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The Week in Review

Suburbs
 
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The long-discussed status of the three Germantown namesake schools seems to be moving at a faster clip as the Dec. 31 deadline set by recent legislation quickly approaches.

This week, the county Board of Commissioners received an update on the status of Germantown elementary, middle and high schools — the three campuses within the boundaries of the suburb but operated under the eyes of Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Legislation passed earlier this year codified a state attorney general’s opinion that one school system could not operate schools within the boundaries of another district.

Like is done by MSCS in Germantown.

The arrangement has caused confusion for those not directly involved in the situation, most notably that the suburb’s high school is Houston High and Germantown High is a county school, not associated with the Germantown Municipal School District.

And that doesn’t even include when “Memphis” was added to the larger district’s name.

That legislation gave the sides until the end of the year to negotiate a deal for Germantown to take over the land where the campuses sit on the south-central edge of the suburb.

“If no alternative agreement is made by the end of this calendar year, state law will dictate the terms of the transfer of property ownership,” Germantown Mayor Mike Palazzolo told residents in an update a couple of months ago.

And Palazzolo seems to say the right things to assure that the suburb will do what is necessary to serve the students already attending the 3Gs, both students within Germantown and those outside the suburb.

Germantown has offered $5 million for the three campuses. When MSCS loses Germantown High, the district says it will need a new high school — a cost estimated at $125 million.

It also should be noted that the deferred maintenance on Germantown High — and it has been deferred for a while — hardly makes the building salvageable. Like an old house left to its decaying, the value is for the land, not the structures.

Patrice Thomas, MSCS chief of staff, made that point during the county commission committee meeting this week. Robinson noted that some of the land would no longer be used for educational purposes.

Whatever the resulting remedy, there are a lot of details left to resolve and very little time to reach an accord. After all, while the calendar says about 29 days until the deadline, there is little accomplished the week between Christmas and New Year’s. And with both holidays falling on Sunday, the actual day off work could come even earlier — like less than three weeks from now.

That’s not a lot of time for something debated for nine years now. - Suburbs editor Clay Bailey 

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