Tag: marie feagins

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Why Did the School Board Fire Feagins?

Dr. Marie Feagins began visiting local schools after she started her tenure as superintendent last April. The school board voted to fire her last month. (photo by Ariel J. Cobbert for Chalkbeat)

I’ve watched every school board meeting since Dr. Marie Feagins was elected superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools a year ago.

I’ve read the board’s resolution that terminated her contract last month, and the special counsel’s 209-page investigation of the board’s allegations against her.

I’ve read Feagins’ written responses to the allegations in her two-page email to board chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman on Jan. 6, and her 14-page “official response” to the board Jan. 14. I’ve read Feagins’ startling allegations against the board in the lawsuit she filed Monday.

I’ve read every relevant document and heard every public statement made by all parties involved in the latest disaster that has befallen our local public school system. And I’ve read news articles, opinion columns, politicians’ comments, and angry social media posts about the sordid mess.

I still don’t get it. I still don’t understand why Feagins was fired after less than a year on the job.

The three examples of “professional misconduct” the board leveled against her might have justified a public reprimand, but not a public execution. At best, as six-year board member Michelle McKissack argued, they reflect  “growing pains” for a superintendent who started working in April and a board with four members elected in August. At worst, well, we don’t know.

In her lawsuit, Feagins claims that an expired $4 million contract with a local nonprofit caused some board members to begin meeting privately last summer in violation of state law to find ways to terminate her contract.

But the special counsel’s Jan. 21 report to the board doesn’t mention that contract at all. The report concluded that Feagins “violated her employment contract no less than eight times and deviated from Board policy on at least nine occasions.”

Six of the nine alleged policy “deviations” pertained to a single board policy — 1013, or the Superintendent Code of Ethics. That three-page policy, approved in 2017, contains 15 “statements of standards” the superintendent must follow, including: “I will endeavor to fulfill my professional responsibilities with honesty and integrity.”

Vague enough for you?

All eight alleged contract violations pertained to a single paragraph in her contract: “Ethical conduct: The superintendent in all aspects of her interactions and transactions related to carrying out her duties of superintendent, agrees to represent, enforce and adhere to the highest ethical standards.”

Whose ethical standards? Which ethical standards?

“I will point out,” McKissack wrote in a Jan. 13 letter to the board, “that Superintendent Feagins is not accused of theft, fraud or any criminal misconduct.”

What she is mostly accused of is making “false and/or misleading” statements to the board about the three allegations of “professional misconduct.” That covers 13 of the 17 alleged violations. The four other “violations” were attributed to Feagins’ failure to provide a document or report to the board in a timely manner.

Feagins said those failures were unintentional and the result of “staff oversights.” The record seems to support her version.

First, the termination resolution claims that Feagins “misled the board” about  “overtime abuse” she brought to the board’s attention last July. “Dr. Feagins never presented any evidence suggesting that her statement was true, and she did not correct or clarify her statement to the public,” the board’s first allegation reads.

But Feagins told the board last July and again this month that she based her comments on “documented fiscal reports” of overtime pay records for 2022, 2023, and 2024.

“I provided at least three years of data to the board,” Feagins said after hearing the charges read aloud at the Dec. 17 special called meeting. There are no records that the board ever asked for or reviewed the data or tried to substantiate Feagins’ claims about overtime abuse.

Second, the termination resolution claims that Feagins accepted and deposited a $45,000 donation to the district from the SchoolSeed Foundation “without Board approval.”

“At a (Nov. 19) Board Work Session, Dr. Feagins misrepresented her knowledge of and involvement in depositing the unapproved donation check in violation of Board Policy,” the board’s second allegation reads.

Feagins said she didn’t learn about the donation until Nov. 8, the result of “a staff oversight, and “promptly submitted the donation to the Board” at its next meeting, Nov. 19. 

The board approved the donation Dec. 3. Two weeks later, they used it to charge her with “professional misconduct.”

The special counsel’s report cites two emails Feagins sent to staff in July that “irrefutably establishes” she knew then about the check. But neither email mentions a $45,000 SchoolSeed check, which records show wasn’t received by the district until Aug. 13.

Third, the termination resolution claims that Feagins “was dishonest with the board and public” about missing a deadline for a $300,000 federal grant to help homeless students.

Feagins acknowledged that her staff failed to meet the Sept. 30 deadline, but said the state subsequently allowed the district to use the funds for various expenses related to helping homeless students.

“We missed the deadline,” she told the board Dec. 17. The board’s allegations and investigation do not say how much — if any — of the $300,000 grant (leftover Covid-relief funds) was used or forfeited.

The special counsel’s report to the board states that Feagins’ comments about the grant were “only accurate to a degree, but not completely.” That could sum up the board’s allegations. Only accurate to a degree, but not completely.

“Clerical errors,” McKissack called them at the Dec. 17 special board meeting. At least five board members at that meeting were clearly determined to fire Feagins. They didn’t explain why Feagins or board members in her corner didn’t see the resolution to fire her until a few minutes before that meeting. They didn’t respond to questions that Feagins or four other board members raised about the specific allegations in the resolution. They did raise a slew of other issues that weren’t in the resolution or the 209-page report.

