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The Memphis-Shelby County school board tapped Natalie McKinney as its new chair in a vote Tuesday that highlighted ongoing tensions since the ouster of former Superintendent Marie Feagins.
Board members did not mention Feagins, but spoke sharply about past decisions that lost public trust. McKinney won six votes to secure the 2025-26 board chair position, each from a board member who supported firing Feagins in January. Former chair Joyce Dorse Coleman rallied similar support for the vice chair nomination.
“We’ve been in a challenging time, and there are even more issues on the horizon,” McKinney said Tuesday. “We’re working to rebuild the district, focusing on student achievement and support.”
The MSCS board has faced intense scrutiny from state and local leaders and the public since the Feagins vote. Just last week, the Shelby County Commission voted to put all nine school board seats up for reelection in 2026, cutting five members’ terms in half. Four of the members whose terms will be shortened, including McKinney, voted to fire Feagins.
McKinney is now poised to lead the board through another turbulent year. Tennessee lawmakers are continuing their push to establish a state-appointed board of directors to take control of the district, partially because of the Feagins ouster. There’s a $6 million district audit underway, more school closure decisions on the line, and a potential new superintendent search before the interim’s contract ends this summer.
Amber Huett-Garcia, who did not support Feagins’ ouster, received the only other nominations for both board leadership positions, earning three votes for chair and four for vice chair. She said before voting began that she is the best candidate to “rebuild trust” with the community, and urged her colleagues to usher in “fresh leadership.”
Michelle McKissack backed Huett-Garcia both times. While abruptly leaving Tuesday’s meeting, she said to reporters that the decision “is just not right.”
“All that’s old is new again; we’ve just restored it,” she said.
But McKinney says things have changed since January, and she’s excited to focus on moving forward.
“I think actions speak louder than words,” she said. “As we do the work, it will demonstrate that we mean the work.”
McKinney leads the district’s new facilities committee, which is tasked with developing a plan to address a growing school building maintenance bill of over $1.6 billion in the next decade. Last Tuesday, MSCS leaders recommended closing four local schools by the end of this year and transferring control of a fifth to a neighboring district.
McKinney said the importance of community listening sessions and public hearings being shown through that work should be the model for board operations.
“I want to make sure that we commit to sort of codifying that, making that part of our DNA,” she said. “That is something that the board, no matter who’s sitting in these seats, should be doing on a consistent basis.”
Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.
