There are 309 articles by Laura Testino :
Over the next couple months, the Shelby County Commission will have to wrestle with how many Memphis-Shelby County Schools projects the county can actually fund. Doing them all would cost $200 million, a sum the county is unlikely to provide.
The closures prompted questions. What would happen to students, staff and the buildings themselves? Can more closures could happen in the future, and could charter schools could be among schools on the chopping block. Let’s get into it.
Announced changes to business and records-keeping processes at Memphis-Shelby County Schools offer clues about what recommendations forensic auditors may soon publicize.
Billed as “a proactive alternative to state-imposed governance,” the new intervention would create a Memphis-Shelby County Schools board committee of local elected officials and community members.
Matthew De’Marcus Williams, 22, was shot and killed while attending a violence intervention program meeting in 2025. His family has filed a wrongful death suit against Youth Villages.
Republican sponsors of the bill have said they’ll push the Tennessee General Assembly to pass legislation that would kneecap the elected board by giving a new board of state appointees powers over MSCS.
Memphis-Shelby County Schools board members voted to close five campuses at the end of the school year. The decision impacts 2,650 students and staff, and could be the first round of a total 15 school closures within three years.
The regular audit is separate from the state-ordered forensic audit of the Memphis school system. The forensic audit is underway.
District officials estimate 2,650 students would go to a new school or get new classmates, a smaller figure than it could be. That’s because many of the students who are zoned to attend the schools don’t, according to district data obtained and reviewed by The Daily Memphian.
Memphis-Shelby County Schools will resume control of the final charter schools in the state-run Achievement School District, a largely unsuccessful effort to boost academic achievement in the state’s chronically low-performing schools.
A court order is keeping Memphis-Shelby County Schools from shutting down a South Memphis charter elementary school for now. But a history of low performance is raising a question: Should it close?
State lawmakers voted to fund the audit last spring. No initial findings of wrongdoing prompted it; rather, lawmakers bolstered a smaller effort from the Shelby County Board of Commissioners who were frustrated by the school board’s ouster of former Superintendent Marie Feagins.
Her lawsuit requests she be restored to the superintendent seat or paid severance as outlined in her contract.
Memphis-Shelby County Schools board members scrapped a search in favor of appointing Roderick Richmond as superintendent. Threats of state takeover loom over its split decision to stabilize the district after years of leadership tumult.
Republican lawmakers who were briefed on preliminary information from a state-funded forensic audit of Memphis-Shelby County Schools are drawing “premature” conclusions, interim Superintendent Roderick Richmond said.
A local judge ruled that Shelby County commissioners “exceeded their authority” in passing a resolution that placed all nine school board seats on the ballot last fall.
“Some of our children have been here their entire lives, so they haven’t even gotten out of their hospital rooms.”
“There’s financial record mismanagement, waste and abuse of contracts, disorganization at a level that’s unprecedented,” state Rep. Mark White told The Daily Memphian Friday.
The potential relocation would give Grizzlies Prep students, currently about 300 boys, a campus with a gym and outdoor spaces. It also would provide a facility for the charter operator to open its new all-girls school.
Memphis-Shelby County Schools used up its eighth and final snow day on Wednesday, Feb. 4 — then closed for Thursday.
The City of Memphis released $8.5 million to prekindergarten organization First 8 Memphis. The funds could keep some classrooms afloat while city, county and First 8 officials remain in negotiations for a long-term funding plan.
Monday will be more of the same in Memphis — icy roadways, closed schools. But it will also finally be warmer, no matter which rodents see or do not see their shadows.
Memphis-Shelby County Schools board members said they would soon determine permanent leadership for the district. But will it be by search or an appointment?
MSCS isn’t anticipating implementing remote or hybrid learning options available under state law.
Thursday may be the city’s “last shot at some meaningful melting before we get that arctic plunge again.”