Board member Sable Otey, elected Aug. 1, blamed Feagins for the suicidal thoughts of an educator in her district, and the firing of a teacher in her district. She also claimed teachers were texting her with complaints about the superintendent. She didn’t present any evidence of her claims, and they weren’t included in the resolution.

Board member Towanna Murphy, elected Aug. 1, blamed Feagins for the injury of a special needs child in her district, and for putting other special needs students at risk. She didn’t present any evidence of her claims, and they weren’t included in the resolution.

Board member Natalie McKinney, elected Aug. 1, accused Feagins of creating “a climate of fear and intimidation” in staff across the district. She didn’t present any evidence of her claims, and they weren’t included in the resolution.

Various board members blamed Feagins for the district’s problems receiving sufficient staff and materials for online learning, dual enrollment, remedial instruction, and student assessment. They didn’t present any evidence that Feagins was to blame, and those complaints weren’t included in the termination resolution.

Board member Amber Huett-Garcia, who also voted not to fire Feagins, said the complaints were “highlighting the woes of a district that is under-resourced [with] generational challenges” that began decades before Feagins arrived.

McKinney pushed back. “Our [board] seats have given us a bird’s-eye view of the working of the district,” McKinney said. “We see things the general public does not see.”

The general public still is not seeing those things. The superintendent works for the board, but the board works for the public. The board owes the pubic — not to mention Feagins, her staff, teachers and parents, and other public officials — a thorough, clear and compelling explanation for why she was fired.

There was a fourth and final accusation in the termination resolution.

“The board has also become aware of certain patterns of behavior by Dr. Feagins that are not conducive to the effective operation of the District in the best interests of students, including but not limited to her refusal to communicate and/or cooperate with valued District partners.”

That accusation was not included in the 209-page investigation, nor in the list of 17 alleged contract or policy violations. But I suspect it probably comes closest to explaining what went wrong.

Feagins could be prickly, curt, and dismissive, even in public board meetings, in stark contrast to her predecessor Joris Ray who resigned under a cloud in 2022. At board meetings, Ray was unfailingly polite and solicitous, usually thanking board members profusely and formally by title and name for each and every question. His staff members did the same. Ray began meetings by asking his staff to join him in reciting aloud the district’s motto: “Together we must believe. Together we can achieve. Together we are reimagining 901.” 

Feagins didn’t have a motto or lead a cheer. Her responses to board members’ questions were more direct and could include a cold stare or a disdainful “for the record” or “let the record show.”

I suspect that Feagins was fired because a majority of board members didn’t like her, didn’t like how she was managing the district, and were getting complaints from central staff administrators, principals, local nonprofit leaders, and favored local contractors.

They were being told that Feagins was moving too fast and going too far and stepping on too many toes in her efforts to restructure the district to address the loss of Covid funding and to give classroom teachers more support and more authority.

But that’s just speculation. Just about everything you’ve read or heard about why Feagins was fired is speculation.

Feagins has called the allegations against her “meritless and baseless.” Monday, she sued the school board and asked the court to void the board’s 6-3 vote to fire her. In the lawsuit, Feagins claims that Greene, Dorse-Coleman and several other board members violated the state’s open meetings law by meeting secretly beginning in August to plan ways to terminate her contract.

It’s likely the litigation will end with a quiet, off-the-record settlement much like Ray’s agreement to resign in 2022. Which means the public may never know exactly why Feagins was fired.

So now the school board is at odds and searching for its sixth superintendent since the 2013 merger upended the entire system. The county is discussing ways to take over the school budget. The state is threatening to take over the school board.

Meanwhile, public education is under duress.

The governor plans to spend nearly half a billion dollars a year offering private school vouchers to high-income parents. The Trump administration is prioritizing private “school choice” funding. Public schools are preparing for massive safety net cuts and immigration raids, in addition to regular “active shooter drills.”

Meanwhile, schools and teachers continue to try to address the academic, social, and emotional needs of students traumatized by poverty, community violence, school shootings, and the pandemic.

And constant political turmoil.

David Waters, a veteran journalist, has covered public education in Memphis and Tennessee off and on for 30 years. He is associate director of the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis.

Categories
News The Fly-By

MEMernet: One More, Records Request, GIF Level

Posted to Facebook by Memphis Memes 901

Memphis on the internet.

One More

This image of Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid was just too good not to share. Memphis Memes 901 titled it “the beautiful, snow-capped mountains of Tennessee.”

Records Request

Posted to Facebook by Steve Mulroy

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy fulfilled a “burdensome” records request from state Sen. Brent Taylor recently. Taylor, of course, is seeking Mulroy’s ouster from the job during the legislative session this year. 

The request included 4,000 documents, 16,000 pages, six boxes, and more than 150 staff hours to complete, Mulroy said. “Things like this are a distraction from the real work that our office has to do. But we will fully cooperate with legislators.” 

GIF Level

Posted to Reddit by u/Melodic-Frosting-443

Reddit user Melodic-Frosting-443 took the Memphis-Shelby County Schools situation to GIF level with a photo of the board surrounding Marie Feagins, overlaid with Stealers Wheel lyrics, “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right …” (You could see it above. But we’re not The Daily Prophet.)  

