organizations and promoting restorative justice practices will contribute to holistic development and improved educational outcomes for our youth.

What should the funding relationship be between the City of Memphis and Memphis-Shelby County Schools? Do you support new revenue sources for education funding? If you support reallocating existing funds, how would you suggest doing it?

I believe that the city can support MSCS through capital investments, and also through improving and upgrading facilities’ infrastructure. The city can also support through after school enrichment and extracurricular programs. We need new revenue sources for our schools, and I want to bring my track record of creating coalitions to City Hall to do just that.

The City of Memphis contributes funds to universal preschool through a public-private partnership overseen by First 8 Memphis. How would this programming continue or change under your administration?

We would continue to support early childhood efforts and seek to grow the number of spaces available for young people in our community. Our efforts would be informed by MSCS and our partners.

The City of Memphis is inextricably linked to Memphis-Shelby County Schools. What do you think should change or stay the same about the way the city and MSCS work together? How would you describe the ideal relationship between the MSCS superintendent and the mayor?

I think that MSCS should have a strong collaborative working relationship on the types of programming that is taught to children in our community. The city should support investment in facilities, infrastructure, and extracurricular activities. The relationship between the mayor and the superintendent should be a strong partnership where they advocate for Memphis children together at every level.

Describe a high quality school. (For example: How many people work there? What are students taught? What programs or extracurriculars are offered? What support services are available? What does the facility look like?) How many Memphis-Shelby County Schools schools meet your definition of a high quality school?

A high quality school is one where there are various approaches to educating children where they are. We must meet the individual needs of children while not holding them back. This work must take place in and out of the classroom, and schools can and should offer holistic services to help support the whole child and their unique needs. Crosstown High, East High School, White Station are a few schools that come to mind.

This is Memphis, after all. So: Where did you go to high school? Is there a teacher who made an impact on the way you would lead? Who is it and what did you learn from them?

I went to East High School — Ms. Foster was my geometry teacher there and she made the subject matter fun and interesting to me. She pushed me further than I thought I could go. As far as leadership, she showed me we can always be better, we can always do more. I learned from her that intellectual curiosity can make work seem like fun, and I try to bring that spirit to everyone on the team with me.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Althea Greene remains Memphis-Shelby County Schools board chair for second year

2023-09-27T02:41:06+00:00

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Althea Greene will remain chair of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board for a second year as the district continues its search for a permanent superintendent, despite criticism of how she handled the initial search.

Greene received seven votes from the nine-member board. Board member Frank Johnson, who is recovering from a stroke, was not at Tuesday’s meeting. Newly appointed member Mauricio Calvo voted “present.”

“I pray that my colleagues, that we will lead together,” Greene said Tuesday. “We will march together. We will disagree, but disagree together.”

Greene was first appointed to the board in 2019 and ran unopposed in 2020. She has been part of the leadership for most of her time on the board, serving two terms as vice chair alongside Michelle McKissack in 2021-22 and Miska Clay Bibbs the previous year. Her District 2 seat will be up for election next fall.

Joyce Dorse-Coleman, who is halfway through her second term as a board member, will remain the vice chair for another year.

“The work that I’ve done speaks for itself,” Dorse-Coleman said before the final vote. “That’s what I’m going to say. I’ve been dedicated.”

The vice chair election divided the board, which has strived to present a united front while it seeks a new district leader and develops a plan for its aging school buildings. Dorse-Coleman prevailed over the other nominee, Amber Huett-Garcia, after three rounds of voting. McKissack ultimately switched her vote to provide Dorse-Coleman the needed majority.

Greene’s reelection as chair signals that most board members still trust her leadership, despite some wavering last spring and calls for a change.

The board elected Greene “to finish a job that I know that she’s very focused on and seeing to completion,” McKissack said.

Explaining his “present” vote to Chalkbeat, Calvo said, “I read the news, and I know that the community and the public wants a different direction for the board.”

“We don’t have a great reputation,” he later added.

Greene oversaw the start of the district’s superintendent search in late 2022, along with search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates. But after Hazard Young presented three finalists for the role at a meeting in April, Greene abruptly paused the search amid rancor over the selection process. Several top candidates withdrew their names from consideration.

Dorse-Coleman and another board member, Stephanie Love, took over for Greene as the search coordinators, and the board ended up rebooting the search in June, with a looser set of job requirements. Interim Superintendent Toni Williams, initially chosen as a finalist to take the post on a permanent basis, agreed not to pursue the post anymore.

New cleaning plan approved, but timing of transition is unclear

MSCS board members unanimously voted to move forward with a new custodial services plan, which will distribute the work among four cleaning vendors, and revamp the way those vendors are evaluated to include more regular input from school staff.

But the timing of the transition to the new plan, most recently set for December, is up in the air.

Board member Kevin Woods suggested a delay due to the disruption of business to the sole current vendor, Service Master Clean, which would share the work under the new plan. Three company leaders and an employee addressed the board in public comments Tuesday.

District officials will review their procurement procedures and consult with the vendors to see whether that’s appropriate, but it means the transition could be as late as July 1, 2024.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

New MSCS custodial contracts would give school staff more input

2023-09-21T22:20:22+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools is poised to switch to new custodial-service contracts that would give school staff greater say in the cleanliness of their buildings and change the way vendors are evaluated.

Under the proposal, which the school board will consider next week, the district would contract with four cleaning companies: Fresh Start Facility Services Inc., HES Facilities Maintenance, ParCou, and ServiceMaster Clean. Each vendor would be assigned a zone, or a set of schools to clean, and the transition would begin in December.

At a $31.6 million annual cost, custodial service represents one of the district’s largest contracts, and is often contentious among board members because of persistent concerns about school cleanliness and worker wages.

The new proposal marks a reversal of the district’s controversial decision in June 2022 to consolidate custodial services for all of its buildings under a four-year contract with a single provider, ServiceMaster Clean. The district signaled this year that it may terminate that contract early, and the board directed the district to solicit new bids in June.

At the time, interim Superintendent Toni Williams said the district had withheld several million dollars of payments to ServiceMaster for not completing deep-cleaning to pandemic-level standards.

Since then, district officials have reevaluated their rubric for scoring school cleanliness, Williams told the board at a meeting Tuesday. The district also investigated and resolved unnamed “potential conflicts of interest” with the process.

“No matter what direction we go, we know that that performance evaluation process is flawed, and we need to improve it,” Williams said.

Under the current system, cleaning vendors are assessed by a district employee who visits a school once a month for a review. That process isn’t comprehensive enough, Williams said. It becomes “subjective and inconsistent,” she said, and doesn’t reflect the experiences of school-based staff.

Williams said the district has suggested that the new process incorporate feedback from principals and teachers who work in the schools, and that the vendors be scored on a compilation of daily reviews.

Contract violations could come with stricter consequences than the $25 fines ServiceMaster faced last year, Williams said. The district will now have methods for ensuring that each vendor can appropriately staff its assigned school sites.

The vendors would still be required to pay custodians at least $15 an hour.

The district set the new wage floor last summer when awarding the contract to ServiceMaster, arguing that increased wages would solve staffing issues that led to dirty school buildings.

ServiceMaster has been a custodial contractor for the district in several of the years since cleaning services were outsourced following the merger between Shelby County Schools and Memphis City Schools a decade ago. Before last year’s contract, it shared the duties with SKB Facilities & Maintenance, and, before that, with Aramark.

SKB was among five vendors evaluated for the current bidding process and earned the lowest score. Three other applicants were not evaluated because of compliance issues with the bid specifications.

Williams said MSCS has staff to manage the transition to the new vendors and enough funds to ensure that custodial employees can make the switch without losing pay.

MSCS board members are expected to vote on the proposal at the next board meeting scheduled for Sept. 26 at 5:30 p.m.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

MSCS board member Frank Johnson recovering from stroke

2023-09-15T15:44:41+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools board member Frank Johnson is recovering from a stroke, according to his pastor and social media updates from family.

Johnson, who was appointed to the school board last fall, is “in good spirits,” the Rev. Earle Fisher said, but will need therapy over the next several weeks to address challenges with mobility and speech.

Fisher, the senior pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church, said the stroke is a reminder of the demands of public service roles. Stephanie Love, also a school board member, had a stroke last year.

“The community collectively — and these governing bodies specifically — have to commit to the care of those who offer ourselves up for service,” said Fisher.

Johnson is a community activist, often focused on environmental justice and social determinants of health, Fisher noted.

The former teacher joined the school board last October to represent District 7, which includes east Whitehaven, Oakhaven, and Hickory Hill. His appointment by the Shelby County Commission came at the start of a national superintendent search that would stall six months later. The school board has since faced intense public scrutiny, and restarted the search after a series of meetings this summer.

“I know that some of this is what they might call the nature of the beast,” Fisher said of the stresses of public service roles. But he added: “When you are committed to serving the public, you should not be treated as a beast that has to be broken in order for institutions and organizations to properly function.”

Love had a stroke in February 2022. After several weeks of therapy, she returned to school board meetings that April, with more recovery to go.

She said she was “mentally strained” by the news of Johnson’s stroke earlier this week.

“You have to want (your recovery) more than the doctors, more than your family,” Love said as a message for Johnson.

“Don’t be afraid to get out in public,” she added. “Don’t be afraid to talk. Don’t be afraid to live your life.”

Board Chair Althea Greene and the school district have issued statements wishing Johnson well in his recovery. The board has its next business meeting on Sept. 26.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Where Memphis’ mayoral candidates stand on education issues

2023-09-14T11:00:00+00:00

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The mayor of Memphis doesn’t have a lot of say in how Memphis-Shelby County Schools operates. But candidates running for the position in the Oct. 5 election do have a lot to say about how the city and the district can cooperate to improve outcomes for the city’s students.

Some are calling for the city to take on a direct role in funding the district. Others want to see the city expand its contribution to early childhood education programs as a way to set students up for success.

Seventeen candidates are vying for the post, and early voting begins Friday.

Chalkbeat sent a questionnaire to all 17 candidates asking them, among other things, whether they’d support new funding to MSCS, and whether they would make any changes to universal preschool programming. We also asked how they planned to alleviate many of the barriers students face outside of school.

Fourteen of them responded (Carnita Atwater, Jennings Bernard, and Justina Ragland did not), and we’re sharing their responses in this voter guide. Other than formatting adjustments to improve readability, these responses have not been edited by Chalkbeat.

Click on a candidate’s name to read their responses to each question. To compare candidate responses to a specific question, click on that question.

Check your voter registration status here.

Find a sample ballot and polling locations here by entering your name or address.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

New Cordova high school will have larger campus as board approves replacement land purchase

2023-08-30T02:29:44+00:00

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The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board voted Tuesday to approve a $5 million deal to buy 45 acres of land for the new high school in Cordova, after the district terminated an agreement to buy a smaller parcel nearby.

The site, at Raleigh Lagrange and Herbert roads near Shelby Farms, will replace the 36-acre parcel that the district agreed to buy in February for $3.5 million.

The earlier deal “was not necessarily what we needed in order to be able to get all of the scope” for the desired facilities and amenities, said Patrice Thomas, the district’s former chief of staff and a current adviser for strategic planning and operations.

The new purchase agreement gives the district right of first refusal for an additional 10 acres adjacent to the new plot.

The new school in Cordova will serve as a replacement for Germantown High School, which MSCS was forced to surrender under a new, controversial Tennessee law passed last year and an agreement with the Shelby County Commission and municipal leaders in Germantown.

Officials say the new school will head off crowding at Cordova High School, which is at capacity. The proposed new school is about 5 miles southwest of Cordova High School, and about 5 miles north of Germantown High School. It would open in the 2026-27 school year, with students shifting in together rather than in phases.

“We’re setting the bar much higher” for school facilities, said board member Mauricio Calvo, whose district includes the proposed new school.

With Tuesday’s vote, the school board has approved $108 million in expenses to fund the high school, which was projected to cost $110 million. The Shelby County Commission approved a tax increase in part to generate more funds for the school.

But the district has not secured all the funding it needs for the project. MSCS will receive $77.5 million from the county toward the new school, and expects to make up the difference by selling Germantown High School. So far, the district has not announced a sale.

The expenses voted on so far have not required immediate payments. The bulk of the $108 million approved so far is for a $95 million contract with Flintco LLC to help manage the project. Under the contract — which is subject to available funds from MSCS — the district will pay invoices as expenses occur, and Flintco is expected to keep the project on task and at budget.

Other approved expenses include additional project management and design work.

At 45 acres, the new Cordova high school campus will be far larger than the Germantown High School campus, which sits on 22 acres. The Cordova High School campus is 55 acres.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

New MSCS board member Mauricio Calvo has one year to make an impact. Here’s how he plans to use it.

2023-08-15T23:41:36+00:00

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Mauricio Calvo, the newest member of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board, took his oath of office next to the children’s section of a public library, with the county’s juvenile court judge swearing him in.

This was purposeful, Calvo had explained. The ceremony was meant to represent his passions and priorities: literacy and juvenile justice, as well as workforce readiness and Latino students.

Calvo, a longtime Memphian and CEO of the advocacy group Latino Memphis, was appointed to the board to serve the remainder of Sheleah Harris’ term in District 5, representing students and families in Cordova.

“I’m taking this appointment with a big sense of urgency,” said Calvo.

The Memphis school board has not had a Latino member in recent history, and Calvo, a Mexican-American who became a U.S. citizen in 2018, believes he may be the first Latino in local public office. His presence on the board could be welcome representation for the families of thousands of Latino students who make up 18% of the district.

Calvo ran unsuccessfully for a City Council seat in 2019, and ran for school board in 2020, before dropping out to endorse Harris. Last year, he served on one of the committees that helped develop the state’s new school funding formula, known as Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA.

As an appointed school board member, Calvo has just a year remaining in his term — he hasn’t decided whether he’ll pursue election next summer — but it’s poised to be a big year. The board is trying again to select a new superintendent, after its last attempt soured and Harris abruptly resigned.

Beyond that, the district faces persistent challenges with academic performance, a slow recovery from the pandemic, and relations with a state government that has pushed a strongly conservative education agenda.

Calvo talked to Chalkbeat about how he plans to guide the district through these challenges.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You are, at least in recent history, the first Latinx person in this position on the school board. What do you hope your colleagues learn from you in this year?

As far as I am concerned, yes, I am the first Latinx person I think in public office in Shelby County. I don’t think the Shelby County Commission, the Memphis City Council, or the school board ever had anybody. And I say this with a sense of, yeah, pride, but also humbleness and responsibility, because I do feel the pressure, in a good way. Some of that may be self-imposed. It could also be a little bit of impostor syndrome. It does come with a responsibility, because when you’re the first, you certainly don’t want to be, shouldn’t be, the last, or the only one. So that’s big.

“I think that matters in representation, particularly in a community that for so long, has been very Black and white.”

I’m also part of the LGBTQ community, and I’m open about that. I’m Mexican-American. I have an accent. I wasn’t born here. I am an American citizen now. I think there are a lot of intersectionalities. I think that matters in representation, particularly in a community that for so long, has been very Black and white. So it is disruptive in a positive way.

You were on the TISA subcommittee for ESL students. There’s quite a bit of funding for students who are English language learners. How do you, from your board seat, plan to evaluate how the board is spending funds toward those programs and toward resources, and whether or not they are working?

This is something very important. And although I keep saying that I represent everybody, obviously, I will have a special emphasis on English language learners.

When I sat on that committee, I actually made some public comments that it was disappointing. The whole process was complex. It felt very scripted. It felt that they had already arrived to decisions when they were asking us. I think at the end of the day, it’s better than what we had before — there’s more funding. But just funding alone is not going to do it. We need to make sure that the district is utilizing this extra money the right way.

Calvo will represent students and families in District 5, which includes Cordova, and also has an additional interest in supporting the district’s English language learners.

I would say that for this and for everything else we need, we need to get away from the “We have always done it this way.” I’m very much going to be looking (for), as a characteristic of the superintendent, somebody who’s very open to innovation, to benchmarking what is happening in other districts, because, you know, when we think about that, it is not only supporting the students that are English language learners. It’s also supporting their families.

But I think I saw there’s about 12,300 English language learners in the district. So I’m curious to see, what else are we doing? Are we just doing the bare minimum? Are we deploying enough resources to the schools with larger numbers?

Perhaps my soft spot is how we’re serving recent arrivals that are more challenging to fit into grade level. So you may have a child from Guatemala who’s 12 or 13, and he’s really too old to put in elementary school, but really if you just put him in middle school, they’re going to be completely lost.

I know we have a newcomer center. But I’m curious to see how well we’re doing with that.

The application for MSCS superintendent has been posted for Round 2. Sheleah Harris, your predecessor, was very publicly a critic of the process. What should your constituents know about how you plan to help the board navigate this process, and what you feel your role will be?

I would love to have a conversation with the search firm. I’m not familiar with the scope of this search team, if they’re just going to say, “Hey, here’s a group of people,” are they actually going to help us filter them? At what point do they stop and say, “Here’s the list,” versus really selecting? Do we have somebody coaching us, advising us how to select this?

I spoke with a member in the City Council, and he told me, “I believe that selecting this superintendent is as important, if not more important than selecting the next mayor.” And I think he’s right on. We cannot take this lightly, and we need to know what we are doing.

From crime, to economic development, to housing, to homelessness to nutrition — we have the future of Memphis on our hands. And we are asking this person to set the vision, to create a plan, to get the staff (for) 110,000 customers every day. If somebody doesn’t believe or doesn’t understand that, they really need to have a check-in with themselves.

It is time to stop saying them and us, private and public, you know, this or that, or Black or white. The superintendent is going to have to be somebody that can rally a ton of people. And we as a board have a humongous responsibility getting this right. I want to go to bed knowing that I did absolutely everything I could to help bring this person here, and then select the person, support that person, hold the person accountable. That is our main job.

I do have experience, because I’ve served on a number of boards, locally and nationally. But I am also not shy. I can check my ego at the door, and say, “We need help.”

You’ve obviously worked with state officials before in different capacities, even on TISA. How have you thought about how you will be able to advocate for Memphis with people who aren’t from here at the state legislature?

I do recognize that importance of the relationship with Nashville. I think having Rep. (Mark) White chair the education committee is key, because he understands Memphis. But we have — I have said this before, and I will say again — we have a legislature that, in general, does not like Memphis. But we are going to continue to build relationships.

I do plan to use any experience that I have in visiting Nashville and building relationships with people, because where Memphis goes, it’s going to be important for the future of Tennessee.

I’m very committed to building a relationship with the County Commission, with the City Council — not necessarily to say that they need to be funding (MSCS), because they probably don’t have the money. But that doesn’t mean that they cannot do anything for us.

There’s a Latina (as) the new (Tennessee) secretary of education. I haven’t had a chance to meet her. From what I have read, she’s probably more conservative than I would probably have liked.

“... we have a legislature that, in general, does not like Memphis. But we are going to continue to build relationships.”

I know education is important for the governor, and for the previous governor. I think we should advocate for districts to have the flexibility that they need, because not all districts are equal — ours being not only the largest, but probably the most diverse. But we have our own challenges. And as such, we deserve our own say. These are our taxes: people in Shelby County paying taxes, sending them to the state and then coming back. For the most part, we are paying for our education, and we have the right to have a strong voice on how we want that shaped.

How, as a leader, do you determine the leading challenges and evaluate how the district and how the city, the county are responding to them? How are you going to evaluate and prioritize?

I think we have to flip the narrative. Instead of having the district being blamed for everything, I think the district needs to say, “Hey, we’re big boys here. We have $2 billion. We have 200 schools. We have 110,000 children. We’re the second largest employer. What are we doing about all of these things?” That doesn’t mean that we have to solve all of those things. But it certainly means that our hands need to be, in some way or capacity, in a lot of those things.

It may not be the position, my responsibility, to tackle all of this, but I’m not the only board member. There are nine of us. And also there are 14,000 employees.

We need to embrace this role as a big, humongous player in the city.

I think the district works really well with some partners, and other partners either haven’t had a good experience or haven’t heard from the district in a long time. We need to be in all of these conversations, and also other people need to join us on this work. Because we can no longer just blame the district for everything.

There’s an expectation for example, from FedEx to sponsor things, to be here, to do this. People want the Grizzlies and St. Jude and FedEx to do well. People in general, whether you have kids or not in the public system, people should have a positive perspective about us.

How do we change the narrative and say, now the Grizzlies and St. Jude and FedEx don’t have to solve all the problems, but they are touching the problems, and we need to do the same. But we don’t need to do it alone. I need and we need people to join us on this work.

In closing, I want to say the opportunity is there. Yes, the challenge is also there. That’s why I’m doing this.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Activists banned from Memphis school property can’t return early, federal judge rules

2023-08-08T20:11:27+00:00

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Two of the Memphis activists who were banned in May from entering Memphis-Shelby County Schools property lost a bid in court to have their bans lifted early.

But a federal judge said Friday that the merits of their broader case against the school district will depend on answers to several pending questions, including how the district decides whether to issue such bans and what its policies are on regulating public comment.

The bans on the two activists — LJ Abraham and Amber Sherman — are due to expire Friday. They are among five activists who were barred from entering school buildings and board offices after a tense board meeting in May involving the district’s search for a new superintendent.

The bans on the other three — Damon Curry Morris, Tikeila Rucker, and Rachael Spriggs — had already expired, and the judge ruled their request for an injunction moot.

The orders to ban the activists from district property, first issued through the district and the Memphis Police Department, threatened them with criminal trespassing charges if they violated the ban. In initial statements to the media following the May meeting, district officials said the bans were due to “disruptive” behavior and threats to public safety.

The district later provided their first explanations of the bans in letters to the activists that also included the expiration dates.

The five sued in federal court in June, alleging that MSCS was “conspiring” to prevent them from advocating for a transparent process to hiring the next superintendent. Their attorneys asked a judge for an injunction lifting the bans on the grounds that the district had violated their constitutional rights to access public meetings.

