Eric Harris opened his campaign for the District 4 Memphis-Shelby County Schools board seat Thursday, April 18, in Midtown with backing from former school board member and current city council member Jeff Warren.

The founder of the year-round Jessran pre-school program for two-year olds and children up to four years old is also a former MSCS teacher and principal who has also taught in private, rural and state takeover schools in his career as an educator.

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Warren billed Harris as “the only candidate in the race that works with kids every day.”

Harris is one of five candidates running for the seat that incumbent Kevin Woods is not seeking re-election to.

District 4 takes in southeast Memphis “from Ridgeway to Forest Hill Irene Road” by Harris’ description.

The Midtown fundraiser is an indication of broader interest in the five school board races this election year beyond the boundaries of the districts.

Five of the nine school board districts are on the August ballot. School board races have staggered terms by state law. The other four seats are on the ballot in two years.

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School board races are also defined by the schools within the districts. Children and their parents in those schools may not live in the district that includes the schools, but parents often go to the school board member whose district includes the school.

“I think that if the school district got better at engaging our families, engaging our children in that I think it will change a lot of things,” Harris said during a question-and-answer session after his first stump speech as a candidate to a group of 30.

The state’s largest school system faces a loss of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding by September. The end of ESSER funding is a challenge faced by a lot of school systems.

“What we can’t do is let those decisions that we have to make interfere with us getting children ready for tomorrow,” he said.

“If teachers are to get the support and the resources that they need to do the job they want to do — and if parents are to serve as true partners in education, schools can no longer operate in silos,” Harris said. “We must also invest in our children early and on the front end in order to stop spending so much time and effort trying to fix the problem on the back end.”

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As Harris was launching his campaign, rival Tamarques Porter was opening his campaign in the Kirby Trace area.

His host committee included council members Pearl Walker, Michalyn Easter-Thomas and Jerri Green along with MSCS board vice chairwoman Joyce Dorse-Coleman.

Porter is an information-technology specialist with the Internal Revenue Service and a Tennessee Higher Education Initiative board member.

The other contenders in the nonpartisan race are:

James Bacchus, an education consultant and former high school principal at Hamilton and Kingsbury.

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Alvin Crook, a Memphis Light, Gas and Water employee and coach at Memphis School of Excellence.

Anecia Washington, no information available.

School Voucher Map

As the Tennessee legislature debates whether Governor Bill Lee’s school voucher program is dead or just holding its breath, the Shelby County Commission is the latest local body to express its opposition, in close proximity to the Memphis City Council approving the same resolution.

As the commission voted on it at its April 9 session, commission chairwoman Miska Clay Bibbs came prepared with an intricately color-coded map of the state and all of its 95 counties.

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The map shows Shelby County in a light pink color reserved for counties where multiple local bodies have passed such resolutions.

Flinn Off Ballot

Former Shelby County Commissioner George Flinn’s numerous bids for elected office appear to have caught up with him.

The Tennessee Republican Party’s executive committee completed action on the August GOP primary ballot this month by booting Flinn from the 8th Congressional District primary where Flinn was otherwise qualified to again challenge incumbent David Kustoff again.

Flinn got 40% of the vote in his unsuccessful primary challenge of Kustoff in 2018.

The state party’s rules since then bar candidates who have run as independents in past elections.

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Here is the list of who’s running for U.S. Senate and all nine of the state’s U.S. House seats from the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office.

Flinn ran as an independent in 2022 in a general election challenge of 9th Congressional District Democratic incumbent Steve Cohen.

The decision means Kustoff is unopposed in the predominantly Republican districts that takes in part of Memphis and Shelby County as well as 19 rural counties in West Tennessee.

He faces the winner of a five-way Democratic primary on the November general election ballot.

By the way, Congressional candidates don’t have to live in the district they are running for, just the state.

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Most Democrats Since 2004

The Tennessee Democratic Party is touting the most Democratic candidates running in a presidential election year since 2004.

The August primary ballot features a field of Democrats for the U.S. Senate seat Republican incumbent Marsha Blackburn is seeking reelection.

The Democratic primaries have candidates as well for all nine of the state’s U.S. House seats along with 12 of the 16 state Senate seats on the ballot this year and 74 of the 99 state House seats up every two years.

In the Shelby County delegation to the Legislature, three Republican incumbents — Kevin Vaughan in House District 95, Tom Leatherwood in House District 99 and Paul Rose in Senate District 32 — have no Democratic challengers for November.

Rose, of Covington, holds the Senate seat that covers parts of Tipton County as well as Shelby County. He has no independent opposition in November either.

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Vaughan was effectively reelected at the April filing deadline. Leatherwood has an independent challenger, William Mouzon, in November.

Here is the Secretary of State’s list of candidates in the legislative races.