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Punching Down

Brent Taylor (Photo: Senator Brent Taylor | Facebook)

It surely hasn’t gone unnoticed that state government is continuing to flex its muscles vis-à-vis local government in Memphis and Shelby County. 

Officials aligned with the administration in Nashville are threatening outright takeover of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) system at the same time that state Senator Brent Taylor and helpers continue to implement their would-be coup d’état against the county judiciary and the office of District Attorney Steve Mulroy.

In the case of MSCS, the sudden out-of-nowhere power struggle between an apparent school board majority and first-year superintendent Marie Feagins has prompted what amounts to an ultimatum from Governor Bill Lee and the presiding officers of the state legislative chambers: Keep Feagins or else!

And Taylor has enlisted the same officials in his campaign to oust Mulroy, involving them in his bill of particulars against the DA at a press conference last Thursday that followed by a day a quickly improvised “summit” called by the senator to consider the case for a new crime lab in Memphis, something Mulroy has put forth as a major need for facilitating effective local law enforcement.

The list of invitees to the crime lab conference, styled as a “roundtable discussion,” included Tennessee Bureau of Investigation director David Rausch and a virtually complete roster of public figures, state and local, who could be considered stakeholders in the matter of law enforcement.

There was one glaring omission, however: DA Mulroy, who was not only not invited; he was not even informed of the meeting, which was held at the City Hall of Germantown and concluded with Taylor suggesting an ultimate consensus that processing of local crime data in sensitive cases could be easily expedited via an existing crime lab in Jackson, obviating the need for a new Memphis lab.

A cynic could be pardoned for assuming that the entire thrust of the meeting in Germantown was to undermine the absent DA’s call for such a lab.

There was no doubt about the senator’s minimizing motive in his press conference the next day at the Memphis Police Association headquarters. It was overtly to “reveal the causes to be considered for the removal of District Attorney Steve Mulroy.”

Taylor’s bill of particulars against Mulroy was a duke’s mixture of complaints, ranging from prerogatives asserted by the DA that could be, and in several cases were, countered by ad hoc state legislation to innovative procedures pursued by Mulroy, some of them reflecting purposes that Taylor acknowledged sharing himself.

A case of the latter was an agreement reached by the DA with Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon to allow trial court judges access to Juvenile Court records. Taylor had sponsored a bill to do just that in last year’s session of the General Assembly.

A similar instance was Taylor’s inclusion in his list of Mulroy’s declared support of gun safety referenda placed by the Memphis City Council on the 2024 general election ballot and overwhelmingly passed.

“Many of us” could sympathize with the referenda points, Taylor said, but his point was that the referenda — calling for local ordinances on behalf of gun permits, an assault rifle ban, and judicial confiscation of firearms in at-risk instances — ran counter to state law.

Sponsors of the referenda had made it clear that they called for “trigger” laws that could be enforced only if and when state law might be amended to allow them.

And there’s a further anomaly here, given Taylor’s stated goal to “Make Memphis Mattter” and safeguard the city from crime.

One has to wonder why he isn’t pursuing an altogether different strategy, one calling for a legislative “carve-out” of Shelby County from current state law prohibiting the immediate implementation of the ordinances called for by the referenda.

Such a course would be consistent with the principle of home rule; it would also be supportive of a position taken by Mulroy’s Republican opponent in the 2022 DA’s race, then-incumbent Amy Weirich, who inveighed against the iniquitous consequences of the state’s increasingly permissive stripping away of gun safety regulations. 

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Feagins Says Ouster Move is “Politically Motivated”

Superintendent Marie Feagins on a visit to Grandview Heights Elementary School soon after she took the job in April 2024. She denounced a pending effort to oust her as “personally driven” and “politically motivated.” (Ariel J. Cobbert for Chalkbeat)

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

Memphis-Shelby County Schools Superintendent Marie Feagins wants to make clear what she thinks about the attempt to oust her: She plans to defend herself and has no intention of resigning.

In a written response to the school board Monday, Feagins said the allegations cited as a basis for firing her are “meritless” and described the effort as “personally driven” and “politically motivated.”

The board agreed to discuss the matter at a scheduled work session on Jan. 14, after deciding Dec. 17 to defer a vote on whether to end Feagins’ contract.. Any vote to fire her would have to take place at a formal board meeting. The next one is Jan. 21.

In her response Monday, which board attorney Robert Spence shared in an email to Chalkbeat, Feagins said, “I will not resign,” and urged members to reconsider an action that “does not serve the best interests of our district, children, or the broader community.”

Feagins said her attorney received no response when asked about specific policies and procedures she is alleged to have broken.

“To directly speak to the meritless claims, I have never, under any circumstances, intentionally or unintentionally misled a board member or the board as a whole,” she said in her response. “Furthermore, I have not mismanaged district funds.”

The allegations were contained in a resolution that Board Chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman presented to the board on Dec. 17, seeking to terminate Feagins immediately on grounds that she breached the terms of her contract.

The resolution claims that she:

• Failed to provide evidence of her statement that district employees were paid $1 million in overtime for time not worked.

• Accepted a donation of more than $45,000 without board approval, then misrepresented what happened.

