Sign up for monthly text updates on the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board

A wooden podium with a microphone on the top is in focus while people sit in chairs on the side and in the background.
October 24, 2023: MEMPHIS, TN - A Memphis Shelby County Schools school board meeting on October 24. Photo by Andrea Morales for Chalkbeat (Andrea Morales for Chalkbeat)

Want to stay up to date on the latest news from the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board while also having a way to text your school board questions to Chalkbeat’s journalists? Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s texting service.

Each month, Bri Hatch, who writes about MSCS for us, sifts through agendas and documents, attends board meetings, and interviews Memphis leaders, attendees, and others before and after the meetings. Hatch reports the decisions made by the school board and tells the stories of the people who will be affected by those decisions.

And with our texting service, you’ll stay in the loop on the latest Memphis-Shelby County Schools board news, regardless of whether you’re able to attend board meetings.

Here’s how it works:

Sign up by texting SCHOOL to 901-599-2745 or enter your phone number into the box below.

We hope the texting service will keep you informed, better able to hold district officials accountable, and more empowered to start community conversations about what public education should look like in Memphis.

We’ll text you twice a month, once before a board meeting to let you know it’s coming up, and once after with the biggest news.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools typically hosts its monthly board meetings at 5:30 p.m. the last Tuesday of each month at the Board of Education building. The meetings are also available for streaming on the district’s Facebook page. Find board meeting schedules and agendas here.

The Latest

The request for a Supreme Court hearing comes about six weeks after a federal appeals court ruled against the Catholic preschools.

Districts must agree to state investigations if a mass casualty event happens in order to get the funds.

Recent data doesn’t definitively prove all closings lead to higher gun violence, but they do show areas where it worsened after closure that can’t be explained by citywide spikes.

Each of the schools at risk of closing this year will have a meeting over the next two months. The first will be at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 19 at Frayser-Corning Elementary School.

Board members have floated the idea as a potential way to right-size the district, but have stressed they would not act on it without community input.

A spokesman for the Michigan Department of Education said a policy change for the after-school snack program would have to go through the federal government.