But U.S. District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman wrote in her ruling late Friday that the activists hadn’t provided the court evidence that they were banned “because of the viewpoints they expressed.” She dismissed an argument from the plaintiffs’ attorney that, without an injunction, the district would be likely to issue more bans against the activists as their lawsuit proceeds.

Abraham and Sherman have acknowledged that they dropped small devices that made an alarm sound at the end of the May meeting.

The alarms figured prominently in testimony and arguments for the district during a hearing on the injunction July 13. MSCS’ top security official, Carolyn Jackson, a named defendant in the suit, testified that the activists posed safety threats.

Attorneys for the activists “presented no evidence rebutting Jackson’s testimony,” Lipman wrote.

But her ruling said she had several remaining questions about how district officials decided to issue the bans and communicate them, about what governs those decisions, and about policies governing public comment. Answers to those questions will help determine whether the bans are constitutional, Lipman wrote.

Lipman said at the July hearing that regardless of her ruling on the preliminary injunction, she expected the case over the bans to continue, acknowledging that it raises “important issues.”

Ben Gastel, the attorney for the activists, told Chalkbeat: “We look forward to proceeding with the next phase of this case and ensuring that our clients constitutional rights are protected and preserved.”

Attorneys for MSCS did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

The case is set for non-jury trial in October 2024.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Five key issues facing Memphis-Shelby County Schools as the new year begins

2023-08-07T02:00:00+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools students return to class Monday for the 2023-24 school year.

This one could be less turbulent than recent years, but no less consequential, as the district confronts key decisions about its next leader, the future of its school buildings, its strategy for improving student academic performance and wellness, and its budget for the post-pandemic era.

Here’s a closer look at five key issues that the district will face this school year:

Search for a superintendent is on — again

MSCS is still seeking applicants for its superintendent job, nearly a year after Joris Ray resigned amid a scandal.

The first attempt to find a leader unraveled, exposing disagreements on the board, fueling public doubts about whether the body could execute a search successfully, and forcing a hard reset.

The board remains committed to the national search it promised Memphians last year. Interim Superintendent Toni Williams, who had once been a finalist for the permanent job, won’t be a candidate. She agreed to drop out of the search under the terms of a new contract she signed to continue as interim leader through another school year.

So far, Take 2 of the search has been consistent with the parameters and the that timeline board members set out in their discussions: The new job posting, which went up at the start of August, reflects the leadership qualities board members collectively decided on, and all applicants will be evaluated against the board’s policy on minimum qualifications.

If the second attempt goes according to plan, applications will close by November, and a new superintendent will be selected by February, with a start date of July 1, 2024. By that schedule, the new superintendent would have a chance to ease into the leadership role during a transition period with Williams, who by that point will have led the district for close to two years.

School building projects will keep students moving

District officials will introduce a new facilities plan this school year that will propose ways to address a backlog of costly maintenance issues. A mix of construction projects, closures, and consolidations will likely affect thousands of students, requiring that some move out of their school buildings and into others.

MSCS is working with More for Memphis, a consortium spearheaded by nonprofit Seeding Success, to develop the plans and establish funding sources.

The plan will describe 110 school investments over the next decade, and officials say they are seeking millions of dollars in private funds for the first five years of facility upgrades and academic improvements. In addition to schools, the district may also consolidate administrative offices, reviving efforts started years ago with the purchase of the old Bayer Building.

Some school communities are already preparing for changes, separate from the new districtwide plan. Under agreements between MSCS and neighboring districts to comply with a new state law, Germantown High School is due to be replaced by a new building in Cordova, mostly paid for through local tax increases. Germantown Elementary and Middle schools will also close in coming years, as will Lucy Elementary School in Millington.

Meanwhile, LaRose Elementary will continue to accommodate students from Cummings K-8, where falling ceiling tiles forced the building to close for repairs just weeks into the 2022-23 school year.

And in Frayser, students at Trezevant High and at MLK College Prep High, which is part of the state’s Achievement School District for low-performing schools, can expect a new high school building in the coming years. Hanley, a K-8 school that was also in the ASD, is returning to MSCS.

The district’s broader plan is likely to address other Memphis schools that are currently in the ASD or expected to exit in coming years.

Academic needs will get a closer look

MSCS will remain focused on improving academic performance for individual students, but changes are also happening at the school and district levels to improve accountability for academics.

While MSCS students are making progress in their recovery from learning losses during the pandemic, math scores still lag, especially for middle schoolers.

And in reading, scores on state standardized tests have rebounded, but proficiency rates for the district have historically been among the lowest in the state. The reading test scores are particularly consequential for third graders, who face the risk of being held back if they don’t successfully complete certain intervention programs.

Interim Superintendent Williams has supported a review of district academic departments and initiatives with a focus on literacy. The review would look at where the district is spending funds for academic programming and assess how effective those programs have been. That assessment would inform the development of an academic plan that board members would monitor each month for progress.

At the school level, the district has expanded its own turnaround program, called the Innovation Zone, or iZone, to include several more schools, including four schools that have returned from the ASD. Schools in the iZone have a longer school day to provide more instruction for students and help the schools perform better overall.

The iZone expansion comes as new accountability measures take effect in Tennessee. The Tennessee Department of Education is expected to begin assigning letter grades to public schools this fall, after years of delays.

District will have to adapt to end of some federal funding

MSCS bolstered its budget over the last several years with some $775 million in one-time federal funds to help schools deal with the pandemic and support their recovery efforts. The dollars come from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund and are commonly referred to as ESSER funds.

Districts have until September 2024 to spend their funds, so officials have to wrap up the spending this school year.

MSCS has already budgeted funds for academic recovery programs, salaries for educational assistants in early grades, and improvements to schools’ heating and air systems. Early rounds of funding were used to buy computers and tablets so students could learn from home online. (Actual spending in the district has been difficult for the public to track.)

As the federal funds run out, Memphis and other districts across the country will have to decide which programs they can sustain with other funding sources, and which ones they will cut.

But the adjustment will be less harsh for Tennessee school districts, thanks to the state’s new school funding formula, which came alongside a $1 billion increase in education spending. Memphis was projected to receive about $114 million more in recurring funds through the new formula, which takes effect this school year.

City’s crises challenge student health, academic success

MSCS has spent more on social emotional learning and support for students, including new wellness centers as some schools. Mental health employees will get the salary schedule they sought last school year.

Factors outside of the district, though, continue to create obstacles. Youth homelessness in MSCS, for instance, has climbed to its highest measured count in four years, to 2,880 students at the end of the last school year.

Support services for Memphis students and families outside of the classroom have grown in importance since the start of the pandemic.

How Memphis and Shelby County tackle persistent social issues such as violence, policing, justice, and poverty will be a critical factor for student wellness and academic success in the district. Candidates in October’s crowded mayoral election have offered many ideas, including some that mirror existing MSCS programs.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

How Memphis’ investment in teacher salary schedules will increase paychecks

2023-08-02T21:41:48+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools teachers will get salary raises and be able to move up the district’s salary schedule faster under an agreement with the two teachers unions.

The new schedule is one part of $78 million in new funds the district is putting toward salaries and bonuses, which officials hope will encourage teacher retention and entice new teachers to fill hard-to-staff roles.

Teacher raises will vary wildly for the upcoming school year as MSCS implements the new scale, offering some teachers thousands in salary increases. But teachers who have worked in Memphis schools the longest will benefit least.

In Memphis, as in other places, teacher pay is generally determined by years of experience and by post-secondary degrees. A salary schedule combines these factors in a table that shows educators how much they will make.

What is changing with Memphis teacher pay?

The budget for salaries and bonuses this school year increased by $78 million. Here’s what those funds will pay for:

At a cost of $27.3 million, MSCS introduced a new salary schedule for educators, reducing the number of steps from 30 to 18 and adding a lane to compensate teachers for education specialist degrees.
The new schedule raises the minimum salary by $1,000 to $47,000 for new teachers with bachelor’s degrees.
For existing teachers, transitioning to the new scale could provide raises as high as $13,000 — and as low as $300 for the most experienced educators.
Following months of appeals to the school board, mental health employees will be paid according to a new salary schedule.
Several teachers are eligible for bonuses in hard-to-staff positions.

Educators on a 10-month contract can find their new salary and raise by inputting their gross pay in the calculator below. The calculator does not apply to teachers working in iZone schools. New salaries take effect Aug. 4.

The district’s previous schedule charted a 30-year path from a teacher’s first year to their maximum salary. The new schedule shrinks that time to 18 years, with a similar range — about $22,000 — between minimum and maximum pay on the scale.

With fewer steps, “teachers will see their salaries grow faster” on the new scale, the district said.

For some of the teachers who negotiated the schedule, the end result has been lacking. A political bargaining process yielded a schedule that Memphis’ two teacher unions didn’t agree upon — particularly when it came to pay for older teachers. Plus, both unions sought higher salaries than MSCS officials said the district could sustainably afford.

MSCS administrators and the school board have said they will seek funding sources to reach a $50,000 minimum salary for educators.

What Memphis teachers will make for the 2023-24 school year

Teachers who are on 10-month contracts and do not teach in iZone schools can use the calculator below to determine their salaries under the new schedule.

Input your salary before deductions, rounded to the nearest dollar. Don’t include bonus pay or pay you made for extra teaching assignments, such as summer school.

(Story continues after calculator.)

District offers bonuses to stymie teacher vacancies

The $78 million for the pay increases came from reallocations, plus new education dollars from the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement funding formula, called TISA, which takes effect this school year.

Sustainability concerns prevented the district from putting more than $27.3 million in new funds into the salary schedule, said Tito Langston, the district’s chief financial officer. On average, teachers will see a 5% raise with its implementation, said interim Superintendent Toni Williams.

The other $50 million is funding bonuses for existing and new teachers, plus some general pay raises.

Several Memphis educators qualify for bonuses

In efforts to fill hard-to-staff roles, MSCS is investing more than $14 million in the following bonuses:

“Critical need subject” teachers, including for special education and preschool: $5,000 to $15,000
English as a second language (ESL) teachers: $10,000
iZone retention bonus: $2,000
iZone sign-on bonus: $2,000
New certified teachers: $5,000
Teacher mentors: $2,000

More than $10 million in funds will go toward awarding teachers for performance. Current educators are eligible for performance bonuses between $2,500 and $5,000. Bonuses are determined this year from state testing data, rather than evaluation scores. iZone educators are eligible for $5,000 performance bonuses.

Athletics and performing arts staff will have increased stipends. Clerical assistants, education assistants, and special education assistants, plus bilingual mentors and school security officers will also see pay raises.

Negotiations with teacher unions yielded new pay scale

Both teacher unions — Memphis Shelby County Education Association and the United Education Association of Shelby County — bargained for the salary schedule as part of contract negotiations in January and February. The process was atypical for Tennessee, but offered by the district as a compromise.

The two unions and district officials breezed through new agreements on bereavement pay, the grievance process, and health care. Salary negotiations took weeks.

With 18 steps, the new scale is more similar to surrounding school districts and previous Memphis pay scales than the 30-step scale that then-Superintendent Joris Ray implemented in 2021. That scale brought standardization to teacher pay that had drifted in the absence of an active scale.

Teacher raises this year will vary, as educators are slotted into the 18-step scale. Once on the scale, salaries are more predictable. The scale could change again next year, however, after more bargaining in January between the district and the teachers unions.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis-Shelby County School Board OKs two charter school applications, denies seven

2023-07-19T23:28:34+00:00

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board on Tuesday approved applications for two charter schools to join the district in 2024-25, while denying seven others.

Journey Coleman, an Achievement School District charter school, will become a charter school under MSCS. Tennessee Career Academy, a new charter school, will also open in the district. Both schools will join the MSCS district in 2024-25.

Other charter applicants were denied, but will have a chance to appeal.

Denying the four other ASD charter school applications leaves the students and staff at the schools in limbo.

Another web of decisions will determine what happens next. Without approval to operate under the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission, the fate of the schools is left to MSCS. If the district doesn’t decide to make them traditional schools, the four charter schools will close when their charters expire after the 2023-24 school year.

MSCS officials Tuesday suggested plans for some of the schools to return as traditional schools, but none of those plans are final.

So far, neither the district nor the board has articulated a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the fallout of the ASD’s collapse.

Here are the MSCS board’s votes. Five are existing schools in the Achievement School District:

Cornerstone Prep Lester Campus School, sponsored by Capstone Education Group: Denied
Fairley High School, sponsored by Green Dot Public Schools TN: Denied
Humes Middle School, sponsored by Frayser Community Schools: Denied
Journey Coleman, sponsored by Journey Community Schools: Approved
MLK College Prep High School, sponsored by Frayser Community Schools: Denied

The other four are proposed new charter schools:

Change Academy, sponsored by Trust God and Never Doubt Outreach: Denied
Empower Memphis Career & College Prep, sponsored by Empower Career and College Prep: Denied
Pathways In Education-Memphis, sponsored by Pathways Management Group: Denied
Tennessee Career Academy, sponsored by TN Career Academy Inc.: Approved

Approvals for the two successful applicants take effect July 25, 2023.

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Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools TCAP scores show modest gains

2023-07-18T21:20:24+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools students gained some ground on state math tests, newly released test scores show, but they have yet to rebound to pre-pandemic proficiency levels.

In English language arts, where the district recouped pandemic era losses last year, scores stagnated.

Officials released the district-level results of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, known as TCAP, Tuesday afternoon.

The gains for Memphis were much more modest than the previous year, when officials trumpeted a district “trending up” following devastating academic declines during the pandemic. Overall, scores on the tests students took in the spring approached 2019 levels but have yet to completely return for all students and subject areas.

MSCS Deputy Superintendent Angela Whitelaw acknowledged in a statement that the district had “continued work to do this year.”

Statewide, math scores followed a similar trajectory as in Memphis, although scores for MSCS students were lower than statewide averages. In MSCS, 15% of students were on track for their grade in math compared with 23% in 2019. The 2021 low was 7%.

But while Tennessee students in general continued to see literacy gains, Memphis did not see much growth after last year’s rebound.

Students in grades 3-8 take the state assessments each year, and high school students take subject-area tests at the end of their courses.

“One key takeaway for me is the momentum we saw in our high schools,” Whitelaw said. “With the exception of English 1, we saw gains across the board.”

The score reports do not reflect the progress of students as they move from one grade to the next. For now, they can be used only to compare, say, this year’s sixth graders to last year’s sixth graders.

So they don’t capture how much this year’s third graders in Memphis improved from when they were in second grade. Those improvements showed up in an analysis MSCS shared earlier this summer in connection with Tennessee’s new reading law. This past year’s third graders were the first class subject to the new state law, which uses students’ TCAP scores in English language arts to determine whether they need more intervention to avoid being held back.

MSCS’ recovery efforts have helped students who are the farthest behind, the data shows. In both ELA and math, the share of students who scored “below” proficiency on the test — the lowest performance level — continued to shrink. But for both subjects, that share is still larger than in 2019, and the divide is more pronounced in math.

“Having visited these classrooms this morning, it helps me to remain hopeful and optimistic,” Bill White, a top MSCS academic leader, said after a tour of summer class at Shelby Oaks Elementary. “Because the data nationwide shows me that coming out of those learning losses is going to be tough, and it’s going to be slow, and it’s going to require extra time and instruction.”

The testing data reflects achievements from the most normal school year the district’s students have had since classrooms shuttered in March 2020 as a precaution against the spread of COVID-19. The 2021-21 school year was online for most Memphis students. They returned to classrooms in 2021-22, but spikes in COVID-19 infections led to waves of absences and disruptions to learning.

Students didn’t have those kinds of disruptions this past school year, but the district did have a turbulent year, starting off with transitions in top leadership and ending with the fallout of a stalled superintendent search.

For the coming school year, the board plans to order a review of the district’s academic programs, which interim Superintendent Toni Williams has started preparing. The results are expected to also inform spending decisions as federal COVID relief funds run out.

“We know the district is doing something right,” board member Kevin Woods said about the academic review. “And I think the better way we frame that is why so many of our students struggle, with all the investments that we make.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

Thomas Wilburn is the senior data editor for Chalkbeat. Reach Thomas at twilburn@chalkbeat.org.

More Memphis charter schools could face closure after state’s failed turnaround effort

2023-07-17T16:37:46+00:00

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Several of Memphis’ lowest performing schools face an uncertain future — and possible closure — as their charter agreements with Tennessee’s turnaround district near expiration.

Five of them, including MLK College Prep High School, are seeking approval to return to Memphis-Shelby County Schools as charter schools after a decade in the state-run Achievement School District. But MSCS officials have recommended denying their charter applications, along with bids from four proposed new charter schools.

If the MSCS board votes to accept the district’s recommendations and deny the charters when it meets Tuesday, it would leave some 2,000 students with high academic needs in limbo, unsure of where they’ll attend classes in the 2024-25 school year.

Another web of decisions would determine what happens next to those students, and to the schools. So far, neither the district nor the board has articulated a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the fallout of the ASD’s collapse.

“We should have talked about this two years ago, since we all knew it was coming,” said Bobby White, head of the charter company that runs MLK College Prep.

MSCS officials have said they talk to operators and tailor individual decisions because “each school in the ASD is unique.”

Nine charter schools want to open in MSCS

Memphis-Shelby County Schools officials have recommended that the school board reject nine charter schools that submitted amended applications in a second-round process.

Five are existing schools in the Achievement School District:

Cornerstone Prep Lester Campus School, sponsored by Capstone Education Group
Fairley High School, sponsored by Green Dot Public Schools TN
Humes Middle School, sponsored by Frayser Community Schools
Journey Coleman, sponsored by Journey Community Schools
MLK College Prep High School, sponsored by Frayser Community Schools

The other four are proposed new charter schools:

Change Academy, sponsored by Trust God and Never Doubt Outreach
Empower Memphis Career & College Prep, sponsored by Empower Career and College Prep
Pathways In Education-Memphis, sponsored by Pathways Management Group
Tennessee Career Academy, sponsored by TN Career Academy Inc.

The board could defy the district recommendations and approve the charters, as it has done before. But the district argues that it’s not in its interest to bring poorly performing charter schools back into the district. This year, all five applicants bear the same low-performing “priority” designation that primed them for state takeover a decade ago.

“We want high quality seats for our students,” said Brittany Monda, MSCS’ assistant superintendent of charter schools.

ASD schools could close

When the state assigned its lowest-performing public schools — most of them in Memphis — to the Achievement School District, the idea was that charter operators would take them over, turn them around, and eventually return the schools to the home districts in better shape.

But the plan didn’t work. Many of the schools languished or continued to perform poorly under the charter operators. That means that despite 10 years of state oversight, most do not meet state and local performance standards used by local officials to evaluate charter applications.

Data presented by MSCS indicates that despite some gains over the years, each of the five schools has fewer than 12% of students on track in reading and math.

State law allows Tennessee school boards to close charter schools in their own portfolios that have priority designations, and that could happen in Memphis if the MSCS board accepts the ASD schools and they don’t make significant academic gains. Memphis policy favors new charter schools that would give other options to students who go to a low-performing school.

If the board turns down the ASD schools, MSCS could decide to resume operating them as traditional schools. Otherwise, the ASD schools would close when their charters expire at the end of the 2023-24 school year.

MSCS facilities plan complicates unraveling of ASD

It’s no surprise that MSCS is wary of assuming responsibility for more schools. District leaders have been trying over the past decade to align school capacity with shifts in enrollment, and to figure out how to improve the condition of decaying school buildings. Facility plans have been continually revised in recent years, but have never been fully executed.

Consolidating schools that are operating under capacity would offer better learning environments for students, officials say, and cut down on a costly list of building repair projects.

Interim Superintendent Toni Williams is poised to deliver a new facilities plan next month. The ASD charter schools — operating in buildings MSCS still owns — could be part of this plan.

Already, the district is planning for a new Frayser high school that would combine students at Trezevant High School and MLK College Prep. The district plans to build it at the MLK site.

White, the leader of MLK College Prep’s charter operator, Frayser Community Schools, has said that if the MSCS board approves the charter school, he would end the charter agreement early, when it’s time for students at MLK College Prep to move into the new building.

But if the school isn’t approved as a charter, the district will have to choose between operating it or letting it close. If it closes, students currently zoned to MLK College Prep would have to be reassigned to Trezevant or other schools until a new high school is built.

Stephanie Love, a school board member and longtime advocate for students in the ASD, peppered district officials with questions about school closures and consolidations during a committee meeting last week.

She pointed out that the district makes decisions to close and consolidate traditional schools based on academic performance, enrollment, and school building needs — criteria similar to the ones it uses to evaluate charter schools.

Many ASD schools have closed already without any MSCS school board vote.

If the five ASD schools seeking charter approvals eventually return to the district as traditional schools, they could become part of MSCS’ own turnaround model, called the Innovation Zone, or iZone. The model takes advantage of centralized resources and pays teachers more for working a longer day.

A handful of former ASD schools joined the iZone last year, as traditional MSCS schools, and another will join this school year. Monda, the charter office leader, said the returned schools have shown “promising results,” but did provide any data. (Charter schools cannot be part of the iZone.)

Charter operators may have a chance to appeal or reapply

Tuesday’s board vote on the five ASD schools — and the four new applicants — won’t be the end of the story for any of them.

If they lose their bids for charter approval, they could appeal the decision to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission, or in some cases reapply next year.

White, the ASD charter operator, said that if the board turns down his applications, he doesn’t plan to appeal. He said he wants to support the district’s plan for Memphis students. But he said there should have been a more comprehensive plan for the schools serving the Memphis and Tennessee students who have struggled the most academically.

“Our contracts say our time is up after the 10th year,” he said. “And I’m hoping that we have an opportunity after this round … to really dig in on what’s going to happen to … all the other schools coming back in the years to follow.”

Another set of ASD schools serving about 2,000 more students have charters set to expire in coming school years.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis board starts superintendent search over, expects to select new leader in early 2024

2023-06-29T02:31:51+00:00

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The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board is rebooting its superintendent search, with plans to solicit fresh community input, invite new candidates, and hire a permanent leader in early 2024.