• Misled the board and public about a federal grant and its missed deadline.

While presenting the resolution in December, Dorse-Coleman said Feagins “engaged in conduct detrimental to the district and the families it serves.”

Under Feagins’ contract, if she is fired without cause, she would be entitled to a severance payment of $487,500. Feagins strongly denied the claims at the Dec. 17 board meeting, and the board appeared split on whether to vote to oust her.

Board members Stephanie Love, Sable Otey, Towanna Murphy, and Natalie McKinney opposed delaying a decision at the Dec. 17 meeting. But Michelle McKissack, Amber Huett-Garcia, Tamarques Porter, and Keith Williams spoke out against the resolution.

Ultimately, Dorse-Coleman cast the deciding vote on a proposal to move the discussion and decision to the new year, and give Feagins more time to respond. In a Dec. 26 statement, Dorse-Coleman said her stance on removing Feagins has not changed.

“She has a pattern and practice of not providing critical information and instead misinforming the board members,” Dorse-Coleman said in her statement. “I don’t think this is something we can overcome.”

Murphy shared similar concerns with Chalkbeat after the district’s attorney told her about Feagins’ response on Tuesday.

Murphy said the superintendent does not make an effort to communicate with her, and it “has gotten worse” since the Dec. 17 meeting.

“She does not follow the instructions of the board,” Murphy said. “It is about running the school board as a whole, and us doing it for the children. But we seem to keep forgetting about the children because we’re too busy putting out Dr. Feagins’ fires.”

Murphy said she wanted Feagins to work out but she no longer envisions a future with her.

Feagins’ said in her statement Monday that she feels “deeply disturbed” by some board members’ “unwarranted attacks” on her integrity and what she described as their disregard for her professional background.

“Despite the falsehoods and defamatory public remarks intended to damage my character and diminish public trust in me, I have upheld the highest standards of professionalism,” Feagins told the board in her response. “This includes navigating attempts by current and former board members to remove me and create an intimidating work environment — actions of which you have been aware for months — while also tactfully addressing this resulting national embarrassment brought on our city and district.”

Meanwhile, the district still grapples with academic and financial challenges while trying to rehabilitate a relationship with the community that weakened during the long superintendent search.

Feagins has a four-year contract that pays her $325,000 annually. Before coming to Memphis, she held a leadership position at the Detroit Public Schools Community District.

Feagins became the first outside leader of MSCS since the district was created through a merger a decade ago.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Year That Was: Cannabis, Schools, and MPD

C.J. Davis (Photo: memphispolice.org)

JANUARY

• A state report found “out of control” inmates, drug overdoses, staff shortages, and more in Tennessee state prisons, especially at Tiptonville’s Northwest Correctional Facility.  

• Cannabis industry leaders began working against new state rules that would remove smokeable products from their shelves and damage the industry. 

• Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis kept her job but on an interim basis.  

• SmokeSlam BBQ Festival was introduced. 

• We got to the bottom of the “Dicc Dash” car that had been seen all over Memphis. 

• Winter Storm Heather left five dead in Shelby County, pushed a record-breaking demand for electricity, and put all residents under a boil-water advisory. 

FEBRUARY

• Artis Whitehead was exonerated 21 years after he was convicted of a 2002 robbery at B.B. King’s Blues Club. 

• Governor Bill Lee pushed for more school vouchers and big business tax cuts in his State of the State address. 

• The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board picked Marie Feagins as its new superintendent. 

• Data showed that Black residents got four times as many traffic tickets than whites. 

• A bill was filed to mandate gun safety training for every Tennessee school student. 

Tyre Nichols (Photo: Dakarai Turner)

MARCH

• American Queen Voyages closed. 

• Eighteen anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced from GOP lawmakers in the state legislature. 

• State House members voted to stop the Memphis City Council from a proposed ban on pretextual traffic stops, which came in the wake of the beating death of Tyre Nichols by MPD officers. 

• The Overton Park Conservancy (OPC) gave an early look at new trails on land ceded to the park by the Memphis Zoo. 

• Protestors cut short Kyle Rittenhouse’s appearance at University of Memphis. 

• The Satanic Temple sued the Shelby County Board of Education over discriminatory practices on club meetings. 

• A GOP House member wanted to ban lab-grown meat. 

APRIL

• State GOP lawmakers wanted users to submit their ID before watching porn online. 

• Bartlett’s American Paper Optics produced nearly 3 billion pairs of paper glasses for the solar eclipse. 

• A shoot-out left MPD Officer Joseph McKinney and one suspect dead. McKinney was killed by friendly fire.

• State leaders introduced a $787.5 million project to replace the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge. 

• State GOP lawmakers stopped Memphis leaders from studying Black reparations. 

MAY

• The school voucher bill died. 

• A Buc-ee’s was promised for Fayette County. 

• Lee signed a bill that granted anti-LGBTQ parents the right to adopt LGBTQ children. 

• The Biden administration paused a ban on menthol cigarettes. 

• We caught up with Renee Parker Sekander, the city’s first LGBTQ liaison. 

• Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti sued the federal government over rules on pronoun respect in the workplace.

• The zoo announced a 20-year, $250-million campus plan.

