MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A state of “chaos” is how some describe the situation at the Memphis-Shelby County School Board.
Even members will tell you the board is the most divisive it has ever been.
“This is another level,” said school board member Michelle McKissack. “This is another level that I personally have not encountered in six years.”
McKissack, a veteran member of the MSCS board, said she didn’t know what to think of the uproar she and other board members faced in recent meetings.
When asked why she thought there was so much chaos, McKissack said she said she thought it was a “perfect storm.”
A perfect storm centering around the one and only employee under the purview of the school board, the Superintendent.
“You have to look at so many factors and the community,” McKissack said. “They are crying out to support and keep this woman.”
However, fellow school board member, Towanna Murphy, sees it differently.
“We were trying to communicate with Dr. (Marie) Feagins, we got nothing,” Murphy said. “And that’s what’s been happening throughout the time I’ve been elected. The communication was not there.”
Murphy said what you are seeing now are new board members willing to take a hard look and then take action.
“I think that is a new board and the new board is more aggressive than the old board,” Murphy said. “So, when we took the initiative to say we wanted to terminate Dr. Feagins’ contract, it stirred up some controversy with the ones who really liked Dr. Feagins. But at the end of the day, we had to look at the facts.”
School board members who were adamant the former Superintendent, who they hired just months before, wasn’t making the grade and voted 6 to 3 to fire her back in January.
But not before a lot of contention between board members.
And outbursts from those in the audience, pushing to keep Feagins and making threatening promises.
One attendee even threatened board members saying, “You about to lose your job.”
One person who predicted the chaos was Mauricio Calvo, a former school board member.
“The public needs to have a better understanding of the dynamics of those two sides of the equation,” Calvo said. “Sometimes it functions. Sometimes it doesn’t function right like we’re seeing it right now.”
Calvo lost his latest re-election bid.
Before his departure, he and another former board member penned letters saying Dr. Feagins, though chosen by them, was not the right person for the job.
Calvo said the letter was about urging the new board to set up a process to evaluate Dr. Feagins and if they found the same concerns, then they needed to take action.
“So, they needed to set those things in place and they didn’t. To the best of my knowledge, they didn’t,” Calvo said. “They were like, ‘No. That’s too soon. We’re just going to go with the flow’ and this is what you get.”
Murphy said policy violations made by Dr. Feagins led to her vote to terminate the superintendent’s contract after less than a year.
“What caught our attention is when the $45,000 seed check was returned the next day and an electronic signature was forged on the check without the board’s knowledge,” Murphy said. “That right there was an eye-opener for us.”
Community activist Sarah Carpenter has been one of the loudest critics of the decision to get rid of Dr. Feagins.
She said the public outcry is proof to the community that this saga is not over.
“I just seen people come together – black, white, young, old come together for a cause they believe in,” Carpenter said. “They didn’t know their voice mattered. Now, they know their voice matters and I don’t think they gonna lay down on this one.”
And now with the state trying to take over the MSCS board, the chaos doesn’t seem to be dying down.
“I am not surprised that this is happening,” Calvo said. “Maybe things need to get worse before they get better. I do hope that everybody’s paying attention and learning lessons.”
Right now, there are efforts underway to get the state to take over the school board and there are also community efforts to recall board members who voted against Dr. Feagins.