The move to restart the search could entice qualified candidates who experts say may have been repelled by a process that got derailed by discord among board members.

The new leader would start on or before July 1, potentially with a transition period concurrent with interim Superintendent Toni Williams, who received a contract extension Tuesday. Based on that timeline, the process to find a permanent successor to Joris Ray — who departed in August 2022 amid an investigation into alleged misconduct — will have taken nearly two years.

It’s the first time that the merged Memphis-Shelby County district has resolved to complete a national search since it was formed a decade ago. Ray and his predecessor, Dorsey Hopson, were both elevated from the interim post. Williams, who was named a finalist in April, withdrew from consideration as a condition of her contract extension.

Board members met on Wednesday with Max McGee, president of search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, to discuss how to proceed.

McGee commended the board’s “extraordinary” efforts to get the search back on track.

The board expects to relaunch a community engagement effort for the search, too, as a step toward mending strained relationships with community advocates who have grown frustrated with the board’s actions.

When they launched the national search in late 2022, board members promised a process that would help restore trust in district leadership. But the board began to fracture after the initial three finalists were named in April, and it paused the search for two months. Only recently did board members agree on a set of qualifications and nail down their policy on minimum requirements for the job.

Those qualifications will be reflected in the new rubric for candidates that McGee refined with board members on Wednesday. Existing candidates in the pool will have to reapply, including the two remaining top contenders. McGee suggested that the job be posted by Aug. 1.

“Today it is about us, united as a board, moving forward with HYA as we continue this journey to get the best leaders for the students of Memphis-Shelby County Schools,” said board Chair Althea Greene.

The new qualifications include:

Strategic leadership on budget and finance
Governance and board leadership
Community advocate and politically savvy
Courageous decision maker
Attract, retain, and build capacity of a strong team
Ability to positively impact culture and climate
Dynamic, visionary, adaptive leader
Proven track record of success
Effective change management
Strong academic visionary

Candidates will also have to meet the minimum job requirements set by board policy. The board relaxed those requirements this month to allow candidates with 10 years of work experience and an advanced degree in any of several fields, rather than just education.

Some board members raised concerns about the $19,000 price tag and longer timeline associated with restarting the search.

In a letter dated June 23, Hazard Young told board members it had developed a new finalist list after evaluating current candidates against the new criteria and would present it Wednesday. Amber Huett-Garcia asked at Wednesday’s meeting if the slate would be shared. But no new finalists were presented.

“We’re not using any names today,” said newly elected Vice Chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman.

Board member Kevin Woods, citing a vote made in mid-June, said, “We stated very publicly that we were going to open the search up for new candidates.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Williams will stay on as MSCS interim superintendent, but won’t seek permanent role

2023-06-27T23:50:44+00:00

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Interim Superintendent Toni Williams won’t become the permanent leader of Memphis-Shelby County Schools after all.

The school board voted to approve a contract extension for Williams that could keep her in charge of MSCS through the new school year. But Williams — who was one of three finalists named in April — has to give up her quest to be superintendent on a permanent basis.

The condition is spelled out in Williams’ extended contract, which she negotiated with Memphis attorney Herman Morris, he told the board Tuesday. Her name is not expected to appear on an updated list of finalists that the board expects to receive Wednesday.

Williams’ exit from the superintendent candidate pool signals a quieter end to the district’s tortuous national superintendent search, which derailed after Williams became a finalist and the board began to fracture over the prospect of elevating another interim leader to fill the vacancy created by the departure of Joris Ray.

Ray, who was elevated from the interim position in 2019, resigned under a cloud of scandal in August 2022. His predecessor, Dorsey Hopson, had also been elevated from interim chief.

Williams accepted the interim role in August with assurances that she wouldn’t seek the job on a permanent basis, but she changed her mind. Since then, the board has largely sidestepped discussions about that decision, never rejecting her application.

A coalition of community advocates — including some of the five people who were banned from district property after challenging the board’s stewardship of the search — had been pushing the board in recent weeks to clarify whether Williams would remain a candidate, and continued to do so in a series of coordinated public comments Tuesday evening.

Board members Tuesday made clear their support of Williams’ interim leadership, and she received a standing ovation after board Chair Althea Greene described her accomplishments. The board’s long delay in setting the parameters of its search could keep Williams in the interim role for as much as another year.

“I have inherited more challenges than you could ever imagine. A district in distress … . But I have not quit,” Williams said.

Greene, who has led the search for the past year, will now be assisted by newly elected Vice Chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman. Dorse-Coleman is replacing former board member Sheleah Harris, who resigned her board seat two weeks ago. The Shelby County Commission will select Harris’ replacement in mid-July. The board will reelect leadership in the fall.

New slate of finalists due Wednesday

Meanwhile, outside search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates is poised to present the board an updated list of superintendent finalists Wednesday after reevaluating interested applicants against a revised set of qualifications approved by the board in mid-June.

The new list includes five to seven top candidates, compared with just three on the initial slate released in April, according to communication from the firm obtained by Chalkbeat. The board could choose to interview those candidates or reopen the pool to new applicants — “in essence beginning a new search,” two top Hazard Young officials wrote. That option could cost the district an additional $19,000. (The initial contract with the firm allowed for total costs between $38,000 and $70,000.)

Reopening the search would significantly extend the hiring timeline as well. The “optimal” window to accept new applications is in the fall, the firm wrote, suggesting a timeline that culminates with the board selecting a new superintendent by the end of January. The proposed start date for the new superintendent, in that case, would be July 1, 2024.

The firm did not propose a new timeline should the board interview and select a new superintendent from its current candidate pool.

Hazard Young updated a proposed job description for the role, this time including minimum qualifications required by board policy that the firm did not use for evaluating candidates in the spring, as Chalkbeat reported.

When she became a finalist in April, Williams did not meet the board requirements, which focused on experience as an educator, but the board later relaxed the policy.

Williams could return to district role

Williams said that under her extended contract, she has the option to return to a district role after her interim tenure. Because the contract is still being finalized, Morris said, there was no copy to review Tuesday evening.

Morris, who also worked for the board to negotiate the terms of Ray’s departure, thanked Williams “for her openness and willingness to agree” during the negotiations.

Williams will continue earning a $310,000 annualized salary and will have more vacation days under the extended contract.

Williams told reporters she had no regrets about applying for the permanent position.

“Regrets on serving 110,000 students?” Williams said. “Absolutely not.”

The MSCS board will meet with the search firm at 5 p.m. on Wednesday in the basement auditorium of the Barnes Building, 160 S. Hollywood St.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Former MSCS board member alleged ‘corruption.’ Here’s what an MSCS audit found.

2023-06-21T17:27:15+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools paid a lawn care vendor more than its contract allowed, lost some lawn equipment to theft, and paid an employee for days they didn’t work.

The lapses surfaced in a regular independent financial audit of the district for the 2021-22 school year and were detailed in a report shared with state officials in January. The findings prompted personnel changes and a reorganization of the district’s procurement department, a Chalkbeat review of public records shows.

Interim Superintendent Toni Williams announced some of those changes last fall, soon after she was appointed to take the place of Joris Ray, who resigned as superintendent under a cloud of scandal. The actions drew praise from board members and community advocates as a fresh sign of accountability from the new district leader.

But Williams’ decision to pursue the permanent superintendent post, after promising not to, has roiled the search for Ray’s successor, and sparked new scrutiny of the way the district does business.

When school board Vice Chair Sheleah Harris resigned unexpectedly from her post last week, she called for a district audit “going back at least 5 years” to root out what she claimed was widespread corruption. She cited conflicts of interest in contract awards and misuse of philanthropic funds.

Such allegations are not new, and the district has repeatedly faced calls for audits from critics of its leadership and financial management, even though the district’s finances are audited regularly. In the case of Harris’ allegations, some of the issues she raised appear to mirror the ones addressed by the most recent audit.

The personnel and procurement changes Williams made “are part of ongoing efforts to improve efficiency and transparency,” the district said in a statement responding to Harris’ sweeping allegations.

The latest independent audit, by accounting firms Watkins Uiberall PLLC and Banks, Finley, White, & Co., spanned the period from July 2021 to June 2022. During that period, Williams was the district’s chief financial officer under Ray.

More audit findings about the district may be forthcoming. In addition to the changes Williams announced last fall, district officials hired an auditor to look into potential fraud or noncompliance in managing its $775 million in federal pandemic relief funds, records show. The district did not respond to requests for an update on the status of that audit.

Lawn service contract drew scrutiny from auditors

After her resignation Tuesday, Harris directed reporters to probe her claims, but she declined Chalkbeat’s request for documents supporting her allegations, and wrote that she would not answer further questions.

In her statements following her resignation, Harris suggested there were irregularities with vendor contracts that were worth less than $100,000 — a threshold that requires board approval — saying some were “direct conflicts.”

The district has spent this school year correcting issues related to that policy and strengthening controls, records show.

During the 2021-22 school year, Isaac Wright, an employee who oversaw the district’s grounds and cleaning services, approved payments to a lawn company beyond allowances in the contract. Those payments exceeded the $100,000 threshold, meaning they would normally have warranted a board vote. Details are reflected in the audit report the district regularly files to the state, plus internal audit documents obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request.

The lawn company submitted invoices in the beginning of August 2021, as the district was preparing to reopen school buildings after a year of online learning. Wright told the district that he paid the company because of pressure from a district official “to get all properties cut before schools’ reopening,” according to the internal report.

The district official, business operations chief Genard Phillips, had told Wright that the contract expansion could be taken to the board for “after the fact” approval, internal auditors wrote. The MSCS board later approved an expansion to the contract, public records show. (The vendor, Supreme Lawn Care, has an active contract with MSCS.)

The internal audit report said Phillips “exceeded his authority” with those instructions. Phillips resigned from MSCS late last year, and his personnel file does not include any internal investigations related to the audit. But his departure and replacement were recorded in the audit report filed with the state as a corrective measure to improve the ethics and accountability of district processes.

“I didn’t authorize (Wright) to do anything that would have been outside of board policy,” Phillips told Chalkbeat, adding that he did not dispute any of the findings in the audit report filed with the state.

Wiiliams appointed Phillips’ successor, Julius Muse, in October 2022. Muse would also oversee a new procedure for monitoring district inventory, according to the state report, which found that some lawn equipment had been stolen.

Auditors also found that Wright violated the district’s “vague” conflict-of-interest policy on gifts by accepting tickets to Grizzlies basketball games and other sporting events from cleaning vendors. The vendors at the time — ServiceMaster Stratos and SKB Facilities, plus former subcontractor Action Chemical — told auditors they were not aware of the district’s policy, and regularly gave tickets to all customers.

Wright was put on leave last fall. While MSCS told auditors he was terminated, Wright said — and his personnel file shows — that he resigned, shortly after the internal audit report was complete.

“I never abused my position,” Wright told Chalkbeat.

Department restructuring targeted conflicts of interest

Among other allegations in her statements, Harris questioned a subsequent restructuring that shifted the procurement department from business operations to finance.

According to the audit, that was done “to provide more fiscal oversight and independence from operations.” Several staff received training to avoid conflicts of interest, and the district planned to strengthen procurement policies and procedures.

The audit also found that a senior employee — who was assigned to review payroll for part of their department — received unowed payment during vacation time, of about $1,000. MSCS responded by requiring direct supervisors and department heads to review payroll, the audit shows.

Documents about these matters are addressed to the members of the board and the school board chair. Since their publication, the findings have not appeared to be part of public discussions by the body. MSCS did not respond to a Chalkbeat request for confirmation of this.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

The ‘Tennessee 3’ created a historic teachable moment. Will schools be allowed to teach it?

2023-06-16T19:34:07+00:00

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When Wyatt Bassow and Ava Buxton missed classes one morning this spring to see democracy in action in Tennessee, they witnessed history that they acknowledged probably wouldn’t be fully taught at their high school less than a mile away.

Justin Pearson, one of two young Democratic lawmakers who were dramatically expelled from office just a week earlier by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, was taking his oath of office again that day outside the state Capitol in Nashville after being voted back in by officials in Shelby County.

A few days earlier, Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville had been reinstated after a similar vote by his city’s council.

Both men had been ousted from the legislature for staging a protest on the House floor urging gun reforms after a mass school shooting in Nashville. The votes temporarily robbed some 140,000 Tennesseans in the state’s two largest cities of their representation.

“What I’ve learned these last few weeks is that democracy is incredibly fragile,” said Bassow, a senior at Nashville’s Hume-Fogg High School, as he cheered Pearson’s reinstatement in the shadow of the Capitol building.

“But because of the power of the people,” he added, “we were able to fix this.”

Less certain, the students said, is whether the controversial ouster of the two young Black Democrats by the House’s all-white GOP supermajority would be fully discussed at their school, or any public Tennessee school, as part of a course in U.S. government, civics, history, contemporary issues, or social studies.

While Republican leaders maintain the ouster was not racially motivated, the racial optics were undeniable, as was the supermajority’s suppression of legislative voices with whom they disagreed.

Cameron Sexton, a Republican from Crossville, is the speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, Tennessee is at the front of a conservative-driven wave of censorship about what can and cannot be taught in K-12 schools.

A 2021 state law restricts classroom discussions about systemic racism, white privilege, and the ongoing legacy of slavery. Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who signed the law, has championed civics education that emphasizes American exceptionalism and plays down the origins of present-day U.S. injustices.

School libraries are under scrutiny too, especially for materials that have to do with race and gender. A 2022 law gives the state unprecedented authority to overrule local school boards and remove certain materials from libraries statewide. And a 2023 law puts book distributors and publishers at risk of criminal prosecution if materials they provide to Tennessee schools are deemed obscene.

“We definitely have noticed that a silencing is happening in our schools.” —Ava Buxton, student

“We definitely have noticed that a silencing is happening in our schools,” said Buxton, also a senior at Hume-Fogg, when asked whether the expulsions of Jones and Pearson had been discussed in her classes.

“Thankfully, our teachers are wonderful and intelligent educators who do their best to give students the space we need to have important conversations,” she continued. “But I think these conversations would go much deeper if our teachers didn’t have the fear of these new laws hanging over them.”

The rise, fall, and rise of the Tennessee Three

The expulsions of the two Black lawmakers came during the dramatic last weeks of a tumultuous legislative session gripped by large citizen protests over Tennessee’s lax gun laws, after an armed intruder killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School in Nashville on March 27.

Frustrated that House Speaker Cameron Sexton was not allowing them to voice the concerns of demonstrators during debates, Pearson, Jones, and Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville took their protest to the House floor, where Jones and Pearson alternately used a bullhorn to shout “Gun control now!” and “Power to the people!”

In the process, the trio broke the chamber’s rules of decorum. GOP-sponsored ouster resolutions accused the so-called Tennessee Three of “knowingly and intentionally bringing disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives.”

(From left) Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, and Justin Pearson of Memphis speak at a press conference on April 4, 2023, about GOP-sponsored resolutions to kick the three Democrats out of office.

Ultimately, Republican representatives voted overwhelmingly to kick out the two young Black men, while Johnson, who is older and white and was less vocal during the protest, kept her seat by a single vote.

The last time the House had expelled multiple members was in 1866, when six representatives were thrown out for conspiring to deprive the chamber of a quorum during a special session to ratify the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Two others have been expelled in more recent times, one for soliciting a bribe, and the other for sexual misconduct.

By contrast, the ousters of Jones and Pearson over their peaceful protest of gun violence — now the No. 1 killer of children and teens in America — seemed heavy-handed to their supporters. The House could have chosen simply to censure them for breaking House rules of decorum instead of kicking them out altogether.

In a subsequent four-page rebuke, the nation’s professional organization for social studies teachers denounced Tennessee’s House as attacking foundational principles of democratic and republican norms. Intentionally or not, the state was sending Tennessee students a message that the rights to free speech, peaceful protest, and holding their elected officials accountable are “reserved for those who have a specific view or perspective,” the National Council for the Social Studies wrote.

“Just as disturbing,” the group continued, “this action sends a message to the larger community that civil discourse and active citizenship will result in punishment rather than in finding consensus in ways that uphold the principles of democracy and the functioning of our republic … (which) will have a long-term impact on our students’ faith in the democratic process and our constitutional principles.”

Tennessee’s living history drama was filled with teachable moments

Political science and social studies experts say it’s hard to narrow down the events in Tennessee this spring to one teachable moment.

Tens of thousands of citizens descending on the Capitol to protest gun violence after a school shooting and the subsequent expulsions and reinstatements of Jones and Pearson are rich runways for academic inquiry. Among the issues: freedom of speech, legislative rules of decorum, the enduring influence of racism on public policy, and — as Bassow, the Nashville student, articulated — the fragility of democracy.

Students protest outside the Tennessee State Capitol on April 3, 2023, during a demonstration against gun violence and the state’s lax gun laws after a deadly school shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville.

John Geer, a political science professor who helped to launch the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, heartily agrees with Bassow.

“The teachable moment is that democracy fundamentally rests on genuine competition among political parties,” said Geer. “But because of supermajorities in our state legislatures, the minority party has no real influence and is left to scream or complain. They’re not part of the governing process. There’s no give and take, no compromise. Meanwhile, the majority party has so much power that they don’t need to negotiate, and that leads to excesses.”

It didn’t take long for resources to become available to help teachers broach the controversies in Tennessee as well as in Montana, where that state’s House speaker silenced Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a transgender lawmaker who refused to apologize for telling colleagues they would have “blood” on their hands if they supported a ban on gender-affirming care for youths.

Facing History and Ourselves, a nonprofit group that creates resources about current events to spawn thoughtful classroom discussions, zeroed in on two issues in its lessons: how to discuss politics in non-polarizing ways and the implications of using rules of decorum to censure legislators.

“What norms should guide our conversations about political issues?” asks the group’s lessons designed for middle and high school students.

“How could rules around speech be used to silence people?”

Parameters have narrowed on what teachers can teach

The availability of resources doesn’t mean such questions are being regularly asked in Tennessee classrooms, however.

The state’s public school teachers don’t have much wiggle room on what they’re allowed to teach. They’re also under increased scrutiny over the resources they can use.

“Tennessee civics is really nowhere in the standards. If something isn’t in the standards, it’s probably not going to be taught.” —Bill Carey, Tennessee History for Kids

Teachers are guided by hundreds of state-approved academic standards that set learning goals by subject and grade, and that dictate decisions around curriculum and testing. And social studies teachers already are hard-pressed to cover all of the standards for their subjects during a single school year. Even if they do, only a few courses offered in grades five, eight, and 12 include standards that might lend themselves to discussions about the Tennessee Three.

“Tennessee civics is really nowhere in the standards,” said Bill Carey, who sells resources for educators through his nonprofit Tennessee History for Kids. “And if something isn’t in the standards, it’s probably not going to be taught.”

Social studies lessons, in particular, are monitored closely by parents and activists.

In 2015, some complained that some Tennessee teachers were “indoctrinating” students into Islam in their seventh-grade world history classes, prompting state officials to order an early review of those standards.

More recently, amid a conservative backlash to anti-racism protests after a white policeman killed Black American George Floyd in Minneapolis (an incident that prompted a federal investigation into systemic racism on the police force), Tennessee was among the first states to enact a law intended to restrict K-12 classroom discussions about race, racism, and gender.

Specifically, the 2021 law prohibits teachers from discussing 14 concepts that the state has deemed divisive, including that the United States is fundamentally or irredeemably sexist or racist, or that an individual is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive because of their race or gender.

Educators have complained that the law and the state’s rules for enforcing the statute aren’t clear about exactly what teachings cross the line. But teachers found in violation could have their licenses suspended or revoked, while their school districts could face financial penalties.

“To be honest, I just didn’t mention this in class. I am just overly cautious with what I cover in class for now.” —Tennessee social studies teacher

The potential fallout has influenced small but pivotal decisions that educators make every day in Tennessee and in other states that have passed similar laws targeting so-called critical race theory: how to answer a student’s question, which articles to read as a class, how to prepare for a lesson, which examples to use.

That includes whether to discuss the Tennessee legislature’s vote to expel Jones and Pearson, which made national headlines.

“To be honest, I just didn’t mention this in class,” said one Tennessee social studies teacher who asked not to be identified, for fear of retribution. “I am just overly cautious with what I cover in class for now.”

Students ‘come up with all these great questions’

Mark Finchum, executive director of the Tennessee Council for the Social Studies, says the law — and a related climate of fear — has had a chilling effect on teachers who might normally contemplate lessons about the Tennessee Three, or perhaps about the insurrection at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. But it also depends on the teacher.

“If you’re a new teacher who is teaching in an area of the state where you feel insecure, you may not want to go there,” Finchum said. “But if you’re an experienced teacher and feel strongly about these events and how your students can learn from them, you may go ahead.”

Erika Sugarmon falls in the latter category.

One Friday at White Station High School in Memphis, students showed up to Sugarmon’s weekly current events discussion with lots of questions about the expulsion. The day before the legislative vote, many White Station students had walked out of school to show support for gun reforms called for by the Tennessee Three.

“The kids come up with all these great questions. Sometimes there’s not an answer,” said Sugarmon, a veteran educator who teaches courses in U.S. government.

Protesters listen from the gallery of the House of Representatives at the Tennessee State Capitol on April 3, 2023, while demanding gun reform and justice for The Tennessee Three.

But it’s important to give students a safe and constructive space to discuss hard things, added Sugarmon, who is also an elected official on the Shelby County Commission, where she cast a vote to reinstate Pearson to his seat.

One student in her class brought up racism, she said, prompting a conversation about why Tennessee lawmakers have sought to ban some books and squelch classroom discussions about racism.

“Students have been very vocal about not just what happened with Pearson, but with state laws in general,” said Sugarmon.

She encourages them to explore source documents to formulate their own options.

Evidence-based discussions are the way that teachers should take up politically charged topics with their students, Vanderbilt’s Geer said.

“The evidence should be your guidepost,” he said, “while avoiding injecting ideology into the classroom.”

“Yes, facts need to be interpreted,” Geer added. “But if we can agree on a basic set of evidence, we can have a conversation. And that’s an important part of democracy.”