• Memphis Shelby County-Schools ruled against teachers carrying guns, despite a new state law allowing it. 

• A mysterious investment firm claimed it owned Graceland and would auction it off. 

JUNE

• Mr. Lincoln’s Costume Shoppe closed. 

• Memphis ranked as most dangerous city for pedestrian deaths. 

• Renting a home in Memphis became more affordable than buying one. 

• Elon Musk announced Memphis would be the new home for his supercomputer, Grok. 

• New census data said nearly half of Tennesseans could not afford the basic cost of living in their counties. 

• Tina Sullivan announced she would step down from the OPC. 

• The Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) asked the city council for $30.5 million after revealing a $60 million deficit. 

• A federal judge blocked some protections of transgender people in Tennessee allowed by new Title IX rules.  

JULY

• Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi said more than 10,000 people had left Tennessee for an abortion in the two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned. 

• The U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

• The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art’s new Memphis Art Museum project was allowed to move ahead after a judge denied a challenge from Friends for Our Riverfront. 

• City council members asked for more transparency from MATA after the announcement of its big budget deficit. 

• New state laws went into effect including a death sentence for child rapists, one against “abortion trafficking,” a declaration of the Bible as a state book, one against “chemtrails,” and another for singers’ protection from AI.

• A court denied former state Senator Brian Kelsey’s (R-Germantown) request to rescind his guilty plea for campaign finance violations.  

• The former leader of Shelby County’s Covid vaccine rollout lost a bid to declare she was wrongly blamed for allowing hundreds of doses to expire. 

• A court ruled transgender Tennesseans cannot change the gender marker on their birth certificates.

• Memphis International Airport was green-lit for a $653 million modernization of its main terminal. 

• The school board settled with the Satan Club for $15,000 and a promise to end its discriminatory practices.

• A court ruling allowed a ban on drag shows in public places. 

• Tennessee tourism hit a record spend of more than $30 billion in 2023. 

AUGUST

• Environmental groups asked Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) to deny an electricity deal for xAI’s supercomputer. 

• The Links at Audubon Park opened.

• Memphis cases of HIV and syphilis spiked 100 percent over the past five years. 

• Leaders warned of a tax surge coming after property reappraisals next year. 

• Black Lodge closed.

• Serial scammer Lisa Jeanine Findley was arrested in Missouri for her attempt to steal Graceland from the Presley family. 

• MATA suspended trolley service. 

• Kaci Murley was named OPC’s new executive director. 

• The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) raised electricity rates by 5.25 percent. 

SEPTEMBER

• Carol Coletta stepped down as CEO of the Memphis River Parks Partnership. 

• A state land deal could protect the Memphis Sand Aquifer.

• Cannabis industry leaders sued the state over new rules that would ban smokeable products.    

• Tennessee ranked near the top for arresting people for cannabis. 

• For the third year in a row, water levels were down in the Mississippi River after Midwest droughts. 

• AG Skrmetti proposed warning labels for social media. 

• Social media threats made for a turbulent week at local schools with disruptions and some lockdowns. 

OCTOBER

• Lawmakers want to replace the now-fallen statue of racist newspaper editor Edward Carmack at the State Capitol Building with David Crockett.

• A court decision mandated schools offer “reasonable accommodation” for transgender students to use bathrooms of their choice. 

• Three MPD officers were convicted in the beating death of Nichols. 

• Memphis Mayor Paul Young replaced every member of MATA’s board. 

• State Democrats pressed for financial reforms to address the state’s “crumbling transportation infrastructure.”

• Judges blocked discipline for doctors who provide emergency abortions. 

NOVEMBER

• Atomic Rose closed.

• A new school voucher bill was filed.

• The Memphis-area crime rate fell. 

• Tuition at state schools looked likely to rise again next year. 

• TVA approved xAI’s request for power. 

• Teachers scoffed at Lee’s $2,000 bonus as a “bribe” to go along with school vouchers.

• 901 FC left Memphis for Santa Barbara. 

• University of Tennessee Health Science Center began a plan to demolish the “eyesore” former hotel building on Madison. 

• Gun Owners of America sued the city of Memphis to block the gun referenda approved by voters from ever becoming law. 

• A new $13 million plan will help redesign the intersection of Lamar, Kimball, and Pendleton. 

• Crime fell Downtown in 2024 compared to 2023. 

• Cannabis industry leaders filed another suit against the smokeables ban after lawmakers left it in the final rules.      

DECEMBER

• Buds and Brews, a restaurant featuring cannabis products, opened on Broad. 

• Blended sentence laws could usher hundreds of kids into the adult criminal justice system. 

• State revenue projections flagged on big business tax breaks. 

• A blistering report from the U.S. Department of Justice found that MPD used excessive force, discriminated against Black people, and used “harsh tactics” against children.

• Houston’s abruptly closed. 

• The SCOTUS heard Skrmetti’s case against gender-affirming care for transgender minors. 

• The former Velsicol facility in North Memphis could enter into a state-run environmental response trust. 

• Feagins narrowly survived the board’s ouster move but the situation will be reviewed in 2025.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Feagins Survives Ouster Move

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters

An effort to oust Memphis-Shelby County Schools Superintendent Marie Feagins was put on hold Tuesday night when a divided school board voted to push the debate to next month.

