There are 274 articles by Laura Testino :
Chickasaw Middle could close at the end of the school year, one of five closures MSCS officials have proposed. The students would move to the Westwood High campus, making it a school for sixth-12th graders.
Some say the National Guard “shouldn’t be here,” while others say Memphis “got the message.” The Daily Memphian captured a snapshot of where Memphians stand on the Memphis Safe Task Force and its impact.
Interim MSCS Superintendent Roderick Richmond speaks on possibly closing 15 schools, improving buildings and blight.
About one in three local schools improved their letter grade, and one in five scored worse.
Discovery has stalled in former Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ Superintendent Marie Feagins’ lawsuit over her ouster, which began one year ago. A judge expects the case to pick back up in the new year as Feagins’ new attorney gets up to speed.
“This case presents a stark example of legislative punishment masquerading as election reform,” attorneys wrote in the lawsuit filed in Shelby County Chancery Court on Monday, Dec. 15.
After years of planning, renovations and security-equipment purchases, Memphis-Shelby County Schools debuted its “Real Time Safety Center” on Thursday. “We know seconds matter” during threats, the district’s interim safety and security chief said.
An attorney representing former Memphis-Shelby County Schools Superintendent Marie Feagins in a lawsuit challenging her ouster from the district has withdrawn from the case, court documents show.
Families at Lucy Elementary have known a change was coming. But MSCS officials recently proposed giving the school to Millington this summer, a year early.
The Memphis teenager was shot and injured during the school day in a park adjacent to Overton High School in East Memphis, according to police and the school system.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the Tennessee Republican running for governor, is proposing bipartisan legislation that would give Memphis additional law enforcement resources and funding for technology to combat cargo theft.
MSCS board members directed the district to expand bus access to immigrant students who may be staying home from school to avoid interactions with the Memphis Safe Task Force.
The changes could be an example of what’s to come for other families as Memphis-Shelby County Schools makes plans to close, consolidate, repurpose and build new campuses.
“I’d love to have the permanent superintendent role,” interim Memphis school Superintendent Roderick Richmond said during a recent interview on WKNO-TV Channel 10’s “Behind The Headlines.”
They are among about 100 identified as “priority schools” by the Tennessee State Board of Education. Possible interventions can include state-mandated closure, conversion to a charter school, or firing and rehiring staff.
Lauren Rogers, head of the Upper School at St. Mary’s said the school has a “moral obligation” to staunch the widening gender gap in STEM education.
“I heard my son scream,” a Memphis mother said in an interview with The Daily Memphian. School staff told her that they handcuffed her child for their own safety: “I was like, ‘Over a 7-year-old?’”
The change to the 2026-27 applications will offer insight about the new vouchers that the state awards.
Tennessee awarded dozens of Shelby County schools “reward” status, a credential for top academic performance. See if your school made the list.
A group in Tennessee, including two parents in Shelby County, allege that the state’s education voucher expansion “diverts state funding to private schools statewide that are by definition not part of the system of free public schools.”
Richmond is just over halfway through his 18-month interim superintendent contract, which ends July 31. Absent from the school board’s discussions about his evaluation, however, were comments about future permanent leadership of the district.
The Memphis-Shelby County Schools board is formally mulling a lawsuit about the “threat to the lawful function and democratic integrity” caused by new state and county actions that cut short terms for five members.
Shelby County Commissioners’ enactment of the new state law is an “imminent threat to the lawful function and democratic integrity” of the board and district, according to a resolution sponsored by board Vice Chair Joyce Dorse Coleman.
The new, one-year pilot program is effective this school year and open to certain 3- and 4-year-old patients at the Memphis children’s hospital.
MSCS campuses need more than $1 billion in the next decade. A committee suggested funding and other ideas on how to approach closing, repurposing or consolidating buildings.