Maya Logan, a rising senior in Memphis at Germantown High School, talked about the lawmakers’ expulsions with her friends, but didn’t discuss the event as part of her 11th-grade American history class. Just the same, the deadly shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School, which prompted the protest and led to the expulsions, was a big deal to her. And as a young Black person, she related to Pearson and Jones, who are among the youngest members of the House.

Logan hopes this year’s events at the state Capitol will resurface as discussion topics during her senior year when she takes a U.S. government class. She has important questions. And she’s looking for answers.

“These are people,” she explained, “that are setting things up for us for our futures.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Contact her at ltestino@chalkbeat.org.

MSCS board relaxes job requirements for superintendent post; vice chair quits

2023-06-15T01:37:56+00:00

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Update, June 14, 2023: This story was updated to include additional comments from county officials and Sheleah Harris about her resignation from the school board.

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board relaxed its minimum requirements for the district’s superintendent role, allowing interim Superintendent Toni Williams to remain a candidate for the permanent leadership job, even though she lacks classroom experience.

But despite months of discussions aimed at forging consensus about what they want in a leader and how to proceed with the search, board members nearly put off making a decision on the policy, and ultimately fell short of presenting a united front.

Eight of the board members voted for the change in the job requirements. The ninth, Vice Chair Sheleah Harris, abstained from the vote and denounced the board’s decision. Then she announced she would quit her elected seat.

Before the amendments approved Tuesday, board policy required candidates to have a certain amount of in-school experience and training in education. Under the new requirements, the board could consider a candidate who has 10 years of work experience and advanced degrees in any of several fields, rather than just education. Board member Amber Huett-Garcia suggested the updates to the existing policies.

Board members also voted to reopen the application for the superintendent role, hoping to attract more candidates. Those who apply will have to meet the updated requirements, plus a revised set of desired qualifications the board also approved.

The decisions Tuesday reactivate a search that has been suspended for nearly two months, as board members tried to resolve differences and misunderstandings about the search process.

“We’ve been hanging this over the heads of the public for far too long,” board member Frank Johnson said of the policy vote.

Williams’ qualifications became a sticking point

The board policy on minimum requirements emerged as a sticking point just as the search was set to narrow to three finalists. Search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates told Chalkbeat it did not apply the board’s requirements for in-school experience when evaluating applicants, allowing Williams, whose background is in finance, to appear among three finalists.

Some board and community members, including Harris, raised concerns about the disconnect, putting a spotlight on perceived lapses in the board’s stewardship of the search. Board members have spent the past two months reexamining those lapses and seeking closer alignment on their priorities in the search.

But they couldn’t reach a unanimous decision. Harris consistently opposed relaxing the minimum requirements, right up to Tuesday’s vote.

Harris made her decision to resign “months ago,” she wrote in a private Facebook post obtained by Chalkbeat.

It was not a “sudden, emotional decision because of a dysfunctional super search or a heated disagreement,” she wrote in the post.

Harris did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Early Wednesday, board Chair Althea Greene notified other county officials of Harris’ resignation. In a statement to Chalkbeat, Administrator of Elections Linda Phillips said the Shelby County Commission will have to make an appointment to fill Harris’ seat for District 5, which includes Cordova.

Board agrees on new set of qualifications

This is the first time the merged Memphis-Shelby County district has conducted a search since it was formed a decade ago, and the first time since 2008 that Memphis has sought to choose a superintendent through a search rather than internal appointment.

The board is expected to share their new guidelines for the search with Hazard Young, which then could advise the board on a new timeline. The additional qualifications the board agreed upon include:

Strategic leadership on budget and finance
Governance and board leadership
Community advocate
Courageous decision maker
Politically savvy
Attract, retain, and build capacity of a strong team
Ability to positively impact culture and climate
Dynamic, visionary, adaptive leader
Proven track record of success
Effective change management
Strong academic visionary

Tomeka Hart Wigginton, a former board member who has facilitated board discussions about the search, has suggested that by the end of the month, the board create plans for implementing and communicating the changes and continuing community engagement.

Speaking with media after Tuesday’s meeting, Greene said the board should meet with a Hazard Young representative in person to discuss the timeline. But the timeline won’t affect a planned vote for next Tuesday on possible amendments to Williams’ interim superintendent contract, which expires in August.

“We know that we have to have someone to continue to lead us until we get a permanent superintendent … . So if it is the will of this board for interim superintendent to continue to lead us, that’s a vote that we will make next week,” Greene said.

The board has yet to complete a required evaluation of Williams’ leadership, which was due May 1.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis activists challenge bans from school district property in federal lawsuit

2023-06-14T00:55:28+00:00

Five people who were banned from Memphis-Shelby County Schools buildings and property have filed a federal lawsuit against the district, claiming officials violated their constitutional right to access public meetings.

The people banned are activists in Memphis who have called on the school board to increase transparency and integrity in its search for a new superintendent.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court on Tuesday, describes the activists as “the most vocal critics” of the “botched search for a new superintendent,” and alleges the district is “conspiring” to prevent their advocacy. The suit names both the school board of education and the district’s top security officer, Carolyn Jackson, as defendants.

The superintendent search has been on hold since mid-April, but the school board was set to make a series of pivotal votes to reactivate the search in another meeting Tuesday evening.

Activists LJ Abraham, Damon Curry Morris, Tikeila Rucker, Amber Sherman and Rachael Spriggs were each banned from district property days after a tense school board meeting in May that extended the pause on the superintendent search.

Abraham and Sherman are well-known activists in Memphis. Rucker is a former teacher union leader, and Spriggs is a former school board candidate. Morris, a candidate for Memphis City Council, is an advocate for students with disabilities.

District cited ‘disruptive behavior’ by activists

Memphis police and MSCS security officials issued the bans when some of the activists attempted to attend a meeting on May 12. Documents obtained by Chalkbeat from the City of Memphis show both the district and Memphis police signed off on most of the forms. The records include a copy of an MSCS public comment sign-in sheet for May 9, a few days before the bans, with asterisks next to each of the five people now banned.

The lawsuit calls the process of these bans unconstitutional and unlawful. The City of Memphis, in describing records produced for Chalkbeat, said police use the forms to warn someone they could be arrested for criminal trespassing.

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told Chalkbeat in May that his office “will always uphold the law,” but that prosecution of the activists “will likely be of low priority for our office.” Mulroy said he talked to interim Superintendent Toni Williams and sought “an alternate way” to handle any issues with the activists.

The activists did not receive any information about why they were being banned when the forms were first issued on May 12. The district, in a statement, pointed to “disruptive behavior” and “threats to public safety,” plus activation of “panic alarms” during the May 9 meeting.

According to the suit, Abraham and Sherman dropped the noise-making devices, but “video of the incident shows no one was hurt” and “the meeting was only paused for a very brief period.”

The district released narrated security footage alleging Rucker and Spriggs coordinated with Abraham and Sherman, who dropped alarm devices, to disrupt the meeting.

In a letter to board members shared with the media, Jackson wrote that the office would be providing more information to the people who were banned and work to lift the ban. She said the district ordered the bans with the police department “as a safety measure.”

Rep. Justin Pearson defends activists

On Friday, four of the five people banned were denied entry to the school board office for another meeting about the superintendent search. Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson, a Memphis Democrat who was expelled from the legislature for his role in a demonstration for gun control, joined the group in support.

Pearson said the activists, who call themselves the “School Board 5,” have provided a necessary “moral conscience” for the community. Pearson was reappointed to his seat, and is now running in an upcoming special election to retain his post.

“We’ve got to have some angelic dissenters that ensure that there is transparency in searches that are going to impact our kids for future generations,” Pearson said. “And that is what they have done.”

On Friday, MSCS board Chair Althea Greene said she felt “very confident” that the bans would be lifted, and hoped that would happen this week.

MSCS did not respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment on the lawsuit late Tuesday. The activists are represented by attorneys Benjamin A. Gastel, Alyson S. Beridon and Scott A. Kramer.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

MSCS board prepares to reactivate superintendent search with key votes

2023-06-13T03:39:41+00:00

After two months of discussions, Memphis-Shelby County Schools board members are ready to put their search for a new superintendent back in motion.

The board is poised for a set of pivotal votes on Tuesday to reactivate the stalled search, including one to settle a question that has sown divisions on the board and in the community since April: whether one of the finalists, interim Superintendent Toni Williams, is qualified under board policy to be a candidate for the permanent job.

Board members also plan to vote on adopting a formal list of qualifications and on whether to expand the pool of candidates under consideration. The board last month signaled its interest in taking both these actions.

Tuesday’s planned votes cap a period of intensive discussions aimed at uniting board members behind a shared understanding of what they want in the next leader of Tennessee’s largest school district, and reassuring the public that MSCS can complete a search with integrity and transparency. They have not set a new target date for getting it done.

Tomeka Hart Wigginton, a former Memphis school board member who has facilitated recent board meetings, has told board members the end date is less important than doing the process right.

“It moves at the pace of trust,” Hart Wigginton said. “And that’s what’s making it hard.”

Said board Vice Chair Sheleah Harris: “I still feel like we’re running in molasses.”

The decisions will clearly have ramifications for Williams and possibly other candidates. But the board’s own image — among Memphians and educators watching elsewhere — is also on the line.

Tuesday’s meeting offers board members a chance to showcase the results of their efforts over the past two months to improve their governance and provide better leadership to a school district whose 100,000 students have urgent academic needs. A successful set of votes would be a step toward regaining public trust that has eroded since former Superintendent Joris Ray departed in scandal last year.

Board compiles its own list of qualifications

MSCS’ search for Ray’s successor ran aground in April, when search firm Hazard, Young, Attea, and Associates presented a slate of finalists that left some board members dissatisfied with the candidates and the process. The top criticism was that board members didn’t have enough input on the criteria and qualifications that Hazard Young used to evaluate candidates and determine the finalists. Board members have acknowledged they didn’t discuss these issues enough publicly.

The discussions since then to produce a proposed set of qualifications led board members to acknowledge that, for the most part, they had more in common than they assumed. Getting there revealed how much they had not communicated about beforehand, and how much they still needed to do.

Many of the qualifications they included in their formal list are similar to what Hazard Young listed in its rubric, but the two lists are not identical. The board’s list also has some overlap with community interests identified in a report by KQ Communications, the PR firm that was working with the board on soliciting public input.

Here’s the full list of proposed qualifications that the board plans to vote on:

Strategic leadership on budget and finance
Governance and board leadership
Community advocate
Courageous decision maker
Politically savvy
Attract, retain, and build capacity of a strong team
Ability to positively impact culture and climate
Dynamic, visionary, adaptive leader
Proven track record of success
Effective change management
Strong academic visionary

Board members are expected to learn from Hazard Young whether these qualifications are all represented in the firm’s existing evaluations of candidates, and then determine if any part of the rubric needs to be changed.

Vote would resolve Williams’ status

Along with the search criteria, the board intends to resolve questions about how to apply its existing policies on the minimum job qualifications for a superintendent. That issue emerged as a point of contention after Williams, the interim superintendent, applied for the permanent post, despite reassurances that she didn’t plan to.

Williams, the district’s former finance chief, does not have the minimum in-school experience required for a superintendent under board policy. Hazard Young did not incorporate the board’s experience requirement when it evaluated candidates in the spring, allowing Williams to make the finalist list.

On Tuesday, though, the board will consider the policy in a separate vote. The policy offers the board an option to approve “equivalents” to the required in-school experience. Board members are expected to discuss these options in a committee meeting Tuesday afternoon before the vote.

“You can’t get around your policy,” Hart Wigginton said. “You’ve either got to change your policy, or you’ve got to implement your policy.”

Williams’ contract as interim superintendent is set to expire in August, one year after she was appointed. The board has not yet completed her performance evaluation, which was due May 1 under the terms of the contract.

The board is considering amending the contract in a vote later this month.

Chalkbeat has an outstanding open records request for application materials from other applicants.

The board will begin committee meetings at 3 p.m. Tuesday at the board office at 160 S. Hollywood St. The special voting meeting will begin at 6 p.m. The school board’s website has more information about attending the meeting online or in person.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Reading retests whittle down number of MSCS, Tennessee 3rd graders facing retention

2023-06-08T21:48:22+00:00

Update: June 8, 2023: This story has been updated with statewide results for the retest, provided to Chalkbeat by the Tennessee Department of Education on Thursday.

About 1 in 5 Memphis Shelby-County Schools third graders who took a state retest in reading last month succeeded in earning an easier path to fourth grade — about 1,200 students in all.

Roughly 500 students in the district did well enough on the retest to be able to go straight to fourth grade, without summer school or tutoring, according to results released Wednesday by the Tennessee Department of Education. The other 700 improved enough that they can choose either summer school or tutoring to advance, rather than having to attend both.

That still leaves large numbers of MSCS third graders — along with thousands more across the state — who may have to participate in both interventions to avoid being held back under the state’s strict new retention law for struggling readers.

Statewide, about 3,300 third graders scored proficient on the retest, and can head straight to fourth grade, according to updated data shared with Chalkbeat Thursday. That’s nearly 13% of third graders who took the test across the state. About 60% of third graders who didn’t score proficient in the spring tried the test a second time.

The district-level retest results released Wednesday give district and state officials a fuller picture of the impact of the 2021 law, which took effect with this year’s third graders.

The results didn’t account for students who successfully appeal their scores, and the ones who are exempt from the law because they have limited English proficiency or reading disabilities, or have been retained before.

But in MSCS, the state’s largest district, the retest made a difference for hundreds of students who were initially identified as being at risk for retention, based on their English language arts scores on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program. About three-quarters of MSCS third graders didn’t score proficient on the initial test administered in the spring, one of the worst rates in the state.

Critics of the test have said it does not specifically measure reading skills, making it a poor criterion for determining whether third graders can be promoted.

Statewide, some 44,000 students, or 60% of third graders, did not demonstrate proficiency on the initial TCAP English language arts test.

But unlike most other Tennessee districts, MSCS got almost all the students who didn’t pass the first test to take a similar retest during the final weeks of school.

“We are proud of students who participated in the retake for exploring this pathway,” interim state Education Commissioner Sam Pearcy said in a statement about the scores.

Clay County Schools, a small district in north central Tennessee, reaped significant benefits from the retest. While only half the third graders eligible for a retest participated, three-fifths of them did well enough to score proficient and move automatically to fourth grade.

For most school districts, though, improvements from the retest were more modest.

Here are key takeaways from a review of the district-level results:

Half of Tennessee districts had between 10% and 20% of their students achieve proficiency on the retest.
A third of Tennessee districts had between 10% and 20% of students improve from the lowest performance level — “below” proficiency — to the next-highest level, “approaching” proficiency.
Just under half of Tennessee districts had fewer than 10% of students improve from “below” to “approaching.”
A little more than half of Tennessee districts had a retest participation rate of 50% or more.

Results for each district are in the chart below.

Correction: June 8, 2023: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of students who did not score proficient on the spring English language arts tests. It is 44,000, not 74,000.

Thomas Wilburn and Nadia Bey contributed data analysis.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

For Memphis 3rd graders, threat of retention has hovered since kindergarten

2023-06-05T02:00:00+00:00

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With only a few days left in third grade, LaQuencher Sanders’ 8-year-old daughter, Kamryn, just wanted to be done with school.

She had been in the class of kindergartners who were sent home in March 2020 because of COVID. She was among the first-graders who had spent a year learning online as the pandemic raged. In second grade, her reading test scores got her flagged for retention under a new policy at Memphis-Shelby County Schools. To avoid being held back a grade, she had to attend summer school, and then tutoring throughout third grade.

This year, as the end of the year approached, she had a sense that her reading scores on the test she took in the spring may not be high enough for her to move on to fourth grade automatically. That meant that to avoid having to repeat the grade, she would likely face more summer school and another year of tutoring.

On the day her teacher was going to give her those scores, Kamryn arrived at school early, as usual. But at some point that morning, she walked out the front doors of her elementary school — and kept going. She walked a mile away, all by herself, before she stopped and asked for help. Police picked her up just before a major intersection and took her back to Kate Bond Elementary School.

All of it was just too much, she later explained to her mom.

“She told me that she was tired of school,” Sanders said.

Many third-graders across Tennessee found out in May that after a turbulent start to their education, they could be in for more testing, summer school, and tutoring, because they didn’t meet state requirements on a standardized reading test this spring. The interventions are dictated by a state law that took effect this year to improve literacy and deal with the legacy of learning loss during the pandemic.

LaQuencher Sanders’ daughter, Kamryn, usually loves school. But the stress of the third grade reading retention law prompted her to walk out of class — and keep walking.

Statewide, about 60% of third-graders did not meet the standard for proficiency. In MSCS alone, more than 6,000 students missed the mark.

It was the second time that this same cohort of MSCS students faced the threat of being held back over their reading scores. The district briefly had its own retention policy aimed at improving lagging performance in reading and targeted at last year’s second graders.

While the MSCS policy was based on a composite of 12 different scores, the new state law hinges on the results of a single test: the English language arts section of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP.

When those scores came out in May, some families were caught by surprise. Others, like Kamryn’s, knew what was coming — more school days, and less break time.

But that didn’t make the reality any less difficult.

Local school boards opposed focus on a single test

Lauren Giovannetti was one of the surprised ones. Her 9-year-old son, Anders, recently got tested to join the district’s gifted-education program. He scored at or above grade level on four benchmark tests throughout the school year.

But on the TCAP test — the only one that matters for this year’s third graders under the retention law — he scored “approaching” proficiency, one step below proficient on the state’s four-level scale.

To avoid being held back, students in that level have to attend summer school or tutoring, unless they do well enough on a retest, successfully appeal their result, or qualify for an exemption. (Students with reading disabilities and a limited time learning English are exempt, as are students who have been held back before.)

Anders was sick and crying over the results, Giovannetti said. He went back to Grahamwood Elementary School to take the test again. By then, peers knew which students scored well enough to move on to fourth grade automatically, and which ones didn’t, Giovannetti explained, because the students who had to take the test again were pulled out of class.

“I just don’t understand why this is the only factor that they’re looking at for something that’s such a big deal,” said Giovannetti.

Local officials had expected the TCAP results, combined with the fresh threat of retention, to be jarring for some families. “Even third graders who are performing at grade level could be subject to retention,” school board members for MSCS and suburban districts wrote to lawmakers about the new legislation in 2021. Testing as proficient on the state test, they argued, is not the same as grade-level mastery.

They implored lawmakers to seek a “comprehensive assessment” of third graders’ performance, rather than using a single state test to flag students for retention, which they said could have “possible negative life-long effects.”

“It’s not appropriate to put this much pressure on a 9-year-old,” Giovannetti said.

Families in Memphis and across the state have united over their frustrations with the law, and lawmakers responded by accepting some proposed amendments, including one that expands the criteria by one test for certain students. But the changes won’t take effect until next school year.

Giovannetti’s son got the results of his retest on his last day of third grade. He was one correct answer shy of scoring “proficient” and heading straight to fourth grade.

Giovannetti submitted an appeal, based on Anders’ results from an earlier benchmark test. It was approved within days, she told Chalkbeat, leaving her to wonder why the earlier score couldn’t have been counted in the first place.

“There’s something off here, and I don’t think it’s 6,000 kids,” she said. “I think we need to look into this test, and make sure it’s really measuring what we want it to measure.”

Students went through two years with threat of retention

MSCS officials say they have tried to convey to students that they are more than just a test score. But the state law makes clear that the one score on the TCAP may determine how these students will spend their summer, and possibly their next year in school.

The district sought a more accurate assessment of a student’s reading capabilities by introducing its own retention policy for second graders. Other states were already implementing reading retention policies, and there was one on the books in Tennessee that allowed schools the option to retain students based on third grade reading scores.

The board approved the policy in 2019, as the district was staring down a lofty literacy goal and stagnant reading scores. At the time, this year’s third graders were entering kindergarten, and school officials were stressing the importance of literacy as a gateway to advanced learning.

District officials considered delaying implementation of the policy because of the pandemic, but decided not to, on the basis that third grade would be too late to intervene. So the threat of retention trailed students into their second grade classrooms as they returned from a year of online school.

Giovannetti recalls second grade being intense, as teachers prepared students for third grade. Her son made it through to third grade without having to attend summer school. This year, she said, the state’s retention law for third graders was “kind of all we heard about.”

The district’s retention policy doesn’t exist anymore. MSCS revoked it in August without much discussion.

But by then, the learning setbacks caused by online schooling, which continued in MSCS well after other Tennessee districts resumed in-person school instruction, had already prompted Tennessee lawmakers to enact a statewide policy, but based on just the one test. So the retention threat followed these students into third grade.

“We were ahead of the game,” Angela Whitelaw, then one of two MSCS acting superintendents, told board members in an August committee meeting. “But now we need to align all of our resources and all of our work along with the state.”

Facing more school, student ‘wanted to go home’

Sanders, Kamryn’s mother, said she’s been keeping up with parent meetings and all the online communication from school that her daughter brings home.

Even before the scores arrived, third grade teachers had been talking about retests, and some students, including Kamryn, had already been signed up for summer school, based on anticipated results.

The walkout incident was shocking, Sanders said, because her daughter has always seemed to love school.

She had to attend summer school last year and tutoring throughout the year for reading. But that hadn’t stopped her from enjoying other subjects, like art and music. And in math, she helped her classmates learn their multiplication tables, her mom said.

On that day, “she just said she wanted to go home,” Sanders said.

In a statement about the girl’s experience, the district said counseling and other emotional supports are available to students, and that her school still had fun end-of-year activities.

“Districtwide, we’re working hard to uplift and celebrate our third graders,” the district said, “because we know the state-mandated reading retention law has deeply affected these little learners.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis 3rd graders improved in reading from 2nd grade, but thousands could still be held back

2023-05-24T17:49:02+00:00

Early state test results show Memphis third graders improved in reading this year, and more students in the cohort are mastering state reading goals.

