Tag Archives: Shelby County Schools

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Unfinished Business

Feagins attempts Memphis comeback by way of courts

Marie Feagins wants a judge to order the Memphis-Shelby County School Board to reinstall her as Director of Schools.

Chalkbeat reports:

Former Memphis-Shelby County Schools Superintendent Marie Feagins is now suing a board member for personal defamation in an ongoing lawsuit over her January firing after less than 10 months on the job.

Feagins testified on Tuesday in Shelby County Circuit Court, where Judge Robert Childers considered Feagins’ request for a preliminary injunction, which would overturn the board vote to terminate her contract and reinstate her as district leader as the lawsuit plays out.

“I came here to do a job, and we have unfinished business,” Feagins said on the stand. “I didn’t come to sue the school district.”

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State Takeover of Memphis Schools: Not Yet

But district faces continued pressure, scrutiny from meddling lawmakers

Most of Tennessee’s legislators are not from Memphis/Shelby County, but that hasn’t stopped a cadre of them from attempting to tell the elected leaders of Memphis how to run their schools.

As the General Assembly ended its business this year, legislation that would have allowed the state to takeover Memphis-Shelby County Schools stalled:

Memphis-Shelby County Schools narrowly avoided legislation that would have expanded state control over its elected school board and budget. But lawmakers intend to bring that bill back — and other efforts to audit the district and potentially change the timing of its school board elections have advanced.

Though versions of state intervention bills passed in the House and Senate, the chambers could not reconcile them before the Tennessee General Assembly adjourned on Tuesday. Each bill called for a state-appointed oversight board whose members would be paid by the school district, but the two versions differed on what powers it gave that board, and the thresholds that would trigger state intervention.

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Lee’s Tennessee wins South’s Race to the Bottom

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What to do About Shelby County Schools?

The legislature seems determined to subvert democracy

Chalkbeat reports that a pair of possible “solutions” are floating around – plans that would allow the General Assembly to intervene in Shelby County Schools:

One proposal in the House would take power away from the elected school board for at least four years, giving oversight of the school district to a state-appointed board of local residents. A proposal in the Senate would give the Shelby County Commission greater control over the school district — at a time when commissioners have already proposed creating an advisory board to consult with the school board.

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Memphis-Shelby County Announces it Will Not Arm Teachers

District rejects legislative plan to put more guns in schools

Officials in Memphis have announced that their school system will not allow teachers to carry guns at school, despite a legislative decision that would allow districts to permit teachers who receive certain training to carry firearms on school grounds.

Seems Like a Bad Idea

“We will not allow teachers to carry guns in our schools,” said Superintendent Marie N. Feagins, adding that the law is “controversial.”

Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said “schools are for learning.”

“… And emergency situations should be handled by trained officers,” Bonner said. 

“And the district has made it a priority to keep them that way through security upgrades and updates,” MPD Interim Chief C.J. Davis continued.

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Is That All?

Memphis-Shelby County Schools has a new budget proposal that offers teachers a 2% raise plus a $1500 retention bonus.

While this sounds nice – it IS more money, it really begs the question: Is that all?

Chalkbeat has more on the details of the nearly $2 billion budget proposal:

Memphis-Shelby County Schools teachers would receive a 2% pay raise and $1,500 retention bonuses as part of the $1.93 billion proposed budget approved by school board members Tuesday.

Fulfilling Superintendent Joris Ray’s promises earlier this year to invest in educators, the 2022-23 budget would also funnel nearly $12 million into educators’ tiered pay scale and add a new step on the scale for principals.

The budget, passed on a 5-0 vote, also directs $3.5 million to bump up the district’s contribution to employee health insurance premiums to 70% from 66%, and $3 million to raises for substitute teachers. 

While a 2% raise and a $1500 salary increase are nice moves, that’s simply not enough.

It’s unfortunate that Bill Lee’s TISA plan and current funding scheme aren’t dedicating more to public schools We currently have a surplus in excess of $3 billion at the state level and yet still struggle to fund public schools.

It’s a matter of priorities.

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Judge: Lee’s Action on Masks Interferes with Safe Access to Schools

A federal judge today blocked Gov. Bill Lee’s executive order allowing parents to opt-out of mask mandates in schools.

WTVC-NewsChannel9 has more:

U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman issued the preliminary injunction after parents of students with health conditions argued that the Republican governor’s executive order endangered their children and hurt their ability to attend in-person classes by allowing others to opt-out of a mask mandate

In the ruling, Lipman wrote that the ability to safely access schools was a guaranteed right and that the executive order impedes this right.

“Plaintiffs offered sufficient evidence at this stage to demonstrate that the Executive Order interferes with Plaintiffs’ ability to safely access their schools,” the judge wrote.

Chalkbeat has additional reporting:

“It is that unmasked presence that creates the danger to these plaintiffs,” she wrote. “Universal masking is a reasonable accommodation that the governor’s executive order refuses to make available to schools, school systems and, in this case, the Shelby County Health Department.”