In a 5-4 vote, the board referred a resolution to oust Feagins over allegations of “professional misconduct” to a committee meeting in January.

Feagins forcefully denied the allegations near the end of a heated board meeting that was repeatedly disrupted, describing what she had heard as “meritless and baseless.”

The resolution to terminate Feagins’ contract — brought by board Chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman — claims she violated the terms and must be removed immediately. The resolution alleges that Feagins:

• Misled the board and did not present evidence of her statement, made in a work session, that district employees were paid $1 million in overtime for time not worked.

• Accepted a more than $45,000 donation without board approval, then misrepresented what happened in violation of board policy.

• Was dishonest with the board and public about a federal grant and a missed deadline.

Board members dissatisfied with Feagins’ performance have aired those concerns previously, a clear signal that the relationship between the superintendent and board had eroded. But the effort to oust her Tuesday fell short after a meeting in which Feagins supporters voiced their anger at the prospect of her being terminated less than nine months after she took the job.

When given the microphone, Feagins said she had yet to see the resolution and heard about the effort to end her contract from the media after the meeting was announced Monday.

“I’ve said time and time again, if I’m ever the barrier I will leave,” Feagins said. “What I’ve heard is meritless and baseless. I have been transparent about it and can refute everything that’s been stated.”

She added: “My desire to be transparent has been weaponized against me.” She also referenced working with an attorney depending on how things proceeded.

Dorse-Coleman said in introducing the resolution: “The board believes that Dr. Feagins has engaged in conduct detrimental to the district and the families it serves.”

Board members Michelle McKissack, Amber Huett-Garcia, and Tamarques Porter spoke out against the resolution and fought efforts to push through a vote on it Tuesday night.

“Let’s not get distracted. This is a distraction,” McKissack said.

“This is foolish,” Huett-Garcia said. “We’re not perfect here, but if we do this tonight, we are saying to the public we are not willing to do the hard work.”

Other board members, however, were resolute in wanting to end Feagins’ tenure. Board member Sable Otey said there have been complaints about how MSCS is run since August.

Board members McKissack, Huett-Garcia, Porter, Dorse-Coleman, and Keith Williams voted to move the discussion to committee in January.

Dorse-Coleman was the deciding vote and said to reporters after the meeting she wanted to “keep it fair” by giving the district time to look over the facts.

“There’s a disconnect and it’s a very strong disconnect that our superintendent has created,” she said.

When asked if any of these concerns were brought to Feagins during an evaluation, Dorse-Coleman said the evaluation was not completed because “when people were trying to talk to her, they didn’t get a chance to.”

More than a hundred Memphians attended Tuesday’s meeting, many of them cheering Feagins as she walked into the auditorium and booing board members.

Dorse-Coleman said at the meeting that 57 people were signed up for the public comment portion; the board reduced the time limit from three minutes for each speaker to one minute. Nearly all public comments were in support of the superintendent. Some speakers asked the board to postpone the vote.

The drama around Feagins comes as the district faces serious academic and financial challenges — and just as it was seeking to restore community trust after previous leadership turnover and a protracted 18-month process to find a replacement.

The board hired Feagins in February and agreed to a four-year contract that paid her $325,000 a year, starting April 1. If the board fired her without cause, she’d be due a severance payment of about $500,000.

Feagins previously held a leadership position at the Detroit Public Schools Community District. She was chosen from a field of three finalists to be the first outside leader of Memphis-Shelby County Schools since the district was created through a merger a decade ago.

During the interview process, Feagins explained how she used data to help get more Detroit students on track to graduate, spoke of empowering teachers, and described efforts to increase parent engagement by translating education jargon into understandable terms.

The board and Feagins clashed early, however, over her elimination of about 1,100 positions over the summer, her allegations of overtime abuse by district employees, her response to school air conditioning problems, and her plans to close or consolidate schools under a broader facilities overhaul.

While Feagins gave board members detailed, data-heavy reports during their meetings, several suggested she was not transparent or collaborative enough about the big decisions and shifts she made.

At the same time, many community members were glad to see Feagins taking steps to shake up a district they viewed as top-heavy and in need of significant reforms. Speakers on Tuesday night praised Feagins as a visionary and connector, while threatening to recall board members.

Earlier Tuesday, McKissack released a statement asking her colleagues to delay the vote, citing community support for Feagins.

“I believe we should give Dr. Feagins the opportunity to address any concerns directly and collaboratively,” McKissack said in the statement. “This moment calls for patience and dialogue in the best interest of our students and families.”

Dorse-Coleman said after the meeting that community support for Feagins did not influence her tie-breaking vote.

“What I brought tonight, I still feel that way,” Dorse-Coleman said, referring to the resolution. “She has not properly communicated a lot of things with us.”

The district has been beset by leadership turmoil going back to at least August 2022, when then-Superintendent Joris Ray resigned amid an investigation into allegations that he abused his power and violated district policies. The board agreed to pay him a severance of nearly $500,000 and ended the investigation.

District administrator Toni Williams took over as interim superintendent, pledged she wouldn’t seek the job on a permanent basis, changed her mind and applied for the role, then backed out of the process. The district restarted its national search in June 2023, after the board agreed on a fresh set of job qualifications and criteria.