But about three-quarters of third graders in Memphis-Shelby County Schools are still not meeting expectations, which means they could face more tests, tutoring, and summer school this year. Unless they hit certain marks along the way, they could be held back.

That’s because of the new reading retention law that took effect across Tennessee for this year’s third-graders, bringing the high stakes of standardized testing felt by school districts and teachers down to the student level.

The process won’t be totally unfamiliar to the students and families in Memphis-Shelby County Schools. The district briefly had its own retention policy for struggling readers, focused on second graders. That policy, suspended in August, looked at a dozen test scores from throughout the year to determine whether students needed to be held back. Last year, most second graders were required to attend summer school to be able to advance to third grade.

District officials said this year’s preliminary results pointed to progress, as well as the need for continued interventions.

“We have to move further faster, but because of their resilience and our interventions, the class of 2032 is making gains,” interim Superintendent Toni Williams wrote of the district’s third graders in an email to board members sharing the early scores. Chalkbeat obtained a copy of the email.

According to the preliminary results, 76% of students in that class, or about 6,500, fell below the state’s reading expectations.

“You’re going to be receiving, as third grade parents, a lot of communication,” said Shawn Page, the district’s chief of academic operations and school support. “So what we’ve got to make sure is that your address is correct, your phone number is correct, your email is correct.”

Not all those students will need to go to summer school or face retention, since some will qualify for exemptions. Those include third graders with a disability or suspected disability that affects reading; students who have been previously retained; and English language learners with less than two years of instruction in English language arts.

“Every case has to be looked at individually,” said Shawn Page, the district’s chief of academic operations and school support. “It’s not just one size fits all.”

Academic officials said Wednesday that the district had yet to calculate all of its exemptions, but expected them to be done this week, adding that families had been informed about the exemptions earlier this school year.

“It’s a tedious process that has to be done at the school level,” said Bill White, the district’s director of planning and accountability.

Williams praised the gains for this year’s third graders, who were kindergarteners when the pandemic began and who spent first grade learning online from home. When these students were in second grade, just 16.5% scored as proficient on state reading tests. This year, 23.6% did.

But comparing this year’s third graders to last year’s third graders, the scores showed virtually no improvement, and most students scored “below proficient,” the lowest of the four performance categories.

Across Tennessee, about 40% of third graders scored proficient in reading, according to the preliminary data released by the state on Monday.

What comes next? Retests and new results.

MSCS schools sent letters home with third graders Monday and Tuesday, notifying families whether their students scored proficient or not. For students who were below the threshold, the last days of the school year this week will include a retest on the computer.

Students who have to take the retest “didn’t do anything wrong,” Jaron Carson, the chief academic officer for the district, said Tuesday. Rather, he said, the state is “excluding what the child has done the entire school year.”

Families will receive new communication after the testing do-over, and the district expects to have these scores by May 29. Instead of sending report cards home with students at the end of the school year, the district is mailing them home on Friday, June 2.

“You’re going to be receiving, as third grade parents, a lot of communication,” Page said. “So what we’ve got to make sure is that your address is correct, your phone number is correct, your email is correct.”

Students who scored proficient on the retest can move on to fourth grade as usual.

For those who didn’t, the next steps depend on whether they scored “below” or “approaching” proficiency.

Students who scored “below” have to go to summer school, with a 90% attendance rate, meaning they can’t miss more than two days of the four-week program. Then, they have to participate in tutoring throughout fourth grade. If they don’t meet the new requirements, they have to repeat the third grade.

Students who scored “approaching” have a different set of options. They can appeal the scores, academic officials explained Tuesday, to bypass the retention requirements. Students can be eligible for appeals for two reasons: if they scored a 40% on the district’s spring iReady test, or, if they experienced “extenuating circumstances” during testing, like a death in the family, illness, or housing instability, White explained.

“By submitting an appeal form,” the district says on its website, “a family will waive a student’s right to receive free tutoring and/or summer school programming to support their academic success.”

White clarified Wednesday that if the state denies a family’s appeal, the student will still have the chance to participate in tutoring throughout fourth grade.

Students who don’t seek appeals have to decide between participating in tutoring throughout fourth grade or attending the summer learning academy. In order to move on to fourth grade after summer school alone, students have to meet the 90% attendance rate, and take a test showing improvement of 5 percentage points compared with an earlier test.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis school board dysfunction risks repelling top superintendent prospects

2023-05-17T21:59:48+00:00

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board is finally approaching a consensus on reopening its stalled superintendent search to get more applicants in the pool.

The question now — a full month into a pause with no end in sight — is whether the district can attract more high-caliber candidates when its board is still struggling to define what it wants from its next superintendent.

“The relationship between the superintendent and the school board is maybe the most important job consideration for a superintendent,” said Jason Grissom, a professor of leadership, policy, and organizations at Vanderbilt University who has examined issues such as superintendent turnover.

The way a board conducts its search signals the board’s ability to “be on the same page, and to function successfully,” Grissom said. Without that, “some candidates may back away.”

The bigger risk, Grissom and others warn, is that continued discord among board members makes the job of the next superintendent more difficult and causes them to want to leave.

Turnover among superintendents is already high in urban districts. And MSCS, where most students aren’t reading at state benchmarks and where many struggle with poverty, can ill afford more instability at the top.

Process unraveled abruptly and publicly

District officials had promised the public a search process that would help restore trust and confidence in district leadership after the scandal that prompted former Superintendent Joris Ray to resign in August.

Instead, the search veered off course just as it was set to conclude, with some board members questioning the entire process and board policies after the outside search firm presented three top candidates. Board Chair Althea Greene declared a halt to the search and canceled planned interviews with the finalists.

Disagreement among school board members is common and can be a sign of a deliberative body fulfilling its duty rather than acting as a rubber stamp. “Democracy is sometimes ugly,” MSCS board member Kevin Woods acknowledged last month.

But the MSCS board’s disagreements have erupted unexpectedly and in public view, pointing to broader dysfunction.

The discussions and events since the April 15 meeting have turned up more signs the board had failed to coalesce on fundamental aspects of the search, even as it was in full swing. For example:

Months after they approved a contract for the search firm — Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates — some members appeared to be unclear about what the firm was charged with doing, or what criteria it was using to evaluate candidates.
Some members suggested that new steps be added to the search process that had been outlined to the public months earlier.
The vice chair has been at odds with other members about whether to enforce a longstanding board policy that requires a superintendent to have 10 years of classroom or school leadership experience — a policy the search firm didn’t apply in screening applicants.
The district barred several community activists who raised questions about board actions in the search and threatened them with arrest. MSCS said the bans followed “disruptive” behavior and threats to public safety.
The board is poised to extend the selection timeline into the next school year after accelerating it in December for the purpose of having a new superintendent on duty by the summer.

A board retreat on Friday — featuring a meeting facilitator and an expert in school board operations — offered the first clear signs that MSCS board members acknowledge the need to start fresh with shared goals, rather than arguing about what has happened so far.

“You agreed on something … . You said status quo is not it,” said the facilitator, Tomeka Hart Wigginton, a former board member who led the superintendent search for Memphis City Schools in 2008.

Board member Stephanie Love, who is now co-chairing the search with Joyce Dorse-Coleman, pointed to Hart Wigginton as one of the reasons the board is moving forward and able to have “a more defined search process for greater community confidence and a better work environment for our next MSCS leader.”

As things stand, 26 candidates remain in the pool. But according to HYA, only three of the top seven candidates it identified are still interested: Carlton Jenkins, superintendent of schools in Madison, Wisconsin; Angela Whitelaw, the district’s chief academic officer; and Toni Williams, the interim superintendent. Another candidate who withdrew has since asked to re-enter the search, but it is unclear if she would be a possible finalist.

Two top contenders identified by HYA dropped out within days of the April 15 meeting: Brenda Cassellius, former superintendent of Boston Public Schools, withdrew after learning that the interviews were postponed, and later accepted a leadership role at a nonprofit. And Keith Miles Jr., superintendent of Bridgeton Public Schools in New Jersey, will become superintendent of the School District of Lancaster in Pennsylvania.

District’s reform efforts are on the line

Board members have signaled that they want more candidates to apply, and a new set of criteria to evaluate them. They plan to keep meeting until they can agree on their next steps and a revised timeline.

Whoever is selected will have to take on responsibility for a school reform effort that has been thrown off track by the pandemic and Ray’s resignation. And the district wants someone who will stay long enough to see it through.

Jason Grissom is a professor of leadership, policy and organizations at Vanderbilt University who has examined issues such as superintendent turnover.

But the odds are not in MSCS’ favor unless board members can find common ground. Grissom said research has shown that school board dysfunction is a predictor of superintendent turnover. And urban districts, with high numbers of low-income students and students of color, already struggle with greater turnover. Memphis has the nation’s fourth-highest child poverty rate among large cities, and nearly 90% of MSCS students are Black or Latino.

“Superintendents of urban districts stay in those jobs for less time than in other kinds of districts,” Grissom said. “It’s a hard job, and it’s a very political job, and so they have vacancies more frequently.”

In a 2021 RAND Corp. survey of 3,459 charter- and traditional-school superintendents, half said they planned to leave their jobs in the next few years, or were unsure about staying. ”Superintendent turnover can potentially harm district functioning in that it can disrupt longer-term and systemic school reforms, which typically take five or more years,” the report warned.

That finding points to more urgency for the MSCS board to resolve its differences and fix its selection process.

Questions about Williams’ candidacy lead to crackdown

One place to begin, Grissom said, is with more transparency and communication among board members and with the public.

Some board members, for example, said they asked for the entire list of applicants because they were in the dark about how the rubric was created for evaluating them, and because they didn’t know who the three finalists were until Hazard Young announced the choices publicly.

“We as a board did not decide as a whole on the criteria,” said Sheleah Harris, the vice chair.

Venita Doggett, director of advocacy for Memphis Education Fund and a member of a community advisory committee that was involved in the search, raised similar concerns.

“Not only were the advisory committee members not included or weren’t heard, it looks as if the board members who raised those concerns also weren’t heard,” she said.

Rebuilding public trust in the search process will likely be a heavy lift for MSCS.

Some community members and education advocates said they became skeptical of the process when Williams, who initially said she wasn’t interested in the permanent job, applied for it and emerged as a finalist, despite not having the minimum classroom experience required by board policy.

Williams said she applied for the role after receiving support from community members and board members.

When Rachael Spriggs, an education advocate and former school board candidate, questioned the board on that point at a May 9 meeting, she was silenced by Greene, the board chair, on the grounds that she violated a public commenting policy by referring to a district employee by name.

Spriggs soon found herself banned from entering district property, along with several others, including former teacher union president Tikeila Rucker, activist L.J. Abraham and, later, disability rights advocate Damon Morris. In a statement, MSCS said the bans followed “disruptive” behavior and threats to public safety.

Neither Greene nor MSCS personnel would say who authorized the bans. But the crackdown on several prominent critics — including police threats to arrest them if they enter any district buildings — has the board facing a fresh round of public criticism at the same time that it’s trying to reestablish trust and attract new superintendent candidates.

Public needs reassurance about the process

With the search effectively starting again, board members must be conscious of what they’re communicating to the public and candidates, Grissom said.

“They need to be real clear about any changes they’re making and why,” he said. “They must take seriously how a search can signal things to the candidates and to the public. It can signal to them what it may be like to work in this environment.”

Board members may have a good reason to, say, waive the experience requirements for a candidate like Williams, he said, but they must think about what that signals — especially for keeping top superintendent applicants in the hunt and building trust with the community.

“You can still get buy-in even if the public doesn’t get its first choice, but they feel the process was legitimate and everyone followed the rules,” he said.

That’s the reset some board members are seeking after the May 12 retreat, where they reached a consensus on reopening the search and seeking more applicants, as well as reworking the rubric for the job.

They hope to have a formal plan soon — nearly nine months after Ray resigned.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis district may drop ServiceMaster custodial contract as cleanliness concerns persist

2023-05-17T18:01:07+00:00

Memphis-Shelby County Schools wants to clean up the way it cleans up its schools.

Last year, the board approved a four-year, $34 million contract with ServiceMaster Clean to provide custodial services across the district. The cost was significantly higher than the previous year, when the work was split between two providers, but MSCS sought a wage increase to $15 an hour, which the district argued would help it hire and retain workers.

Even so, the contract hasn’t resolved persistent cleanliness concerns raised by students and teachers. So among other options, the district may consider terminating the contract early.

“We want our kids going to clean schools,” board member Frank Johnson said at a meeting Tuesday, requesting that district officials present options for an updated custodial plan. Earlier this school year, Johnson said students at a school in his district walked out of class in protest of dirty classrooms.

Interim Superintendent Toni Williams — who was the chief financial officer when the board approved the ServiceMaster Clean contract last June — said the district has withheld payment for some $6 million in pandemic-related cleaning services that ServiceMaster Clean has not executed.

ServiceMaster Clean didn’t deep-clean the schools last summer, a task typically performed every summer, district officials said Tuesday.

“I just want to point out that the accountability is there,” Williams said Tuesday. “If we are going to do this, I’m going to be accountable for the schools.”

Williams said the district would present options to board members later this month, including a cost analysis for bringing custodial workers in-house.

This year, board members are requesting a more active role in deciding what happens with custodial services. In previous years, the board split over votes to approve custodial contracts presented by the district, with the lasting cleanliness concerns brought up each time.

Last year, for instance, the board voted down the ServiceMaster Clean contract before reconvening less than a week later to approve it.

For now, the board isn’t facing any impending deadlines: The current contract isn’t nearing expiration, and the district is not actively seeking new vendors for the work.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis school board poised to widen superintendent search; 3 activists barred from meeting

2023-05-13T01:51:14+00:00

A majority of Memphis-Shelby County Schools board members signaled Friday that they want to reopen the search for a new superintendent, consider more candidates and use a different set of criteria to evaluate them.

The board consensus, based on an informal vote, emerged from a meeting that was aimed at restoring community trust in a search that stalled last month, when the board fractured over the initial slate of finalists and the process that produced them.

But rebuilding trust could be difficult after police and district security officers barred at least three prominent activists from the meeting, citing a threat to public safety and “disruptive behavior.”

“It’s very discouraging,” said Rachael Spriggs, a former school board candidate and former district employee. Spriggs, who was part of a coalition calling for transparency and integrity in the search process, was one of the activists who received notice that they would face arrest if they appeared on MSCS property.

Discord between the board and community advocates has persisted throughout the search for a successor to Joris Ray, who resigned as superintendent in August 2022 under a cloud of scandal. Some activists complain that the search has been conducted without enough community input or accountability.

The board, too, has been sharply divided over how to proceed since the search was halted abruptly on April 15. At Friday’s meeting, board members articulated what they wanted out of the process and the new superintendent, a discussion they acknowledged should have happened months ago. And they heard guidance from experts on how a search should occur under district policy.

They expect to reconvene in a set of meetings that will be announced next week.

“I want to commend you for recognizing that you needed the time together today,” Tomeka Hart Wigginton, a former Memphis school board member who facilitated the discussion, told the board.

Memphis activist LJ Abraham photographed a form barring her from all Memphis-Shelby County Schools property.

It is unclear who authorized the bans on the three activists. Three board members told Chalkbeat they were unaware of the bans. Board Chair Althea Greene declined to comment as she exited the meeting Friday. MSCS declined to say whether the interim superintendent, Toni Williams, authorized them.

Memphis police officers and top MSCS security officials ushered the three out of the auditorium Friday afternoon. Authorities gave them forms to sign acknowledging that they were banned from all district locations. They did not receive copies of the forms.

Activists told Chalkbeat they expected more information about why they had been banned.

The conflict with Spriggs first flared during a special called meeting Tuesday, when the board met to approve its budget and discuss the superintendent search.

When Spriggs questioned whether Williams had board member support to apply for the permanent superintendent role — something Williams said she wouldn’t do when she became interim leader — Greene silenced her, citing a board policy that restricts commenters at board meetings from mentioning school district employees by name.

When board member Joyce Dorse-Coleman told attendees that the superintendent search would remain paused, several activists got up and left the room. At that moment, as the crowd dispersed, some devices on the ground began emitting a loud noise, similar to a fire alarm.

The district said in a statement to Chalkbeat: “Multiple people were banned for threats to public safety, including repeated disruptive behavior and activating panic alarms.”

The banned activists — Spriggs, former teacher union president Tikeila Rucker, and community activist LJ Abraham — said they had not received any warning from the district or board members after they appeared for public comment at the Tuesday board meeting. It is unclear whether other people face bans.

Abraham captured a photo of her form, which says that police can arrest her on the school district’s behalf if she visits any board office or school location. The form is signed by Carolyn Jackson, the chief security officer for MSCS.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis school board will reset timeline for superintendent search

2023-05-10T03:18:20+00:00

The search for a new leader for Memphis-Shelby County Schools looks like it won’t be done anytime soon.

The school board, which met Tuesday amid sharp divisions over how to complete the selection of the district’s next superintendent, is scheduled to meet again on Friday to discuss a revised timeline for the search.

Board member Joyce Dorse-Coleman, who is now co-leading the search with Stephanie Love, said the continued pause through the final weeks of the school year would allow the board to focus on its budget, student testing, and graduations, and to address community concerns about the search process.

“I emphasize that we are not stopping the search for superintendent,” Dorse-Coleman said.

The board had once planned to have a successor to former Superintendent Joris Ray chosen by the spring and on the job this summer, before the start of the 2023-24 school year. But it is unlikely to meet those deadlines.

The search got derailed last month, when several board members raised objections about how the process was wrapping up, just as the outside search firm presented its initial slate of finalists. Board Chair Althea Greene decided to halt the process while board members ironed out their differences.

That decision led to a shuffling of the top contenders, but none of the remaining candidates have been publicly interviewed, and no interviews have been scheduled before the board and the public.

The process so far has left three top contenders remaining: Carlton Jenkins of Madison, Wisconsin; Angela Whitelaw, Memphis’ top academic official; and the district’s interim superintendent, Toni Williams. At least two other leading candidates withdrew from consideration and accepted other jobs.

The board was set to meet this week to try to forge agreement on how to restart the process and resolve other key questions, including whether Williams, the district’s former finance chief, meets the minimum qualifications for the superintendent job.

Those items are likely to be discussed during the retreat Friday, though no agenda has been posted.

Board member Michelle McKissack said Tuesday that she believed candidate interviews should go ahead, but that she supported the decision to focus on the district’s students at the end of the year.

No other board member spoke about the decision Tuesday, and the board did not hold a vote on pausing the search, even though a search update was listed as an action item on the board agenda. (Board members Amber Huett-Garcia and Kevin Woods did not attend the meeting.)

It’s the third time since the formation of the merged Memphis-Shelby County district that a superintendent search has been interrupted. The two previous superintendents, Ray and predecessor Dorsey Hopson, were elevated as internal appointments after national searches were quickly called off. The current process is the first time a national search has progressed so far for the combined district.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis school district’s superintendent search: Here’s the latest on the applicants

2023-04-27T16:52:53+00:00

The search for Memphis’ next school superintendent attracted several Memphis-area educators as well as current and former district leaders from across the country, a Chalkbeat Tennessee review of candidates found. But several of the leading contenders have dropped out. And one applicant who withdrew has asked to be reconsidered.

Outside search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates released a near-complete list of applicants last week at the behest of board members, many of whom were dissatisfied with the selection process and the initial finalist slate the firm presented at an April 15 meeting. Board Chair Althea Greene paused the search after that meeting, derailing the monthslong quest for a successor to former Superintendent Joris Ray.

Board members will determine the next step during an upcoming nonvoting meeting. Greene, who had been leading the search, passed the torch to board members Stephanie Love and Joyce Dorse-Coleman after board member Amber Huett-Garcia called for a leadership change.

Among the candidates who have withdrawn from consideration are Brenda Cassellius, who was one of three initial finalists, and Keith Miles Jr., a proposed addition to the finalist slate who accepted another job. According to Max McGee, president of Hazard Young, only three of the seven people whom the firm considered top contenders were still pursuing the job a few days after the firm presented finalists.

But since then, one applicant, Marie Feagins, has asked to be reconsidered, according to an email obtained by Chalkbeat. The firm called her a “high scoring candidate” in an email to board members. But it is unclear if Feagins is part of the expanded top candidate slate, or if she will be added to the finalist pool. Her application materials indicate she was among the top 12. (Read more about her below.)

“At this point, the board has not decided to expand the pool and allow additional candidates. That will be part of the discussion at the upcoming board retreat,” Love said in a statement through KQ Communications, which has assisted the board throughout the search.

The board could decide to expand its candidate pool beyond the remaining top contenders and offer interviews to lower-scoring applicants. It is also poised to decide whether interim Superintendent Toni Williams, whose background is in finance, is qualified for the role. (The search firm did not screen candidates against the board’s minimum requirements.)

Hazard Young publicly released a list of names — without resumes — for the remaining candidates. Other than the top contenders, it is unclear how these applicants scored. The district received applications from 34 people; 21 met the basic criteria, and 12 made the final round of interviews.

Here’s a look at what Chalkbeat has learned about the leading contenders, the ones who withdrew their names, and others who are still pursuing the job. Candidates in each category are listed in alphabetical order.

Who are the remaining top applicants for Memphis superintendent?

Carlton Jenkins announced plans to retire as superintendent of Wisconsin’s Madison Metropolitan School District in February. He assumed the role in August 2020 after a career in education that the Wisconsin State Journal wrote included a superintendency in suburban Minneapolis. In Madison, Jenkins was the district’s first Black superintendent, according to Lake Geneva Regional News, and has been the president of the African American Superintendents Association.

Jenkins is one of the initial three finalists whom Hazard Young presented to the MSCS board.

Angela Whitelaw is a longtime educator and administrator in the Memphis school district who was one of two acting superintendents for a month and a half this summer. She has since returned to her post as deputy superintendent overseeing academics. Whitelaw has held the role since February 2019, when she was one of Ray’s first two appointees to his cabinet. She was previously the chief of schools.

The search firm recommended that the MSCS board add Whitelaw to the finalist pool.

