James Dukes (IMAKEMADBEATS) spoke the truth last week after threats shut down several Memphis-area schools.
“Sending our kids to school should not be like this,” Dukes said on Facebook.
Never Forget
Originally posted to Twitter by Ryan Poe/Reposted to Facebook by Myrlon Lowery
The MEMernet remembered that 15 years ago, then-acting Memphis Mayor Myron Lowery fist-bumped the Dalai Lama and said, “Hello, Dalai!”
Doughty/Duck Dunn
Posted to Facebook by Mike Doughy
Memphis transplant Mike Doughty reunited with his band Soul Coughing recently for a tour. He found a little Memphis backstage in California.
“Thank you to The Fillmore in [San Francisco] for providing Soul Coughing, as per the backstage rider, an original painting of Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn,” Doughty wrote on Facebook.
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.
Memphis Shelby County Schools will pay more than $15,000 to settle a suit with The Satanic Temple over what the group calls “serious First Amendment violations.”
Credit: The Satanic Temple
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) filed the lawsuit in March against the Shelby County Board of Education on behalf of The Satanic Temple over what the club said were discriminatory practices.
In November, the group sought to bring its After School Satan Club to Chimneyrock Elementary School.. The program is “not interested in converting children to Satanism” but only to focus on “free inquiry and rationalism,” the group said. The Satanic Temple says it “does not worship or believe in the existence of Satan” and will “only open a club if other religious groups are operating on campus.”
The Satanic Temple said the board rents space to another group for the Christian Good News Club. That club is run by Child Evangelism Fellowship, “a Bible-centered organization composed of born-again believers whose purpose is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living…”
The After School Satan Club was allowed to meet at Chimneyrock on January 10th after what it described as a laborious process involving attempts to thwart its efforts. The group then submitted four new rental requests for monthly meetings at the school.
The school board assessed a “special security fee” of $2,045.60 on the Satanic Temple for “additional security.” It also levied a $250 fee for field lights. The Christian Good News Club were not charged any of these fees, according to Satanic Temple. But Satanic Temple paid the fees anyway. These fees are the crux of the FFRF lawsuit.
”The district’s discriminatory and illegal behavior left The Satanic Temple and FFRF with no choice but to sue,” the group said in a statement Friday. “The lawsuit sought fair treatment. The Temple didn’t want special privileges, just to be treated the same as all other organizations renting from the district. The lawsuit asked the court to order the district to approve The Satanic Temple’s reservation requests, treat the Temple fairly, and refund it the discriminatory fees the district forced it to pay.”
The board settled the lawsuit this week. MSCS will pay $14,845 in attorney fees and costs to the FFRF and its counsel. The board will also pay $1 for nominal damages to The Satanic Temple and $196.71 for various fees previously paid by the Temple in connection with rental reservations that had not yet been refunded.
MSCS also agreed not to discriminate against the organization with regard to its requests to rent and use school board property at Chimneyrock Elementary School. The Temple will be subject to the same rules and requirements as other nonprofit organizations looking to rent or use the school’s facilities. Also, the school board’s administration has promised not to hold any press conference with regard to the Temple’s lawful rental or use of school property.
The controversy gained national attention in December when the MSCS officials held a press conference in which school board members, administrators, and other leaders were surrounded by clergy members. They expressed “hostility” toward The Satanic Temple and ”validated community members’ hostility” toward the After School Satan Club’s then upcoming first meeting at Chimneyrock Elementary, the group said.
”We’re glad the district has mutually resolved this case and agreed to treat The Satanic Temple’s club fairly going forward,” said Patrick Elliott, FFRF’s legal director. “This settlement should send a message to public schools that the First Amendment applies to all organizations, including minority groups.”
About 200 people braved flash-flood warnings and a downpour to attend a Memphis-Shelby County school board candidate forum at Idlewild Presbyterian Church on Monday, June 17, 2024. (Caroline Bauman / Chalkbeat)
Improving literacy rates, preparing students to compete globally, and combating teacher shortages are among the top challenges facing Memphis-Shelby County schools, candidates for the school board said at a forum Monday night.
About 200 people braved flash-flood warnings and a downpour to attend the forum at Idlewild Presbyterian Church. It was organized by Chalkbeat Tennessee and the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope, and co-sponsored by the Memphis Education Fund and the Urban Child Institute.
Five of the board’s nine seats are up for election on Aug. 1. Four of the candidates — board Chair Althea Greene, Stephanie Love, Frank Johnson, and Mauricio Calvo — are incumbents.
They and 15 other candidates took questions from Chalkbeat and the audience on how they would guide Tennessee’s largest school district if elected.
Besides prioritizing boosting student literacy — nearly 80 percent of MSCS students aren’t proficient in reading, based on standardized test scores — some of the candidates said they would also focus on curbing teacher shortages and approach the city of Memphis about helping to fund the school system.
An audience question about what the candidates would do to listen to teachers’ concerns without their fearing retaliation sparked a number of responses. Most said that they would do that by fortifying relationships with the teachers’ unions.
Natalie McKinney, who is vying for the District 2 seat currently held by Greene, said that teachers must trust the process, but they “don’t have a process in place that they believe they can trust.”
The current board sparred with Feagins last week over proposed staffing cuts that were communicated ahead of a budget deadline.
To see what the candidates said at the forum, watch the full video recording. And to learn more about the candidates, check out Chalkbeat’s school board candidate voter guide.
Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) filed a lawsuit against the Shelby County Board of Education on behalf of The Satanic Temple over what the club calls discriminatory practices.