The school board has a different look than it did when Feagins was hired: November’s election resulted in four of its nine members being replaced.

The latest turmoil could reignite efforts by state leaders and lawmakers to seize some control of the Memphis district. Earlier this year, a Memphis lawmaker floated a proposal to expand the school board with additional members appointed by state officials.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Seeing Red

The 2024 presidential election results by precinct (Photo: Courtesy Don Johnson)

The Shelby County Republican Party is scheduled to hold its biennial convention in January, and the party has a bona fide chairmanship race on its hands.

One candidate is Bangladesh-born Naser Fazlullah, manager of a food-and-beverages firm and the local party’s vice chair, who has been highly active in Republican outreach efforts over the years. Most unusually, he professes a desire to “bring both parties together” for the benefit of Shelby County and has numerous friends both inside and outside GOP ranks.

The other candidate is insurance executive Worth Morgan, the former city council member who in 2022 ran unsuccessfully for county mayor and had been rumored as a possible candidate for Memphis mayor the next year before deciding not to make the race.

Both candidates are running as the heads of slates for a variety of other party offices.

Morgan’s campaign in particular, run under the slogan “Revive,” is in the kind of high gear normally associated with expensive major public races and has employed a barrage of elaborate online endorsements from such well-known party figures as state Representative Mark White, state Senator Brent Taylor, and conservative media commentator Todd Starnes. 

The GOP convention is scheduled for January 25th at The Venue at Bartlett Station.

• Morgan’s choice of the campaign motif “Revival” is interesting. Not too long ago, Republicans dominated county government, but demographics now heavily favor Democrats in countywide voting. As one indication of that, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris outdistanced the GOP’s Donald Trump in November by a margin of 201,759 to Trump’s 118,917. 

In a series of post-election analyses, however, veteran Republican analyst Don Johnson, formerly of Memphis and now with the Stone River Group of Nashville, has demonstrated the GOP’s supremacy virtually everywhere else in Tennessee. He has published precinct-specific maps of statewide election results showing areas won by Trump in red. Patches of Democratic blue show up only sporadically in these graphics and are largely confined to Memphis, Nashville, and the inner urban cores of Knoxville and Chattanooga. Even Haywood County in the southwest corner of the state, virtually the last Democratic stronghold in rural Tennessee, shows high purple on Johnson’s cartography.

Post-election analysis shows something else — a shift of the Republican center of gravity eastward, toward the GOP’s ancestral homeland of East Tennessee. For the first time in recent presidential elections, Republican voting in Knox County outdid the party’s totals in Shelby County.

Looking ahead to the 2026 governor’s race, it is meaningful that a recent poll of likely Republican voters by the Tennessee Conservative News shows two Knoxvillians — Congressman Tim Burchett and Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs — leading all other potential candidates.

• The Shelby County Commission ended its year with a full agenda of 89 items, several of which were matters involving schools and school funding. The commissioners navigated that agenda with admirable focus and aplomb, considering that the bombshell news of Tuesday’s scheduled Memphis Shelby-County Schools board meeting regarding the potential voiding of superintendent Marie Feagins’ contract exploded midway through their discussions.

• One of the more inclusive political crowds in recent history showed up weekend before last at Otherlands on Cooper to honor David Upton on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Upton is the proverbial man-behind-the-scenes in Shelby County politics and has had a hand — sometimes openly, sometimes not — in more local elections and civic initiatives than almost anybody else you could name. 

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

School Board to Discuss Ouster of Superintendent Feagins

New Superintendent Marie Feagins engages with students during her visit to Northhaven Elementary School on April 23, 2024.. (Ariel J. Cobbert for Chalkbeat)

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board has called a special meeting for Tuesday evening to discuss terminating the contract of Superintendent Marie Feagins, who officially started in the position just eight months ago, after a protracted search.

The board in February voted to hire Feagins away from a leadership position at the Detroit Public Schools Community District, making her the first outside leader to direct Tennessee’s largest school district since it was created through a merger a decade ago.

However, tensions emerged quickly between the board and Feagins over staffing issues and plans to close and consolidate schools as part of a sweeping facilities plan.

The special meeting — scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday — caught at least one board member off guard.

“I’m just as stunned as the public,” said Michelle McKissack, who represents District 1 and has been a strong supporter of Feagins. “I learned about this at about the same time as everyone else. There has been no discussion, at least with my presence there, to warrant this meeting.”

Other school board members could not be reached or declined to comment Monday night.

Another leadership shakeup could be a jarring setback for a district that took more than a year to choose and install Feagins and faces a series of significant academic and financial challenges.

It also could put the board at odds with community leaders, many of whom were glad to see Feagins taking steps to shake up a district they viewed as top-heavy and in need of significant reforms.

After Feagins started, tensions with the board developed quickly over her decision to eliminate around 1,100 positions over the summer, her allegations of overtime abuse by some district employees at a cost of $1 million, and her administration’s slowness to address air-conditioning and other school building needs before the start of this academic year.

There were also missteps over school safety in August, just after the school year began, as Feagins narrowly avoided a walkout by school resource officers and accepted the resignation of the district’s new security chief just days after he started.