Toni Williams became the interim superintendent of MSCS last August on the premise that she was not interested in the role permanently. She then changed her position and applied for the job last month. She has enjoyed support from community and board members alike as she focused on accountability measures during her interim tenure. She has nearly a decade of experience in public education focused on finance, but not academics.

Williams is one of the initial three finalists whom Hazard Young presented to the MSCS board.

Who are the leading contenders for Memphis superintendent who withdrew?

Brenda Cassellius was recently the superintendent at Boston Public Schools for three years, and was the statewide education commissioner in Minnesota for almost a decade before that. Cassellius wanted to stay longer in the Boston leadership position, The Boston Globe reported, but left the job last summer. Her departure was announced as a mutual decision, but Cassellius told the Globe that recently elected Boston Mayor Michelle Wu “should be able to pick her own team.”

Cassellius, who was also a recent superintendent finalist for a suburban Minneapolis school district, dropped out of the Memphis search after her announcement as a finalist, citing the board’s discussion and suspension of the search on April 15. She has since accepted a non-profit sector job.

Keith Miles Jr., superintendent of Bridgeton Public Schools in New Jersey, has been a school and district administrator in several districts in the northeastern United States, according to his current biography.

The search firm recommended on April 18 that the MSCS board add Miles to the finalist pool. The next day, the firm told board members Miles accepted an offer for the new job, superintendent of the School District of Lancaster in Pennsylvania.

Who else applied for the role?

Morcease Beasley is set to step down as superintendent of Metro Atlanta’s Clayton County Schools at the end of the school year, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported last fall. Beasley was elevated to the role from an internal position in 2017, the newspaper previously reported, after administrative roles at Metro Atlanta’s DeKalb County School district.

Tonya Biles was, in 2011, a top education administrator at Memphis Academy of Health Sciences, a local charter school.

Stephen Bournes is the top academic administrator for Chester Community Charter School in a town near Philadelphia. According to his biography, he was a top administrator of a suburban Chicago school before that and has 25 years of academic experience.

Lee Buddy, according to his LinkedIn profile, is a top administrator in Cleveland’s school district. He was elevated to the role in 2021 after several years as a teacher and school administrator in various districts.

Vallerie Cave has been the superintendent of schools in Colleton County, South Carolina, near Charleston, since 2021. In February, board members considered terminating her contract, according to local news reports. Before this, she was an education administrator in Savannah, Georgia, and her resume includes additional experience, mostly in the South.

Marie Feagins is a top academics official in Detroit’s public school district where she has overseen district leadership and high schools since 2021, according to application materials obtained by Chalkbeat. Before that, she was a principal and administrator in Cleveland and in Huntsville, Alabama. Her early career included counseling and teaching in Alabama schools in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. She was recently among six applicants interviewed for the superintendency in Fayetteville, Arkansas, according to news reports.

Cynthia Gentry is a longtime education administrator who has sought top Memphis leadership positions before, including the Memphis superintendency in 2003, The Commercial Appeal archives show. Gentry narrowly lost a bid for an at-large Memphis school board seat in 2008, receiving more than 80,000 votes, the newspaper reported.

Cedrick Gray, now an education leadership consultant, was the first education liaison for Shelby County. He was among the finalists for Tennessee’s turnaround superintendent, and has been a superintendent twice before. At Jackson Public Schools, Mississippi’s largest district, he was named national superintendent of the year before resigning.

Alexis Gwin-Miller is listed as the executive director of Memphis’ Power Center Community Development Corp. and was, for a short time, principal of Crosstown High School, a local charter school. Power Center CDC is an urban development group linked to Gestalt Community Schools, a charter operator of several schools in Memphis.

Vincent Hunter is the longtime principal of MSCS’ Whitehaven High School, where seniors score millions of dollars in college scholarships, and recent leader of the neighborhood-based school turnaround program. Hunter enjoys support from both the Whitehaven neighborhood and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.

Alisha Kiner rose to her position as an MSCS district leader after a decadelong tenure at Booker T. Washington High School. The school’s graduation rates rose dramatically during her tenure, prompting then-President Barack Obama to visit the school to deliver its 2011 commencement address.

Derrick Jones Lopez is an education administrator in Detroit’s school district focused on high schools, according to his LinkedIn profile. Lopez was fired without cause from his position as superintendent of schools in Flint, Michigan. A subsequent settlement agreement voided a disciplinary memo alleging poor performance, MLive news reported.

Roderick Richmond is a longtime, high-ranking MSCS academics administrator who has been a finalist for superintendent for Tennessee’s Nashville and Jackson school districts. Within the district, Richmond was an architect of the iZone, Memphis’ school turnaround program.

Terry Ross is a former Memphis principal who was reassigned to a district-level academic adviser position after an investigation into alleged harassment and improper grade changing. According to his online resume, Ross also works with a group supporting teacher retention.

Art Stellar was named vice president of the National Education Foundation in 2013 after a career as an educator and administrator, including tenures as superintendent. Test scores improved under Stellar’s leadership at a Massachusetts school district, the Taunton Daily Gazette reported, but disagreements with teachers led to his dismissal there and later from a North Carolina district.

Bernard Taylor is an education administrator in Pittsburgh, documents show. Taylor returned to the district as a principal in 2017 after a tumultuous tenure as superintendent of East Baton Rouge Parish schools in Louisiana, but was later suspended over abuse claims. He was a superintendent twice before, according to his biography.

Reginald R. Williams is the principal at MSCS’ Overton High School. He has been a Memphis school administrator for decades. Prior to his Overton tenure, Williams was the principal at Memphis Academy of Health Sciences, where his firing over test scores was the first public challenge to a law aimed at protecting certain school personnel from such actions.

Antwan Wilson was the top education official for Oakland, California, and Washington, D.C., schools between 2014 and 2018 after nearly a decade climbing the ranks in Denver public schools. He resigned from his Washington post after side-stepping a school lottery process for his child, and months after The Washington Post reported Wilson left Oakland schools in financial disrepair. He has since become an education consultant.

Five other applicants were on the list Hazard Young provided: Donald Boyd, Eric Henderson, Tameka Henderson, Anson Smith, and Darrell Williams. Chalkbeat was unable to confirm their identities and professional backgrounds.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

MSCS board turns away 10 charter school applications

2023-04-26T05:09:42+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the Shelby County public school system and statewide education policy.

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board on Tuesday denied initial applications from 10 charter schools, including several low-performing schools that are seeking to return to the district as charters after a failed turnaround effort by the state.

It is typical for the district to recommend denials in the initial round of applications, and ask applicants to revise their proposals. The board will make final determinations on the charter school applications later this summer, after applicants have a chance to make requested revisions.

The board took up the 10 applications in two batches. One was a group of existing schools leaving the Achievement School District, the state turnaround program for low-performing schools. The other is a group of new proposed charters, primarily from operators that want to offer career and technical education programming, a new state priority.

The set of charter applications before the board show the impact in Memphis of two things happening at the state level: the chaotic unraveling of Tennessee’s charter-focused school turnaround effort, and this summer’s arrival of a new state education funding formula that provides extra money for career education programs.

The five schools from the ASD were once operated by the district. When the state designated them as low performers, it assigned them to charter operators to reform under 10-year contracts. State leaders have acknowledged for years that the turnaround effort failed.

Now, as the 10-year contracts near expiration, the school operators are applying to continue managing the schools as charters under the MSCS umbrella. That’s one of the possible exit routes outlined by the state for ASD schools, most of which are in Memphis.

Board member Stephanie Love appeared to suggest the ASD schools, which have high academic needs, should undergo a different process.

“I don’t think the ASD should be treated as a regular charter school,” said Love, whose district includes several of the schools.

MSCS, board forced to reckon with fallout of ASD

The five Achievement School District charters that sought approval from the MSCS board are Humes Middle School, Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep High School, Cornerstone Lester Prep Elementary, Journey Coleman School, and Fairley High School.

The ASD applicants lost points for lacking details in their proposed transition plans to the district. They were also dinged for remaining low-performing. Low academic performance regularly puts Memphis charter schools in jeopardy of closure.

“It appears to me that they’re still just floating money in a sinkhole,” board member Keith Williams said of the schools in a recent committee meeting.

The board has approved one ASD school to operate as a charter, but that school has not yet opened. Other former ASD schools have reentered the district’s own turnaround program called the iZone, which brings students at traditional public schools additional academic support. The program isn’t available for charter schools.

MSCS board members have started discussions about reabsorbing the other ASD schools as traditional public schools under the iZone. This could happen if the charter applications are rejected again by the MSCS board and by the state charter commission.

Dozens of Fairley High School students, families, and staff members urged the board on Tuesday to approve the bid by their charter operator, Green Dot Public Schools Tennessee, to continue running the school.

“Growth matters … . We are proud of the work we have done to support Fairley High School, and we look forward to continuing to support Fairley and the Lakeview community,” Jocquell Rodgers, the executive director of Green Dot, told board members.

Research has shown turnaround models like the iZone and the ASD are hard to sustain. Board member Amber Huett-Garcia requested data to compare the performance of ASD charters against MSCS’ lowest-performing schools in the iZone.

During a committee meeting, Huett-Garcia said she was unsure how the ASD charters offered something “different than what we do” at MSCS.

The board’s ultimate decisions about the ASD schools are likely to intersect with its upcoming facilities plan. State law says that MSCS regains control of the physical school building once a school exits the ASD, and MSCS has indicated its facilities plan could include decisions about the ASD school buildings. A new Frayser high school, for instance, would mean MLK College Prep closes.

New career and tech applicants part of ‘next wave’ of charters

The five new charter schools seeking approval from MSCS are Memphis Grizzlies Prep STEAM School for Girls, Empower Memphis Career and College Prep, Change Academy, Pathways in Education-Memphis, and Tennessee Career Academy.

Three of the five have a career and technical education focus.

Career and technical education “is kind of this next wave” of charters across the state, Brittany Monda, the district’s assistant superintendent of charter schools, told board members recently. Previous waves have been college prep-focused or STEM-focused, she said.

Tennessee’s new school funding formula uses a per-pupil funding model, with direct funding allocations for career and technical education.

MSCS officials said approving the new charter schools would cost the district’s traditional operations $60 million in revenue.

Monda praised the applicants’ ideas, but said they needed to return with more detail. Board member Sheleah Harris requested more information from the district about what academic needs charter schools could fill districtwide to help the board decide.

Of the remaining two schools, one is a returning applicant that was denied last year. The second is a former alternative high school that closed after its charter contract expired with the ASD.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

MSCS superintendent search remains on hold until board members agree on an approach

2023-04-25T03:48:19+00:00

Memphis-Shelby County Schools board members decided Monday to keep their search for a new superintendent on pause while they try to reach consensus on what they want for the district and its next leader.

The search came to an abrupt halt after an April 15 meeting, where some board members signaled their dissatisfaction with the outside search firm that selected three finalists for the job. Board members sought to clarify future steps during a special called meeting on Monday.

The board dismissed a motion to fire the search firm, appearing instead to accept responsibility for regaining the community’s trust in the search process.

Rather than saying, “Oh well, let’s do something different,” the board should “stick our hands together … . come up with a better plan and move forward,” said board Vice Chair Sheleah Harris, who has emerged as a leading critic of the search process so far.

Members voted unanimously to reconvene at some point within two weeks for a nonvoting meeting. A key issue they’ll still have to resolve is how strictly to apply a board policy on the minimum requirements for a superintendent. The search firm that recruited candidates for the job, Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, said it didn’t enforce a board policy requiring 10 years of in-school experience when it screened applicants.

Harris wants the board to adhere to that policy in its final selection, which could be a deciding factor for finalist Toni Williams, the interim superintendent, whose public school experience is in finance, not academics.

Several of the two dozen public commenters at Monday’s meeting urged the board to enforce the policy as a way of restoring transparency to the search process. Others, though, said the district could benefit from a business-minded leader like Williams who looked to others for academic direction.

Kevin Woods reiterated Monday that the board controls the policy and the process, and ought to determine what type of leader it wants, whether that’s an experienced chief financial officer or a career educator.

“I think the candidates brought forth by the search firm allow you to make that decision through your up or down vote,” Woods said. “But if the community believes that it’s important for us to review our policy and clearly articulate what that looks like, then we can do that also. But it’s OK to own that.”

But Woods cautioned the board against becoming a “de facto search firm” that would adjudicate applicants itself, and argued for keeping Hazard Young.

Harris and board member Amber Huett-Garcia agreed that the firm did what it was asked, but said it did not act on input from all board members.

Still, Huett-Garcia said her constituents faulted the board, not the candidates, for the muddled outcome.

“It is the way that we handled it,” Huett-Garcia said. “It feels, whether that’s true or not, that we did this in the dark.”

Huett-Garcia called for new leadership in the search process, which has been led so far by board Chair Althea Greene.

In its evaluation process, Hazard Young scored candidates who met the board’s minimum requirements — which include professional academic experiences — higher than those who did not. But it did not exclude candidates who didn’t meet them, search firm president Max McGee explained in a voice call to board members during the meeting.

Williams, the interim superintendent and former district CFO, said in a statement that she was proud of the “proven track record” of her interim superintendency. While she didn’t plan to seek the permanent role, she said, she did so after board members and other community leaders supported her application.

Williams is alongside two other top contenders, both career educators: Carlton Jenkins, superintendent of Madison Metropolitan School District in Wisconsin, and Angela Whitelaw, Memphis’ top academic official. Four other high-scoring candidates have withdrawn from the process.

Said Harris after the meeting: “I would encourage all current applicants, if they look at board policy as it exists right now and they know that they qualify, I would strongly encourage them to stay in the race.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Another top candidate for Memphis superintendent withdraws

2023-04-19T14:32:02+00:00

Another top contender for the Memphis-Shelby County Schools superintendent job has withdrawn.

Keith Miles Jr., the current superintendent of Bridgeton Public Schools in New Jersey, is expected to become the superintendent of the School District of Lancaster in Pennsylvania. The firm leading the MSCS search informed board members Wednesday morning that Miles had taken his name out of the running in Memphis, according to an email obtained by Chalkbeat.

Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, the search firm, introduced Miles as one of two suggested additions to the Memphis superintendent finalist list on Tuesday.

Miles’ withdrawal again leaves the Memphis school board with three top candidates for a search process that has been in turmoil since an initial batch of finalists was announced at a Saturday board meeting that exposed deep disagreements about the process.

One of the initial finalists, Brenda Cassellius, a recent Boston superintendent with Memphis ties, withdrew after that meeting.

Board members continued to question the search process and results in a Tuesday evening work session, where they resolved to vote about how to proceed next week.

One next step could be to add Angela Whitelaw, the district’s top academic official, to the finalist slate, as suggested by Hazard Young on Tuesday. She would join remaining finalists Carlton Jenkins, of Wisconsin’s Madison Metropolitan School District; and Toni Williams, the current interim superintendent of MSCS.

The board is poised to determine whether Williams, whose experience is mainly in finance rather than academics, is sufficiently qualified for the permanent role.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis school board scrambling to get superintendent search back on track

2023-04-19T03:36:33+00:00

Update, April 19, 10:43 a.m.: One of two announced top contenders for the Memphis superintendent role has withdrawn. Keith Miles Jr., superintendent of Bridgeton Public Schools in New Jersey, is expected to become the superintendent of the School District of Lancaster in Pennsylvania.

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board will vote next week on how to proceed in choosing a superintendent after its nationwide search was derailed Saturday when board members raised questions about an outside search firm’s recommendation of three finalists.

Board chair Althea Greene, who has been leading the search over the last six months, said she paused the search because “it was very clear last Saturday that we were not ready to move on.”

The board needs to decide how many finalists will be interviewed and whether interim superintendent Toni Williams is qualified to fill the role permanently. It is possible — though unlikely — that the board will suspend the search and restart the process.

Deliberations by board members Saturday and in Tuesday’s meeting have been the first since the Memphis board hired its outside search firm in February. The board’s concerns about the slate of finalists and lack of transparency also led to public complaints — a situation Greene sought to avoid.

Board member Amber Huett-Garcia pushed fellow board members to continue having public conversations about next steps, rather than limiting themselves to the individual conversations that seemed to leave the board at odds with each other and the search firm on Saturday.

The Saturday decision to halt the process led at least one candidate — Brenda Cassellius, whom the search firm recommended as a finalist for the role — to withdraw. Seven other candidates have also withdrawn.

The pressure is on the board to regain community trust and hire a leader who can improve academic outcomes for the district’s 100,000 students.

Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, the outside firm leading the search, recommended that the board consider two more contenders Tuesday: Angela Whitelaw, the Memphis district’s deputy superintendent of academics, and Keith Miles Jr., the current superintendent of Bridgeton Public Schools in New Jersey. Miles is also a finalist for the superintendent role for Lancaster, Pennsylvania’s school district, Lancaster Online reported.

Some board members still question qualifications policy

Tuesday evening, board members focused their debate on policy revisions and the way candidates were evaluated, with some advocating for continued community involvement in the remainder of the search. There was little discussion Tuesday of restarting the process completely.

Board member Sheleah Harris reiterated that Hazard Young did not screen candidates against the board’s policy for minimum qualifications, and it is unclear if Williams, who has a background in finance instead of academics, meets them. Community members, including those on a search advisory committee, have raised the same concerns. Harris also said it wouldn’t be fair for the board to change the policy after the search process has already started.

Huett-Garcia also asked about Williams’ qualifications, and district lawyer Kenneth Walker told board members he was not prepared to discuss it. Williams, who initially said she wasn’t interested in the position long-term, sought a legal opinion on the policy, Hazard Young told board members Saturday.

Board member Kevin Woods said the board should welcome ongoing public scrutiny as it discusses next steps. Ultimately, he said, the board itself can decide to keep the policy, change it, or suspend it.

In an effort to re-establish trust, Huett-Garcia sought answers from the search firm to questions from the community. One of those questions was whether the firm was directed to include specific people into the top three or dozens spots.

“The three candidates that you saw on Saturday were our top applicants. So I want you all to rest assured that … they followed the rubric across the board with fidelity,” Huett-Garcia said.

Hazard Young suggested the board interview any candidates of its choice along with the top four candidates now before the board.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Search firm names 2 more contenders for Memphis superintendent

2023-04-18T22:42:51+00:00

In addition to its current two finalists for Memphis-Shelby County Schools superintendent, the outside search firm has given the school board two more names.

The additional top contenders are Angela Whitelaw, the Memphis district’s deputy superintendent of academics, and Keith Miles Jr., the current superintendent of Bridgeton Public Schools in New Jersey.

Whitelaw and Miles were among the top candidates based on Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates’ evaluations, according to an email sent to board members Tuesday afternoon that Chalkbeat obtained.

Board members have yet to decide their next steps in the search, such as whether they will expand the finalist pool.

The board will meet Tuesday evening for a regularly scheduled work session, its first meeting since the search firm announced three finalists Saturday. That meeting was derailed as board members questioned the search process and results, which yielded finalists Brenda Cassellius, recently of Boston Public Schools; Carlton Jenkins, of Wisconsin’s Madison Metropolitan School District; and Toni Williams, the current interim superintendent of MSCS.

Cassellius has since withdrawn from the search.

After the meeting adjourned Saturday, the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board said it was postponing plans to interview the finalists until the board members received the names of all 34 applicants.

In response, the search firm gave applicants a Monday afternoon deadline to stay in the search or withdraw, according to an email obtained by Chalkbeat.

McGee shared the people who still want to be considered with the board members Tuesday. Those people are:

Alexis Gwin-Millyer
Alisha Kiner
Anson Smith
Antwan Wilson
Art Stellar
Bernard Taylor
Cedrick Gray
Cynthia Gentry
Darrell Williams
Derrick Jones Lopez
Donald Boyd
Eric Henderson
Lee Buddy
Morcease Beasley
Reginald Wilson
Roderick Richmond
Stephen Bournes
Tameka Henderson
Terry Ross
Tonya Biles
Vallerie Cave
Vincent Hunter

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Announced finalist for Memphis schools superintendent withdraws from search

2023-04-18T20:41:06+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free Tennessee newsletter to keep up with the Shelby County public school system and state education policy.

One of the three Memphis schools superintendent finalists announced by an outside search firm has withdrawn. Brenda Cassellius, recently the superintendent of Boston Public Schools, was announced as a finalist during a Saturday meeting that school board members derailed with questions and criticisms about the search process and results.

After the meeting adjourned, the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board said it was postponing plans to interview the finalists until the board members received the names of all 34 applicants.

In response, the search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates gave applicants a Monday afternoon deadline to stay in the search or withdraw, according to an email obtained by Chalkbeat.

The firm informed board members of Cassellius’ resignation Tuesday, board member Amber Huett-Garcia told Chalkbeat.

In an email to the search firm, Cassellius said she was withdrawing because of the pause in the process. She thanked the search firm for its work and wished the board well in finding a new superintendent.

Chalkbeat was unable to reach Cassellius Tuesday afternoon.

The other two announced finalists are Carlton Jenkins, superintendent of Wisconsin’s Madison Metropolitan School District, and Toni Williams, who became the interim superintendent of MSCS under the premise she wasn’t interested in the role permanently. She changed her mind and applied for the job last month.

It is unclear how the search will proceed, but the board may seek more finalists, Huett-Garcia said Tuesday afternoon.

The board has a regularly scheduled work session Tuesday evening.

Saturday’s meeting was the first board deliberation about the search since it hired the search firm in February. Typically a united front publicly, MSCS board members are fractured about the search, both in process and results from Hazard Young.

The stakes are high for the district, where priorities for an incoming leader will be improving academic outcomes for Memphis’ 100,000 students and restoring trust in the community after former Superintendent Joris Ray’s rocky departure.

Cassellius was the superintendent at Boston Public Schools for three years, and was the statewide education commissioner in Minnesota for almost a decade before that. Cassellius wanted to stay longer in the Boston leadership position, The Boston Globe reported, but left the job last summer. Her departure was announced as a mutual decision, but Cassellius told the Globe that recently elected Boston Mayor Michelle Wu “should be able to pick her own team.”