Friday’s ruling only affects Shelby County, where the executive order was in effect from Aug. 16 to Sept. 3, when it was blocked by the court’s temporary restraining order. Gov. Bill Lee’s order still stands in other counties.

“The public interest certainly recognizes the rights of parents,” she said, “but a universal masking requirement to protect students’ health does not significantly impact their ability to direct their education any more than would a uniform policy or requiring that students receive certain vaccinations before attending school.”

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Teaching Vacancies Up in Shelby County

The number of teaching position vacancies in Shelby County has increased since the start of the school year, reports Chalkbeat:

The Memphis district started the school year with 217 unfilled teaching jobs on Aug. 9, and that number has grown to 227 as of Monday, the district’s human resources chief, Yolanda Martin, said. That represents a dramatic increase in vacancies from around this time last year, when the district had just 63 unfilled positions as of the first day of school.

The rise in openings follows a wave of teacher resignations. Since May, 367 district educators have resigned from their positions, Martin told school board members during a committee meeting on Monday. The district saw a similar figure last year: 389 teachers resigned during the 2019-20 school year.

Normally, I’d write about teacher pay (which is abysmal in TN) or remind readers that COVID-19 has been especially demanding. I might point out the repeated warnings about a teacher shortage. Or, note that all the “disruption” sought by so called “ed reformers” is really disruptive – to kids, teachers, schools, and families.

But, I’m just going to stop. The story is there. Teachers are leaving. The job is incredibly challenging. And there have been people shouting about this crisis coming for years now.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

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Always on the Attack

Sen. Brian Kelsey of Shelby County took some time today to attack the Shelby County Schools and get in a jab at the teachers union. He never misses a chance to attack public schools or the educators in them.

Here’s the video:

This is the same guy who sent out a Christmas card crowing about his legal work to voucherize public schools.

This is also the same Brian Kelsey who led efforts to eliminate the Hall Income Tax and $200 million a year in revenue for the state. Then, the issue was what to do with repeated years of surplus revenue. Kelsey’s answer was NOT to invest it in schools, but instead to create a tax giveaway for investors.

Brian Kelsey does not and has not supported our state’s public schools. Now, he’s using his position as chair of the Senate Education Committee to attack public school teachers. In other Kelsey news, he’s the lead sponsor of legislation that would undermine the ability of working Tennesseans to join a union.

MORE ON KELSEY:

That’s Not What You Said Last Week
Kelsey, White Named Co-Conspirators in Lee’s Assault on Local School Boards
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Photo by freestocks.org on Pexels.com

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

Your support – $5 or more – makes publishing education news possible.

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Not Hopson

While Tennesseans continue to speculate on who will become the next Commissioner of Education, one prominent name is apparently out of the running.

Shelby County Director of Schools Dorsey Hopson announced today he is resigning his post effective January 2019 to take a job with Cigna.

Here’s more from the school system’s press release:

Calling the last six years the “most rewarding years” of his career, Dorsey Hopson today announced that he will soon be ending his tenure as Shelby County Schools’ top educator.

“For the past six years, we have worked together to guide this great school district through monumental changes, including a merger, demerger, school closures and a state takeover of some schools,” said Hopson. “Through it all, our educators and supporters have remained committed to aggressively increasing student achievement.

Hopson will begin a job in the private sector in January 2019 saying it was an extremely difficult decision but one that will afford him more time with his family. In addition, he said he now looks forward to supporting Shelby County Schools as an involved parent and community member.

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“No Confidence” in TNReady

Just days after members of the Knox County School Board took the Tennessee Department of Education to task for “incompetence” and an “abject failure” to measure student achievement or teacher performance, the Directors of the state’s two largest school districts, Nashville and Memphis, sent a letter to Education Commissioner Candice McQueen and Governor Bill Haslam stating they had “no confidence” in TNReady and asking the state to pause the test.

The letter, signed by Nashville’s Shawn Joseph and Shelby County’s Dorsey Hopson, says in part:

“We respectfully ask the State to hit the pause button on TNReady in order to allow the next Governor and Commissioner to convene a statewide working group of educators to sort out the myriad challenges in a statewide, collaborative conversation.”

The two leaders, whose districts represent 20 percent of all students in Tennessee, note:

“We are challenged to explain to teachers, parents, and students why they must accept the results of a test that has not been effectively deployed.”

The language from these two directors is the strongest yet from any district and the first to call for an outright stop to administration of the TNReady test while the state explores other options. Johnson City’s school board sent a proposal asking for a significant reduction in testing while Wilson County is exploring the possibility of administering a different test altogether. At the same time, Williamson County Director of Schools Mike Looney expressed concern about the poor administration of this year’s test.

It seems clear there is growing concern among educators about the continued use of TNReady. As Joseph and Hopson note, taxpayer resources have been invested in a test that is poorly implemented and yields suspect results. Taking their suggestion of a pause could give the state and a new Governor and Education Commissioner time to actually develop a process for administering an aligned assessment that does not disrupt instruction and does return useful, meaningful results to teachers, parents, and students.

Here’s the letter:

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