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Former Tennessee Teacher of the Year Karen Vogelsang was appointed Tuesday to the final seat on the incoming Memphis schools oversight board, which will soon wield sweeping authority over the state’s largest school district for the next four years.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton selected Vogelsang, a former mortgage banker turned educator, two days before the board is scheduled to hold its first meeting Thursday.
Vogelsang received the state’s top teacher honor in 2014, when she was teaching at Keystone Elementary School. She taught in Memphis-Shelby County elementary schools for 15 years, ending her tenure in 2018.
“The first time I had the opportunity to teach it was electrifying; I knew then I had made the right decision to become a teacher,” Vogelsang told Chalkbeat in 2015.
She now works as a self-employed early childhood literacy consultant and served as director of the Memphis tutoring nonprofit ARISE2Read in 2024.
Vogelsang is the third appointee to the board that has direct experience working with Memphis-Shelby County Schools in the classroom or at the administrative level.
The nine-member board, appointed by the state’s top Republican lawmakers, will soon take decision-making power from the locally elected school board on district issues ranging from the superintendent’s contract and overall budget to curriculum decisions.
The oversight board also includes:
- Billy Orgel, a local developer and former Memphis-Shelby County school board member.
- Dorsey Hopson, a former district superintendent.
- Dedrick Brittenum Jr., a Memphis lawyer and former councilman.
- Shanea McKinney of Cigna, who is a member of the University of Tennessee’s board of trustees.
- Nisha Powers, who leads a Memphis civil engineering firm and has served on the Tennessee board of regents.
- Beverly Robertson, a marketing executive and former president and CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce.
- Tyrone Burroughs, a Memphis CEO who sits on the Tennessee Lottery Commission and the Youth Villages board of directors.
- David Mansouri, the sole board member who is not a Shelby County resident. Mansouri is the Nashville-based leader of one of Tennessee’s most influential education advocacy organizations.
All but one of the appointees live in Shelby County, as required under the law Tennessee General Assembly Republicans passed this year creating oversight boards for districts with academic performance and administrative issues.
Republican supporters of the plan have argued it is not a state takeover of the local school district because most of the board’s members are local residents. Still, lawmakers have repeatedly pointed to Houston’s state takeover as a model for Memphis.
The Memphis-Shelby County school board earlier this year vowed to sue the state over the effort. Opponents argue the General Assembly has unfairly targeted Memphis by seizing authority from local elected leaders to give to political appointees.
Republican lawmakers say they hope to solve Memphis’ low academic achievement with the takeover. Last year, over 75% of Memphis students failed to achieve proficiency in reading and math, though the district earned high marks in academic growth, a measure of improvement over time.
One of the oversight board’s first responsibilities will be conducting a comprehensive assessment of MSCS staff, students, and buildings to develop a transformation plan. It’s unclear whether the new board will have any control over the 2026-27 budget, which has been approved by the school board but has not been finalized by the Shelby County Commission.
Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.