Since then, she’s worked as a leadership consultant. In February, she was among five finalists for the superintendent of schools in Osseo, a suburb of Minneapolis, Star Tribune reported.

In Boston, Cassellius diversified the district’s exam schools, which require tests for admissions, the Globe reported. But during her tenure, which ran the length of the pandemic, she faced criticism from teachers, principals, and the teachers union.

Cassellius has ties to Memphis: She received her doctorate in education from the University of Memphis in 2007, according to a resume published by Boston Public Schools, and was an academic leader for Memphis City Schools’ middle schools from 2004 to 2007.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis superintendent search in limbo as board balks at slate of finalists

2023-04-16T03:15:56+00:00

The selection process for Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ next superintendent got derailed Saturday when school board members raised questions about an outside search firm’s selection of three finalists shortly after their names were announced.

Now, the board is asking the search firm for the names of all 34 applicants, and it put off plans to interview finalists until it gets those names.

Saturday’s meeting was the first time the board deliberated publicly about the selection process since it voted to select the search firm, Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates of Schaumburg, Illinois. But instead of discussing the individual finalists, board members peppered Hazard Young officials with questions that made clear they were unsatisfied with the process and the results.

Some of their questions had been raised before by members of a community advisory committee that has challenged the lack of transparency in the process.

“I am not saying we want you to go back,” board Chair Althea Greene told Hazard Young officials during the meeting. “We are not just going to accept this … . We appreciate what you have done, but what I hear is it’s just not good enough.”

The board’s pushback adds a new wrinkle to a high-stakes search for a leader for Tennessee’s largest school district, which is struggling to improve academic outcomes for its 100,000 students and to sustain trust in the community. The previous superintendent, Joris Ray, resigned in August 2022 amid an external investigation into allegations that he abused his power and violated district policies.

Hazard Young, tapped in February to find Ray’s successor, presented the three finalists to board members Saturday: Brenda Cassellius, recently of Boston Public Schools; Carlton Jenkins of Wisconsin’s Madison Metropolitan School District; and Toni Williams, the current interim superintendent of MSCS. (See sidebar below for more about these candidates.)

The response from board members suggested that they expected — at some point during the process — to find out more than just the names of the three finalists, including more information on the full pool of applicants and how they were evaluated. They told Hazard Young President Max McGee and associate Micah Ali that their pushback was rooted in ensuring public trust in the process.

“This is not a restart. This is simply: Give us additional information to be able to validate to this deserving community that the right person will ultimately sit in this seat,” board member Kevin Woods said.

Board member Sheleah Harris said the board felt “unprepared, because we hired you all to do a job, and you did not do it well.”

Tikeila Rucker, a former teacher union leader and current community organizer, said she was frustrated that the board hadn’t raised its concerns with the firm earlier.

“It sounds like the board is just as lost as we are, and that is unacceptable,” Rucker told Chalkbeat.

Board member Stephanie Love acknowledged after the meeting that additional deliberation by the board in public meetings before Saturday could have prevented what she described as the “eleventh hour” hitch in the search.

Board seeks applicant list firm did not prepare to provide

Applicants for the position were evaluated against a rubric with 16 categories, which included reviews of application documents plus references, “Memphis connection” and fit with MSCS’ needs, Hazard Young explained. Of the 34 applicants, 21 met qualifications for an interview, and 12 proceeded to the last stage, the search firm said. The three finalists were selected from that group.

Some board members on Saturday questioned why they were not provided with the rubric earlier.

“I’m not going to say the people that we have here are not the best. But is there a way for us to have a little more input that these are who we want?” board member Joyce Dorse Coleman asked.

Hazard Young’s contract for the search suggests there is room for more board involvement: It says the firm is charged with facilitating “board discussions to narrow (the) candidate pool after each round of interviews.”

That the board wants to know the names of all the applicants was new to Hazard Young, Ali said Saturday. It is unclear what information the board will eventually receive in response to that request.

In a statement after the board meeting, Greene said the firm would contact applicants to find out whether they still want to be considered, then release those names publicly “for full transparency.” Under state law, as affirmed by a state attorney general’s opinion, records collected by Hazard Young in connection with the search are subject to open-records laws.

While Greene has previously said the board did not expect to receive a full applicant list, other board members Saturday said they had asked to know who all the candidates are.

Interim superintendent’s selection stirs some questions

Two of the finalists presented, Cassellius and Jenkins, have decades of experience in education. Williams, whose background is largely in finance, rose to the top tier for experience that Hazard Young called “nontraditional,” a term that could apply to applicants who came from a foundation, military, or business background.

The board’s policy on minimum requirements for a superintendent calls for 10 years of experience in teaching or school administration. Hazard Young said it did not apply that policy to evaluate applicants.

Harris, the board member, challenged the firm — and the selection of Williams as a finalist — on this point. If the board had given input on the rubric earlier, she said, the search “probably would have some different finalists.”

Hazard Young told board members Saturday that Williams sought a legal opinion on the policy that found it was “void and unenforceable.”

Kenneth Walker, attorney for the school board, said that the board’s policy was valid and that it gives the board discretion to choose someone with experience equivalent to the academic experience cited in the policy.

A closer look at the finalists

Memphis-Shelby County Schools hired the national search firm Hazard, Young, Attea, and Associates to oversee the search for its next superintendent. The firm picked three finalists:

“Jenkins has prided himself on being a leader and a role model for Black students and staff in the district. He has been passionate about revamping the district’s reading curriculum,” the Journal wrote.

In Madison, Jenkins was the district’s first Black superintendent, according to Lake Geneva Regional News, and has been the president of the African American Superintendents Association.

Before she was the interim superintendent, Williams was the chief financial officer for the district, appointed to the role in 2019 by Ray. She came to the district from a similar role at nearby Millington Municipal Schools, and worked for the district’s finance office for about three years after the city and county districts merged. Williams does not have academic experience outside of her interim role.

Williams is a native Memphian and a graduate of Whitehaven High School.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

MSCS superintendent search firm isn’t enforcing board’s policy on minimum job requirements

2023-04-14T17:33:40+00:00

A national superintendent search that officials promised would restore trust in the embattled Memphis-Shelby County Schools district could yield finalists who don’t meet the board’s own minimum requirements for the role.

The board’s policy, last revised in 2012, says candidates for the position of superintendent must have at least 10 years of experience in teaching or school administration.

Yet the company that’s overseeing the district’s national search, and determining the short list of finalists for the board to consider, is not applying that standard in screening applicants, the firm’s president, Max McGee, told Chalkbeat on Wednesday.

That doesn’t mean the finalists, or the board’s eventual choice for superintendent, won’t have the requisite school experience. But the disconnect does raise questions about why the search firm — Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates of Schaumburg, Illinois — isn’t honoring the board’s requirement, or what the board communicated to the firm about its policy.

The superintendent is the only district employee who is hired directly by the board.

Board members were reminded of the required qualifications for the superintendent a week ago by Venita Doggett, director of advocacy for the Memphis Education Fund, according to emails obtained by Chalkbeat. Doggett is part of a community advisory committee for the search that pressed for more involvement and the chance to present recommendations to the board about its selection.

“It’s my hope that the board will adhere to its policy as a way to re-establish community trust in the process,” Doggett wrote, attaching the text of the board’s policy on minimum qualifications.

In a statement to Chalkbeat through KQ Communications, the public-relations firm working with the district during the search, school board Chair Althea Greene said she is “committed to a search process that follows applicable law and policies.”

Board member Michelle McKissack said she was assured the board is following policy. Board members Kevin Woods and Sheleah Harris said they would be able to comment Saturday, once the board announces finalists in its 10 a.m. work session.

Board member Amber Huett-Garcia said she had no reason to believe that the board has violated its policy or that it won’t follow it as the search continues.

Four other board members did not respond to Chalkbeat’s requests for comment.

Trust, academics central to search from the start

The position came open in August 2022, when then-Superintendent Joris Ray resigned amid an external investigation into allegations that he abused his power and violated district policies. As part of its agreement with Ray, the board halted the investigation without releasing any findings, a process that roiled community members and left them calling for a rigorous national search for Ray’s successor, as opposed to the internal appointment that had elevated him to the job in 2019.

At town halls about the search, attendees repeatedly called for a superintendent with “integrity,” and community advocates and business leaders alike have stressed the need for a trustworthy selection process as well. Greene acknowledged this early in the search, telling Chalkbeat in November that trust in district leadership and progress in academics — which both suffered during the pandemic — were among the top priorities for the next superintendent.

But fresh doubts have crept in. When the board selected Toni Williams, then chief financial officer, as interim superintendent, it was on the condition that she was not interested in taking the role permanently. She has since changed her position and applied for the job. She has enjoyed support from community and board members alike as she focused on accountability measures. But for some, her turnabout on applying for the job — and apparent support for her decision from Greene, the board chair — has sown distrust in the search process.

It is unclear whether Williams meets the requirements under the board’s policy on experience. Her self-reported work experience on LinkedIn shows eight years of experience in public education, which was all in finance, before she took on the interim superintendent post. The only other candidate who has publicly indicated interest in the position is Vincent Hunter, who has reportedly been the principal at Whitehaven High School for more than 10 years. The other candidates have not been publicly identified.

Natalie McKinney, who was the policy director for the school district during the merger a decade ago that created Memphis-Shelby County Schools, said the community missed out on the chance to set an example at that time when it decided not to do a national search for a superintendent.

“This is a pivotal point where rubber hits the road,” McKinney told Chalkbeat in a recent interview, referring to the current search. “And if this does not get more transparent and in line with policy, then I think there’s going to be a serious divide between the community and the board.”

Greene once supported changes in experience requirement

The board appears to have the power to adjust its policy on the minimum requirements by substituting “board approved equivalents.”

Greene has supported changes, calling some of the policies “outdated,” including the 10-year experience qualification, The Commercial Appeal reported last fall. But none of the policies were changed, and the board never approved alternatives.

“If we want to put the best superintendent in front of our students, we cannot rush the process, but we must follow policy,” the Memphis newspaper quoted her telling board members.

Chalkbeat has asked both Memphis-Shelby County Schools and Hazard Young, the search firm, for application materials for every person who applied, which would include details about the extent of their experience. Tennessee open-records law requires that those documents be made available to the public for the district superintendent position, according to both Deborah Fisher at the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government and Paul McAdoo, an attorney in Tennessee with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

McAdoo pointed out Tennessee’s attorney general also weighed in on the issue in 2016, writing: “Any records obtained by a third party in conjunction with an employment search for a director of schools for a school board are public records and subject to inspection.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

MSCS seeks $10 million from county to revive stalled Frayser high school project

2023-04-13T21:50:21+00:00

Memphis-Shelby County Schools wants the county to approve $10 million in funding for a new high school in Frayser that would combine Trezevant High School with MLK College Preparatory High School, a charter school in the state turnaround district.

The proposal, presented by the district on Wednesday, is part of a much bigger funding request that’s likely to run into resistance from the Shelby County Commission, given its borrowing constraints and its commitments to other capital spending projects, including hospital renovations and a new MSCS school in Cordova. In recent years, the district received only a fraction of funding it requested, and its planned projects have been scuttled or delayed.

The proposed school combination in Frayser is one of those projects, stuck on the drawing board for years without the necessary funding, even though it has long had support from the Shelby County mayor.

The latest proposal hints at how the Memphis district hopes to revive the project while also dealing with the unraveling of the state-run Achievement School District, which has largely failed in its mission to reform the state’s poorest-performing schools, mostly in Memphis, under the leadership of charter operators.

The future of many of those schools and their buildings — owned by MSCS — remains in limbo as their charter contracts near expiration and they transition out of the Achievement School District. MSCS data shows most of the schools are underenrolled, representing opportunities to improve the way district property is used.

Shelby County commissioners will vote later this spring on the district’s budget and its capital funding request. By then, the MSCS school board will have chosen the district’s next superintendent and finalized a 10-year infrastructure plan that’s expected to include a mix of school closures, consolidations, and new school buildings.

School officials, including interim Superintendent Toni Williams, have told board members that the infrastructure plan will aim to optimize the use of school buildings and address a deferred maintenance bill that has grown to hundreds of millions of dollars.

In addition to the $10 million for the Frayser project, the district is asking the Shelby County Commission to fund $56 million in deferred maintenance projects for next year. The combined $66 million request is about $11 million more than last year’s proposal, and three times what the district actually received when commissioners approved the budget.

County commissioners on Wednesday didn’t indicate whether they would support fully funding the capital request, which would be a sharp break from recent precedent.

Already this year, additional capital funds are headed to MSCS for the new school in Cordova to replace Germantown High School, one of the district’s academic success stories. The school is closing under an agreement to resolve a long-running dispute with Germantown and comply with a new state law.

Funding a new Frayser high school to replace two others would focus investments on students who have languished academically in the Achievement School District, and eliminate millions of dollars in maintenance needs at Trezevant High, which has been slated for closure before.

The price tag on the project has increased to a projected $103 million, which the district hopes to fund in installments from the county over the next four years.

Bobby White, founder and chief executive officer of Frayser Community Schools, which operates MLK College Prep, reiterated his support for the new Frayser school to Chalkbeat. While White has applied for MLK to be an MSCS charter school, he said he would relinquish the charter when the time comes to integrate the two schools in a new building.

“The funding hasn’t been approved yet. They haven’t broken ground yet. But we all want it to happen,” White said Wednesday.

The district still plans to convene a group of county, city, and district leaders to work on a long-term facility plan. Williams, the interim superintendent who is seeking the job on a permanent basis, has said she wants a plan that “lives past me or anybody else.”

Meanwhile, a proposal from the county would create a countywide authority to oversee school construction.

It’s unclear how those two moves would affect the district’s latest funding requests.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Expelled Memphis lawmaker credits student activists as he wins reappointment to Tennessee House

2023-04-13T00:48:56+00:00

Memphis high schooler Carolina Calvo skipped school Wednesday, joined hundreds of marchers, and took pictures as local officials made the historic vote to reappoint a state lawmaker to his seat.

Just a week earlier, the GOP-controlled Tennessee House voted to expel Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis, as well as another Democrat, Justin Jones of Nashville, saying they violated chamber rules by amplifying many protesters’ calls for gun reform in the wake of the deadly mass shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School. A third Democrat, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, narrowly survived an expulsion resolution.

For Carolina and her older sister Anna Calvo, the expulsion hearings, culminating in the ouster of the House’s two youngest Black members, represented hopelessness and defeat.

Now both lawmakers have regained their positions — Jones reappointed on Monday by Nashville’s Metro Council, and Pearson voted in 7-0 by the Shelby County Commission, as demonstrators in the chamber cheered. Pearson is expected to be back in his legislative seat on Thursday, rejoining Johnson and Jones.

“Today, there’s just a lot more hope in the room,” Carolina said Wednesday after the vote on Pearson.

Reappointed Rep. Justin Pearson entered the Shelby County Commission from a march of hundreds than began at the National Civil Rights Museum.

Pearson, who became a student activist at age 15 in the quest for a proper textbook, said student activism continues to play a role in his career, right up to his reappointment.

“Students and young people lead all movements,” he told Chalkbeat after his reappointment. “This movement is no different, and the movement to end gun violence and the justice that we will have will be because of young people and students and college students who say that the status quo must change.”

Carolina, a 16-year-old sophomore, and Anna, an 18-year-old senior, were among student organizers at Memphis’ Crosstown High School who walked out of class in support of gun reform earlier this month. Anna joined youth protesters at the Tennessee Capitol building, and witnessed part of Jones’ expulsion hearing.

Both want Tennessee to adopt red-flag laws, like 19 other states have, to let law enforcement take guns away from people who threaten harm to themselves or others.

On Tuesday, Gov. Bill Lee called for legislators to develop and pass what he called “order of protection” legislation that would do the same thing, subject to a judge’s order.

The sisters especially want Tennessee lawmakers to halt steps toward arming certain teachers with concealed weapons, as one bill that advanced last week in the House would do.

“School shootings are already scary in itself, but just making (guns) accessible for people to reach them is really awful to think about,” Carolina said.

Both students — daughters of former school board candidate and Latino activist Mauricio Calvo — have been encouraged to be politically active. But as they’ve gotten older, the stakes have increased, they said.

“Now that I can vote, it does feel different,” Anna said.

Even students who can’t vote can still make a difference, Carolina said, by protesting and using social media to amplify their voices.

“I remember being 11 and doing the Women’s March,” Carolina said. “That was really powerful and stuff, but I was 11. And now I’m a lot older … . You just realize how it’s going to impact you more.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee lawmaker facing expulsion defends actions on behalf of student protesters

2023-04-07T02:03:34+00:00

Update: The Tennessee House voted Thursday to expel Democratic Reps. Justin Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville, the chamber’s two youngest Black members. A resolution to expel Democrat Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, a retired teacher who is white, narrowly failed.

Before Justin Pearson was elected to the Tennessee House, before he gained acclaim for stopping an oil pipeline project planned for his neighborhood, he was a student in Memphis schools who wanted a textbook.

Pearson, then 15, brought the issue to the Memphis City Schools board. The next day, the books were found sitting in storage. His principal was reprimanded, and district officials demanded that school leaders across the city prove that they had handed out textbooks.

“Justin Pearson may have been without a government textbook for the first 11 weeks of school,” The Commercial Appeal wrote about the Mitchell High sophomore in 2010, “but he has learned one thing about democracies: Embarrassing elected officials in public meetings gets action.”

Now, as Pearson channels the frustrations of a new generation of student activists, he’s elicited action from lawmakers that could cost him the elected seat he only recently won.

The House leadership on Monday began rare proceedings to expel Pearson and two other Democratic lawmakers from the House over their role in a disruption at the Capitol last week, during which they interrupted a legislative session to help amplify student protesters calling for stricter gun laws in response to the deadly March 27 school shooting in Nashville.

In expulsion resolutions introduced late Monday, the House leadership said Reps. Pearson, Justin Jones of Nashville, and Gloria Johnson of Knoxville brought “disorder and dishonor” to the chamber by speaking from the podium without being recognized and disrupting legislative business. The lawmakers, House Speaker Cameron Sexton said, distracted from the shooting victims and the protesters’ calls by calling attention to themselves.

“They had no authority to do that,” Sexton told reporters Monday.

The resolution came amid a House floor session Monday evening, following another day of student protests at the Capitol.

Pearson defended his actions on behalf of the high school and college-age students who filled the Capitol with chants of “Save our kids!” and “Not one more!” In a letter to the House, Pearson wrote it was “untenable” to hear the chants from mostly young people and “do nothing — say nothing.”

In a letter to House leadership explaining his actions, Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, told lawmakers gun violence hit close to home.

“To serve people and to represent them well is to elevate the issues when they are being ignored, and to do all that you can within your power to make sure their voices are heard,” Pearson told Chalkbeat in an interview on Tuesday.

Pearson already had a fraught relationship with Republican leadership, who suggested the 28-year-old legislator “explore a different career opportunity” after he broke Capitol clothing norms and wore a West African dashiki to his first swearing-in.

“We aren’t being expelled because we broke House decorum rules. That’s what’s been written on paper,” Pearson told Chalkbeat. “We’re being expelled because we spoke up about the need for gun reform and legislation that actually protects kids and communities.”

The issues hit home for Pearson: His classmate Larry Thorn and his mentor Yvonne Nelson were both fatally shot in Memphis in the last year, he told lawmakers in the letter.

GOP leaders haven’t taken up the call for stricter gun laws. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday voted to defer action on gun legislation to next year. The latest proposals from Gov. Bill Lee would invest in hiring armed guards for schools, fortifying school buildings, and providing extra mental health resources.

Pearson echoed common criticisms of those measures, saying they lead to overpoliced students and don’t address root problems. He’s talked about this with his mother, a public school teacher.

“My mom doesn’t want to become a sheriff,” Pearson said.

Final votes on the expulsions are expected Thursday. It takes a two-thirds vote of the House to expel a member.

House lawmakers have been expelled only three times before, The Tennessean reported.

One lawmaker who wasn’t expelled, Johnson noted, was former Rep. David Byrd, a Waynesboro Republican accused of sexually assaulting teenagers before he was elected to office. In that case, Sexton called for an attorney general’s opinion on the matter, calling it “complex and unprecedented.”

On Monday, Sexton did not indicate whether he would seek a similar opinion in the case of Pearson, Jones, and Johnson.

House Minority Leader Karen Camper, D-Memphis, told Chalkbeat that she wants to keep communication open among Republican leaders and House Democrats. “Temperatures flared” on the floor that day, Camper recalled, as she tried to quiet the three lawmakers and move forward.

Camper denounced the expulsion measures and described the three lawmakers’ actions as “good trouble,” alluding to the guiding principle of the civil rights leader John Lewis, who died in 2020. As a veteran congressman, Lewis staged a sit-in on the House floor in 2016. He, too, was calling for gun control in the wake of a mass shooting, Camper pointed out.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Hanley School in Tennessee’s turnaround district will return to MSCS control

2023-04-01T00:07:19+00:00

For the first time, a charter school in Tennessee’s turnaround district will exit the state program and return to the Memphis district’s management, Memphis-Shelby County Schools announced this week.

Hanley School, a K-8 school in Orange Mound, was taken over by the state and placed in the Achievement School District a decade ago to be run by a charter operator. This fall, it will be part of the Memphis district’s turnaround model, known as the iZone.

The move marks a setback for the school’s charter operator, and another twist in the chaotic unwinding of the Achievement School District, which has been rocked by leadership turnover and turmoil.

The state district began operating in 2012 and was designed to elevate some of Tennessee’s lowest performing schools by turning them over to charter operators under 10-year management contracts. The schools were to exit the ASD once their performance improved and return to their home districts — either Memphis, home to all but two of the schools, or Nashville.

But state leaders have acknowledged for years that the turnaround effort had failed in its mission. And as some of the 10-year management contracts near expiration, they have scrambled in recent years to figure out how to move schools out of the faltering ASD and get them on a path to improvement.