The club has sought to bring its After School Satan Club to Chimneyrock Elementary School since November. The program is “not interested in converting children to Satanism” but only to focus on “free inquiry and rationalism.” The Satanic Temple says it “does not worship or believe in the existence of Satan” and will “only open a club if other religious groups are operating on campus.”
Nonprofit organizations can rent facilities from Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS). The Satanic Temple said the board rents space for the Christian Good News Club. That club is run by Child Evangelism Fellowship, “a Bible-centered organization composed of born-again believers whose purpose is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living…”
The After School Satan Club was allowed to meet at Chimneyrock on January 10th after what it described as a laborious process involving attempts to thwart its efforts. The group then submitted four new rental requests for monthly meetings at the school.
Credit: The Satanic Temple
The board assessed a “special security fee” of $2,045.60 on the Satanic Temple for “additional security.” It also levied a $250 fee for field lights. The Christian Good News Club were not charged any of these fees, according to Satanic Temple. But Satanic Temple paid the fees anyway. These fees are the crux of the FFRF lawsuit.
MSCS “cannot pick and choose how much it charges an organization renting its facilities based on how much it does or does not favor the organization’s viewpoint, the content of its speech, or its religious beliefs,” reads the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. The district’s “unconstitutional behavior has chilled The Satanic Temple’s speech and substantially burdened its ability to exercise its religiously motivated practice of offering inclusive, welcoming religious clubs at public schools.”
The move violates the group’s First Amendment rights, the lawsuit says. Precedence on the matter has already been set in a Georgia lawsuit decided by the U.S. Supreme Court that ruled such fees against disfavored groups violate free speech laws.
The Satanic Temple wants prompt approval of its reservation requests without any “discriminatory” rental fee. It also wants a judge to say the school board’s actions violate First Amendment rights. Finally, it wants to stop the board from continuing its discrimination against the After School Satan Club.
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.
“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.
Marie Feagins Photo Credit: Memphis-Shelby County Schools
The Memphis-Shelby County Schools Board of Education will offer a superintendent contract to Marie Feagins, in a move that signals the end of an extensive search.
“Dr. Feagins emerged as the choice after a comprehensive search that included robust input from the community, parents, teachers, and staff,” the district said in a statement. “Through community meetings, listening sessions, and candidate visits, the board learned of Dr. Feagins’ deep understanding of urban education, commitment to equity, and academic vision for MSCS.”
School officials said Feagins has a deep understanding for the city and county as well as an “understanding of urban education successes and opportunities.”
Feagins is now the chief of leadership and high schools for Detroit Public Schools. She received her doctorate of education in educational leadership from Samford University, an education specialist/master of education in school counseling degree from the University of West Alabama, a bachelor of science in business administration from the University of Alabama, and a certificate in education finance from Georgetown University.
The board search was narrowed to Feagins, Yolanda Brown, and Cheryl Proctor. Toni Williams has served as interim superintendent since August 2022 after Joris Ray resigned amid scandal.
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.
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 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’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:
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.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
The five finalists for Memphis-Shelby County Schools superintendent interviewed with the board on Friday, Dec. 15, 2023. Clockwise from top, they are: Angela Whitelaw, Carlton Jenkins, Marie Feagins, Yolonda Brown, and Cheryl Proctor. (Screen capture of Memphis-Shelby County Schools)
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 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.
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.
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.Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
The high school graduation rate for Memphis-Shelby County Schools students rose 1.4 percent to 81.5 percent in 2022-23, continuing a rebound from the pandemic years. MSCS still lagged behind the statewide graduation rate of 90.6 percent. (Andrea Morales for Chalkbeat)
The high school graduation rate for Memphis-Shelby County Schools students rose to 81.5 percent in 2022-23, according to the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE), continuing a rebound from the pandemic years.
MSCS still lagged behind the statewide graduation rate of 90.6 percent. But the results reflected a 1.4 percent improvement from the previous year’s rate of 80.1 percent, and a big turnaround from 2019-20 and 2020-21, when the graduation rate sank to 77.7 percent.
Fourteen high schools — including six charter schools — posted graduation rates of 90 percent or higher, while 21 high schools increased their graduation rate by at least one percentage point.
“We commend our educators, students, and families for their hard work and we are proud of the gains we continue to see in our graduation rates,” interim superintendent Toni Williams stated in an MSCS press release.
MSCS officials credited strategies such as Project Graduation, in which students can earn elective credits in the evening, as well as expanded tutoring with federal stimulus money and funding to hire graduation coaches.
TDOE officials pointed out areas of improvement across the state. Twenty-nine school districts boosted graduation rates for economically disadvantaged students by five percentage points or more, while 37 school districts improved graduation rates for students with disabilities by five percentage points or more, according to a department press release.
“Tennessee’s continuous commitment to ensuring students are successful in graduating from high school on time is demonstrated in this year’s statewide graduation rate and is a direct result of the hard work of Tennessee directors of schools, administrators, and educators have done with our families and students,” Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds stated in a press release.
MSCS high schools with 2023-24 grad rates of 90 percent or higher
Charter schools are indicated by an asterisk.
*City University School of Independence, 100 percent
Hollis F. Price Middle College, 100 percent
East High, 98 percent
*Memphis School of Excellence, 96.6 percent
*Power Center Academy High, 96.6 percent
Middle College High, 95.9 percent
Germantown High, 95.3 percent
*Crosstown High, 93.9 percent
*Memphis Academy of Science Engineering Middle/High, 93.3 percent
Whitehaven High, 92 percent
*Soulsville Charter School, 91.8 percent
White Station High, 91.2 percent
Ridgeway High, 90.6 percent
Central High, 90.2 percent
Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