The relationships didn’t seem to improve after school board elections that replaced four of the board’s nine members.

Tensions grew over the facilities plan Feagins’ administration was developing to close or consolidate schools — a blueprint that likely would affect nearly every board member’s district.

There was also anger after the Memphis City Council rejected the district’s planned site to build a new high school in Cordova to replace Germantown High School under a 2022 agreement with Germantown and state officials. Several board members said Feagins should have leaned more on board members to lobby council members for the new site.

Feagins came to Memphis well aware of the risks of a strained relationship with board members. Her 2020 doctoral dissertation, Chalkbeat reported in May, noted that a lack of trust can prompt superintendent departures.

At a tense school board meeting on October 21, after a brief discussion with members about building challenges, Feagins became emotional when board member Amber Garcia-Huett asked her what she was most proud of so far in her brief tenure.

Her voice breaking, Feagins said: “People — leaders who keep showing up every day, committed to something they can’t see.”

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

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Memphis School Leaders Grapple With School Safety, Air Conditioning Issues

Superintendent Marie Feagins, who was hired to lead Tennessee's largest district this spring, is dealing with a myriad of challenges as a new academic year begins for Memphis-Shelby County Schools. (Ariel J. Cobbert for Chalkbeat)

Superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools Marie N. Feagins, wants to allay concerns about safety in the new school year after narrowly avoiding a walkout by school resource officers last week, and accepting the resignation of the district’s new security chief just days after he started.

“I give you assurance … that our district is fine,” Feagins told school board members Tuesday evening, after a tumultuous week in which she and the board agreed to give the district’s 125-plus officers significant raises.

Feagins also reported that air conditioning problems that caused a dozen schools to close early on Aug. 5, the first day of classes, also impacted student health as the heat index climbed to 106 degrees.

“We have had some asthma-related incidents and a couple of seizures,” she said. “And so that still remains at the top of mind for us.”

Feagins added that technicians have completed a third of the 1,393 work orders received in August to troubleshoot air conditioning issues across the district’s 165 buildings.

But the maintenance issues are severe, she said of the $1 billion backlog in Tennessee’s largest school system, and the district’s building maintenance division is short-staffed. The district recently increased pay for its technicians, partly because of workforce competition from Ford Motor Co.’s electric truck assembly plant under construction in nearby Haywood County.

The troubling reports came amid sometimes tense exchanges between the district’s new leader and school board members in one of their final meetings before four new members are scheduled to be seated in September, following this month’s elections.

But they unanimously agreed about the importance of completing Whitehaven High School’s $9.5 million STEM lab, approving $2.3 million for the job. The construction project, which broke ground in April and also is funded with private dollars, has been delayed three months because of a lag in disbursing money that had been promised earlier by the district’s interim leader, Toni Williams.

The vote to disburse $1.3 million that previously had been approved, plus another $1 million to cover the cost of a storm shelter required by building codes, prompted cheers from Whitehaven teachers and community members, some of whom spoke during the meeting.

“This is a slam dunk; we should have already done this,” said Wayne Hawkins, a teacher at Whitehaven.

Board members also voted unanimously to have the school system’s attorney report from now on to the elected board instead of to the superintendent — a change in organizational structure they said is needed to maintain independence and avoid conflicts of interest.

School safety was front and center last week as school resource officers threatened to walk off the job just days before the district’s annual football jamboree. Last year, gunfire broke out during two games.

But Feagins reported that no major incidents occurred during this year’s three-day jamboree that featured 67 middle and high school teams and attracted more than 6,000 spectators.

She and other board members thanked officers for ensuring a safe environment. A week earlier, they settled their dispute with SROS over pay and other issues.

But Feagins acknowledged missteps in hiring George Harris as her executive director of safety and security without conducting a more thorough background check.

Harris was recruited from Detroit Public Schools Community District, where Feagins previously was an administrator and he was a lieutenant in the department of patrol operations. After school board member Stephanie Love emailed Feagins and other board members on Aug. 16 about allegations that Harris had misappropriated funds during his time in Detroit, Harris resigned from his new job the next day, citing “personal reasons.”

“I own that I made the offer to the individual based on the information that I had,” Feagins told the board.

She said she’s open to policy changes to strengthen the background check process for filling such jobs as she looks to replace Harris in what she called “a very important role.”

Love responded: “I agree we need to strengthen policies so this will never happen again.”

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

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Categories
Uncategorized

New MSCS Superintendent Gets to Work Early

Credit: Memphis Shelby County Schools

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. 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.

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 on Tuesday 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 the school board has not otherwise discussed her employment in a public meeting, and board members have taken no votes on a contract.

Board members Mauricio Calvo and Stephanie Love said Friday afternoon that they had not seen the per diem contract.

Board policy allows the district to enter contracts for some services that cost less than $75,000 without seeking a board vote. The press release did not provide details about Feagins’ pay. Chalkbeat has requested public records about the short-term contract.

Chalkbeat’s attempts to reach Feagins for comment Friday were unsuccessful.

Greene said she expects the board to take action on Feagins’ superintendent contract at a meeting scheduled for March 26.

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

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.