The current state policy describes several pathways for an ASD school to leave the district, including some options to stay open as a charter. The policy stresses “school specific” plans to account for each school’s “unique” situations.

In the case of Hanley, the policy resulted in the current operator, Journey Community Schools, not being able to keep the school under its network, and the transition to MSCS began over the last few months.

As other ASD schools creep up on their final years, Memphis could see a wave of school closures if MSCS doesn’t bring those schools back into the district.

Charter operator decries the decision on Hanley

Nickalous Manning, executive director of Journey Community Schools, denounced the way Hanley’s transition is being handled.

“The children and families in Orange Mound and at Hanley deserve a voice and a say in their children’s education,” Manning told Chalkbeat Wednesday, echoing a common complaint in Memphis that state leaders make decisions and policies affecting local families — like creating the ASD — without their input.

Manning accused state officials of not communicating an impending deadline for Hanley to apply to remain open as a charter school, and faulted them for not holding more public meetings with families. The exit process was unclear, Journey wrote in a letter to the state asking for a waiver of laws that prevent Journey from continuing to operate the school.

The state’s education commissioner, Penny Schwinn, cited state law and rules in denying the waiver. MSCS shared copies of the letters between Manning and the state with Chalkbeat to explain why the district won’t consider Journey’s charter application for Hanley.

The Tennessee Department of Education, where the ASD is housed, told Chalkbeat that all ASD charter operators received information about transition plans in 2020. ASD leaders meet monthly with the charter operators to review school status, department spokesperson Victoria Robinson said.

Robinson supplied a list of meetings scheduled over the last academic year with Hanley officials about the transition. Parents received a letter about the plans in January, Robinson said, and were invited to a meeting earlier this week.

Manning, who grew up in Orange Mound, said Journey plans to keep trying to hang on to Hanley.

Hanley will be the first charter school in the ASD to return to MSCS as a traditional public school. Four other ASD schools in Memphis were never operated as charter schools, and transitioned to MSCS operations this school year, also as part of the district’s iZone program.

Others have followed different pathways as dictated by the state policy, which takes into account the school’s test scores, the local district’s test scores, and how many years are left in the charter contract.

In most of the exits, schools where students showed high growth on state tests have swapped from the ASD to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission’s oversight.

That option wasn’t available for Hanley. Available school testing data shows Hanley’s students haven’t noticeably improved during the state takeover, much like other schools in the ASD.

Hanley’s reading scores, for instance, are nearly on par with the ASD average this year, and lower than a nearby MSCS elementary school, Dunbar. Neither school had more than 12% of students meeting reading benchmarks.

Only one Memphis ASD school has applied to join MSCS as a charter. The board approved it against the recommendation of the district. In April, MSCS board members will have a slate of five ASD schools to consider reabsorbing as charter schools, including Coleman School, another Journey school in its ninth operating year.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

MSCS cancels after-school care and events, dismisses early Friday for severe storms

2023-03-31T18:00:07+00:00

Due to forecasted storms, Memphis-Shelby County Schools students will head home early Friday. All after-school care and events are canceled, the district announced.

The announcement came as the National Weather Service upgraded weather risks to the Memphis area to the highest severity: Forecasted storms are expected to include high-speed winds and possible tornadoes.

Storms could start at 2 p.m. Friday and continue through the afternoon, evening and overnight until 2 a.m., according to the weather service.

The dismissal schedule, based on school bell times, is below:

Schools starting at 7:15 a.m. will dismiss at 12:15 p.m.
Schools starting at 8:15 a.m. will dismiss at 1 p.m.
Schools starting at 9:15 a.m. will dismiss at 1:45 p.m.

MSCS’ district offices will also close early at 1:45 p.m.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

MSCS construction plans would be governed by new Shelby County agency under proposal

2023-03-30T23:30:46+00:00

A Shelby County proposal would create a new agency to manage school building construction across the county’s seven districts, including Memphis-Shelby County Schools, whose buildings need hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs.

The proposal reflects calls from some Shelby County commissioners for a long-term plan to address Memphis’ school building needs. Those calls escalated in December when commissioners pledged funding for a new MSCS high school, with a caveat that sought to ensure the public that funds were spent efficiently.

In response, Danielle Inez, director of the county’s new Office of Innovation, proposed Wednesday that commissioners vote to fund a consultant to study the county’s school building needs, and create an advisory group of education and government officials to oversee comprehensive school construction plans.

“Everyone has talked about our blighted school buildings,” Inez told commissioners. “However, with all of that effort and heart, we have not found a path to move the needle on the school construction needs in our community.”

Inez did not consult MSCS in developing the proposal, she told Chalkbeat.

School buildings are the workspaces for one of the county’s largest employers. And they are the learning environments for more than 100,000 students who may face several obstacles to learning before they even walk in the doors. The condition of Memphis’ school buildings, and who controls them, have long been subjects of debate and conflict, both within Memphis-Shelby County Schools, and recently, between the district and municipal leaders.

County seeks long-lasting school building plans

In the decade since its formation, MSCS has moved in fits and starts on plans to close, consolidate, renovate, and build new schools, as county commissioners have approved only a fraction of the district’s funding requests. This year, commissioners are also considering funding plans, including increased taxes, for $350 million in updates to Regional One Health, the region’s level 1 trauma hospital.

Dorsey Hopson, the first superintendent of the new district, presented one facility plan and offered another as he resigned in 2018. His successor, Joris Ray, had initial plans derailed by COVID-19 and eventually produced a plan two years ago, which incorporated federal relief funding to pay down maintenance costs. Now Toni Williams, the interim superintendent, is talking about releasing her own plan.

County Commissioner Michael Whaley, who chairs the budget and finance committee, said building plans should not come and go with each superintendent.

“Both the school board (and) the county commission really ought to be the ones driving this,” Whaley said after Inez’s presentation. “And so if there is another plan that comes, it needs to be one that’s adopted by the school board, and that we can actually commit to, and should not change if the superintendent changes.”

Under Inez’s proposal, the county would first hire an expert in school construction, then create a school construction advisory group to determine next steps, and finally form a school construction authority that would oversee a comprehensive countywide plan. The authority would include representatives from the county and its school districts — and potentially the city.

As new capital needs arise, district revamps building plans

Tennessee school buildings need $9 billion in investments over the next five years, according to a new state report. MSCS accounts for $464 million of that, and the new agency would respond to an estimated $546 million in school needs countywide.

Examples of that need are visible throughout the district. Weeks into the new school year, the library ceiling collapsed at Cummings K-8 school, forcing students to relocate to another building. Four years ago, students at Kirby High School were forced to relocate for months while the district spent $3 million on renovations. The culprit? A rat invasion.

Inez says her own child’s MSCS school is missing privacy partitions in the bathroom.

“That’s a really, really small maintenance issue, but it drives him nuts,” Inez said.

The county’s new push for construction oversight accompanied its pledge to fund a new high school in Cordova, to resolve a longstanding dispute with Germantown and comply with a state law.

Meanwhile, MSCS hasn’t been able to secure enough county funding for its existing capital plans, including a new high school that’s now on hold in Frayser, a high-poverty part of town. It has moved forward on plans to make Shady Grove, a former elementary school, a preschool hub, but backpedaled on a plan to expand a middle school, Mt. Pisgah, to add more grades.

Commissioner Charlie Caswell, whose district includes Frayser, told Chalkbeat Wednesday he plans to ask the county to find new funding for the new high school in Frayser.

Williams, the interim superintendent, has said the district will work with other government officials to create a new facilities plan, but as of earlier this week, hadn’t asked anyone to be part of that committee.

When Commissioner Miska Clay Bibbs was chair of the MSCS school board, it was a point of pride to see a new elementary school built in her neighborhood, she said at the time. The school was the result of a consolidation proposed by Hopson. In January, she told Chalkbeat that a larger conversation about buildings was overdue.

On Wednesday, she appeared supportive of Inez’s proposal, but said officials should still consider the incoming plan from MSCS.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Shooter kills 3 children, 3 adults at Nashville private church school

2023-03-28T19:48:51+00:00

A person armed with multiple guns killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville Monday morning before being fatally shot by police.

As details of the police investigation and images emerged Tuesday, school families and local leaders were still trying to piece together what happened, a task familiar to a growing number of U.S. communities that have faced the tragedy of a school shooting.

The three student victims at The Covenant School were young, all 9 years old, authorities said. One of three adult victims was Katherine Koonce, the head of school. The others were a custodian and a substitute teacher.

While school shootings in the United States have increased in the last two decades, they are rare at private schools. Sarah Wilson, executive director of the Tennessee Association of Independent Schools, which represents private schools, said she believed this was the first shooting at a private school in Tennessee.

Tennessee’s efforts to improve school security have largely focused on public schools rather than private ones and generally emphasize fortifying school campuses rather than reducing the number of firearms.

Brad Goia, director of independent schools for the Nashville Area, called the shooting a “horrible tragedy.”

“It has devastated all of us because, first and foremost, we are heartbroken for Covenant,” said Goia, who is also headmaster of Montgomery Bell Academy, an elite all-boys college prep school in Nashville. “The suffering that the Covenant community is feeling also heightens the ways that all of us are vulnerable, that the unthinkable can happen anywhere.”

Nashville is perceived as a relatively safe place, Goia said, “but these events reshape our view of the world.”

The Covenant School was founded in 2001 as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church. The campus sits atop a hill in an affluent part of Nashville known as Green Hills and is the educational home to some 200 students in preschool to sixth grade. Students have Bible classes and attend daily chapel services.

The school’s motto: “shepherding hearts, empowering minds, celebrating childhood.”

Police responded to a call at 10:13 a.m. about an active shooter at the school. Identified by police as 28-year-old Nashville resident Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the shooter came to the campus armed with two rifles, a 9-millimeter pistol, and “significant” ammunition for the firearms, police said.

Police said the shooter entered the school through a side door after shooting out the glass, then proceeded to the first and second floors, firing multiple shots before being fatally shot by the police on the second floor.

Drake said police believe the shooter fired at students at random. The student victims who were fatally shot were in several locations.

Police identified the student victims as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney. The adults killed were Cynthia Peak and Mike Hill, both 61, and Koonce, 60, the school’s leader.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper praised the police response.

“Guns are quick, they don’t give you much time,” Cooper said. “So even in a remarkably fast response, there was not enough time. And those guns stole precious lives from us today in Nashville.”

Drake, the police chief, said, “I was hoping this day would never ever come here in this city, but we will never wait to make entry to go in and stop a threat, especially when it deals with our children.”

Children from The Covenant School arrive in school buses at Woodmont Baptist Church to be reunited with their families after Monday’s shooting.

Shooter was a former student at the school

Police initially described the shooter as a woman. But the shooter’s gender identity was unclear, given some conflicting statements from authorities. According to The Tennessean, police released the shooter’s birth name, and said that the person used he/him pronouns.

The shooter previously attended the school, police said, but it is unclear when or for how long. Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Monday afternoon that the shooter did not have a criminal history and that it was too early to describe a motive for the shooting.

Police searched the shooter’s home and found writings and documents planning the attack, including a map and plans for entering and shooting. The notes included additional locations, but police couldn’t confirm whether any of the locations were planned targets.

The three weapons that were brought into the school were among seven that the shooter had purchased legally from five different Nashville-area gun stores, Drake said in a briefing Tuesday.

Gov. Lee’s safety bill focuses on public schools

Gov. Bill Lee, who tweeted that he was “closely monitoring” the situation and praying for the community, identified school safety as one of his top priorities during his 2023 address to Tennesseans. His proposals so far have mostly focused on beefing up security protocols at public schools.

Recently, Lee proposed a sweeping school safety bill, requiring all K-12 public schools to keep their exterior doors locked, or risk losing escalating amounts of state funding with each violation.

Despite having one of the nation’s highest rates of gun deaths, Tennessee has enacted numerous laws under Lee’s leadership to loosen requirements for gun ownership. In 2021, he signed a law allowing most Tennesseans 21 and older to carry handguns without first clearing a background check, obtaining a permit, or getting trained on firearms safety.

This year, however, the governor’s administration has opposed several new bills from Republican lawmakers who want to loosen those regulations even further.

At the White House on Monday, President Joe Biden called the shooting “a family’s worst nightmare” and called again for a federal ban on “assault” weapons, a term that’s used to describe certain military-style semi-automatic firearms.

“We have to do more to stop gun violence; it’s ripping our communities apart — ripping the soul of this nation,” Biden said. “And we have to do more to protect our schools, so they aren’t turned into prisons.”

Shooting rattles a tight community

State Rep. Bob Freeman, a Nashville Democrat whose district includes the Covenant School, said that in a small city like Nashville, it is inevitable for many residents to have connections to Covenant’s children and families.

Freeman said he heard Monday from one school family who found out their child was safe but knew two of the children who died.

“And tonight, families across Nashville and our state are going to have to have some tough conversations with their children trying to explain why this has happened and to assure them that they are safe at school,” he said.

Claire Walker, a second-grade teacher at another private Christian school nearby, felt anguish as she pushed her newborn son in a stroller past the entrance to The Covenant School, where some Nashvillians had already begun to place bouquets of flowers in memory of the victims.

“We have many good friends whose kids go here, and my heart has been with them all day,” said Walker, who had just seen the list of victims and found no names of children she recognized.

“But they’re other people’s kids,” she added quickly, “and they were just 9 years old.”

Before landing her current job, Walker had interviewed for a teaching position at The Covenant School and had even toured the school with Koonce, the headmaster who was among the adult victims. “She was sweet,” said Walker, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I’ve got a 7-week-old and a 20-month-old, and it’s terrifying to think that they’re going to be in school in a couple of years,” Walker said.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Laura Testino covers the Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Contact her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

MSCS interim schools chief Toni Williams says she has applied for superintendent job

2023-03-22T17:09:43+00:00

Interim Memphis schools leader Toni Williams has applied to be the district’s superintendent, a role she once said she was not interested in assuming on a permanent basis.

Williams confirmed her application to Chalkbeat on Wednesday, one day after delivering an annual address about the district’s recent school year and its future. Williams used the speech to address several key constituencies and showcase the active role she has taken during her tenure as interim superintendent over the past six months, even as the district narrows its search for a new superintendent. The search began in earnest on March 1.

Williams’ application is likely to affect the dynamics of the search moving forward.

Williams, the district’s former chief financial officer, was the single nominee for the interim role in August. She took the post one week after former Superintendent Joris Ray resigned from the district with a severance package amid an investigation into allegations that he abused his power and violated district policies.

Board member Althea Greene, who has since taken on a top role in the search process as the board’s chair, nominated Williams on the basis that she had no interest in the role long term. Williams, in accepting the nomination, agreed that she intended to be an interim leader.

The same evening that she was selected, Williams announced internal reviews, and the board began preparing for a national search for its next leader.

At the time, the board’s decision was applauded by community groups who had called for a national search during the last superintendent vacancy in 2019. The board abandoned a search then in favor of hiring Ray, a longtime district insider who was serving as interim superintendent. Prior to Ray, the board also appointed Dorsey Hopson to the superintendent role. Hopson had been the attorney for the district through the merger.

This time, community members have repeatedly stressed a desire for a rigorous process to yield a leader with integrity, whether that person is local to Memphis or from out of town.

Williams, a Memphis native and graduate of Whitehaven High School, said it was the reception to her leadership so far that persuaded her to apply. Feedback on changes to the district’s operations, and on the last-minute resolution of disputes over four schools — three in Germantown and Lucy Elementary in Millington — was positive and encouraging, she told Chalkbeat in an interview Wednesday.

“That gave me the opportunity to really reflect on, ‘You know what? Why not continue? And your heart is in this work. You’re proud of this community. You’re walking down hallways where you were once a student,’” Williams said, echoing themes that Ray sounded in the past.

Support, Williams said, has come from community leaders, legislators, and teachers.

Greene, the board chair, said that she believed Williams should be able to apply.

“She has successfully navigated several difficult and unexpected challenges as an interim, proving she’s worthy of consideration for the permanent position,” Greene said in an email sent through KQ Communications, the public-relations firm that is working with the board during the search. She noted that she was speaking for herself, and not the entire board.

Greene said earlier this week that selecting three finalists for the role will be left to Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, the firm approved by the board to recruit and evaluate candidates. This national search is the first for the Memphis-Shelby County district since its formation in a merger a decade ago.

It remains to be seen whether Williams will emerge as a finalist, and one of the three potential leaders who will be publicly interviewed later in April. But the presence of an inside applicant whose interim tenure has been viewed as generally favorable could deter other candidates from continuing in the application process if they view Williams as a favorite.

Asked about this potential impact, Greene said the search firm said it is common for interims to seek the role.

“In their experience, they have not seen a mass exodus of candidates due to this dynamic,” Greene said. She said board members could ask the search firm to inform them if any applicants withdraw because of Williams’ application.

Williams joined Ray’s cabinet as CFO in 2019. Locally, Williams has held prior positions with the Memphis district, plus Millington Municipal Schools and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

As CFO, she said, she was focused on resource allocation, with power to control the departments assigned to her rather than make change districtwide.

Being elevated to interim superintendent has empowered her to demand more accountability, Williams said.

“I feel that people are actually feeling it and understanding that, ‘Hey, wow, you know, it’s not status quo anymore,’” Williams said.

In the last six months, she has visited schools, and in the new year, as she was considering applying for the superintendent job, she restarted a teacher advisory group that met as the district’s two teacher unions were in week-long negotiations over compensation and benefits. She said she learned a lot from the advisory group about what it’s like to be in the classroom, a first-hand experience she doesn’t have.

Williams said she hasn’t thought much about what she’ll do if she isn’t selected as the permanent leader. Her contract allows her to stay on as CFO or a consultant if it is terminated before August, which is several months after the board plans to have a superintendent in place.

“Our community has so many opportunities to address the unique needs of our students, the unique needs of our community,” Williams said. “So for me, if not selected, I know that I will continue to be deep in the work as a Memphian.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Interim MSCS leader outlines her vision for district as superintendent search narrows

2023-03-22T00:21:53+00:00

In a speech reflecting on the recent school year and teasing budget priorities for the coming one, interim Memphis schools leader Toni Williams described a district on the rise, with big decisions ahead about improving facilities, literacy and safety.

Williams also implicitly made her case to be considered a candidate in the search for Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ next superintendent, a position she once said she had no interest in assuming on a permanent basis.

The school board, working with a national search firm, has been soliciting applicants for that post since March 1, and is in the process of narrowing its list of candidates to a small group of finalists. The search firm, Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, will interview 12 candidates by Thursday afternoon and is expected to deliver a slate of three finalists to the school board in April. Finalists will be interviewed publicly on April 21 and 22.

Williams used the annual state-of-the-district address Tuesday to review the results of her six months leading the district, following the departure of Superintendent Joris Ray, and to outline a vision for the future of the district.

In the months after she was appointed, Williams appeared to soften her stance against seeking the permanent job. After her address today, she demurred when Chalkbeat asked whether she had applied or been interviewed for the role.

“I don’t want today to be about me,” Williams said. “I want to just stay focused on, you know, really today’s message.”

She added: “But there will be other opportunities to answer that question.”

Williams’ theme for the address was “triumphant together,” a nod to the district’s calls for community members to help remove the often poverty-related barriers Memphis students and families face outside school. Rather than “Reimagining 901,” a tagline Ray used to describe a facilities and academics plan, Williams spoke of “transforming the 901.”

“What transforming the 901 is about is a long term, thoughtful, shared vision for rebuilding this community, including wraparound services, community schools, expanding pre-K and after-school programs … . It has to be a community effort,” Williams said.

Williams’ speech at the district’s Teaching and Learning Academy auditorium had the feel of an elevated school assembly, unlike the more lavish hotel ballroom addresses of Ray’s tenure. The house lights stayed on, and attendees went home with stationery sets featuring student artwork.

The setting was meant to show that the district could be a “good steward of the resources that we already have,” Cathryn Stout, the district’s chief of communications, explained during a preview of the address.

Williams spent much of the 90-minute address explaining district plans for issues of interest to key constituencies in the district, in the business community and among Shelby County and City of Memphis leadership. (You can watch the full address online here.)

For teachers, the district plans to invest $27 million in teacher pay, a move that will bump up starting salaries.

Williams confirmed a new 10-year facilities plan. The district released a plan two years ago, but Williams had told the Shelby County Commission, which funds capital projects for the district, that the district would provide a new plan when requesting funds for a new Cordova high school.

She touted new state investments into district career and technical education that would appeal to the business community.

To improve attendance rates, Williams said, the district has upgraded communication to families about student absences. That includes referrals to community resources. The steps follow a rise in tensions between the district and Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, who in the fall claimed concerning crime rates were linked to low school attendance.

With a few months to go in the current fiscal year, district officials still have to prepare and present a budget for next year, which will be the first time the district sees a boost of recurring funds through a new state funding formula, called Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA. The funds could ease the transition out of programs funded by one-time federal pandemic funds, but the district will have to assess which programs remain.

An ongoing review of academic programming funded by the millions of dollars in federal aid will help inform which programming makes the cut. Tuesday, Williams pointed to $30 million annually toward “specialized education assistants” in lower elementary grade classrooms and $42 million annually toward reading and math tutoring as successful programming funded by the federal cash influx.

Williams also said the district is looking to scale a piloted school safety program across all district middle and high schools at a cost of $50 million. The technology, according to a video played during Tuesday’s program, sounds alarms at school entrances that aren’t designated for student or staff use. Improvements also would speed up student weapon searches at the start of the school day.

Williams also announced the finalists for the teacher, principal and supervisor of the year:

Supervisor of the year finalists:

Brian Ingram, Human Resources
Sunya Payne, Student, Family and Community Engagement
Reggie Jackson, School Operations

Principal of the year finalists:

Keyundah Coleman, John P. Freeman Optional School
Renee Meeks, Sea Isle Elementary School
James Suggs, G.W. Carver High School

Teacher of the year finalists:

Thomas Denson, White Station Elementary School
Tishsha Hopson, Hickory Ridge Middle School
Ollie Liddell, Central High School

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach her at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.