Correction: A previous version of this story had the wrong number of seats on the Memphis-Shelby County Schools Board of Education.

Shelby County Board of Commissioners chairman Michael Whaley says he will move at the May 19 commission meeting to put all nine seats of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board on the 2026 county elections ballot.

The ordinance is possible because of a state law the Tennessee General Assembly passed this year enabling local legislative bodies, exclusively in Knox and Shelby counties, to vote to sync school board elections with existing county elections. 

The move by the County Commission would shorten the four-year terms of office of five MSCS board members elected in 2024.

Whaley announced the coming ordinance as he amended an ethics ordinance up for a third and final reading. The amended ordinance removes a proposed referendum to allow voters to approve school board recalls, which state law does not allow.

State Rep. G.A. Hardaway, D-Memphis, had proposed a bill to set forth a recall process for county school board members, but it didn’t pass.

Meanwhile, the state law that would put all nine MSCS seats up for election next year is viewed by critics of the current school board as a de facto recall with County Commission approval.

State Sen. Brent Taylor, R-Eads, said as much last week at an executive committee meeting of the Shelby County Republican Party.

“With the County Commission’s action, we will be able to force the entire (MSCS) board onto the ballot next year, which is really a de facto recall for half the board,” Taylor said at the meeting.

At the same meeting, the Republican executive committee also voted to hold Republican primaries for MSCS school board seats and in the suburban school system set of elections also next year.

Commissioner Mick Wright on Monday called dropping the recall ballot question “very frustrating.”

“We have constituents that are asking us daily to do something about the state of our schools,” he said. “I understand what you will be bringing. But we could at least have given the voters an option to say we want this.”