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(female announcer) This is a production of WKNO-Memphis.
Production funding for "Behind the Headlines" is made possible
in part by..
Three Shelby County School board members talk about attendence
zones, the demerger and the budget tonight on
"Behind the Headlines."
[theme music] ♪♪♪
Welcome!
I'm Bill Dries, senior reporter for the Memphis Daily News in
for Eric Barnes, who is on assignment.
Joining me are Shelby County Schools Board Chairman Kevin
Woods.
School Board Commissioner Teresa Jones.
Hi.
And School Board Commissioner David Reaves.
Welcome.
We have a lot to talk about this evening.
There's a lot going on with Shelby County Schools.
And let's start with what the school board and the school
system are holding hearings about,
and that is the attendance zones for the school year that begins
in August.
Let's give people an idea right off the top of just one of the
scaenrios.
There are about 24 zone changes by my count that affect 7,000
children, many of them but not all of them who live in
unincorporated areas of Shelby county that are not within the
boundaries of any of the seven cities or towns within the
county.
Let's take a look at one of the scenarios.
Because of the suburban school districts,
some students not living in the suburban towns and cities or the
city of Memphis will be assigned to new schools.
Some will travel a long distance to their new school assignments.
Take Bartlett Elementary School.
Next school year starting in August,
the school and all of it's students who live in Bartlett
will be part of the Bartlett School District.
But students now at Bartlett Elementary School who don't live
in Bartlett will go to different schools.
168 would travel to Lucy Elementary School,
a short distance away in Millington.
395 will zoned to Dexter Elementary School,
passing three other elementary schools on the way.
And 162 will be zoned to Barret's Chapel Elementary
School near Arlington.
So that's a look at one of the more involved scenarios.
Kevin Woods, as chairman of the Shelby County Schools Board,
first of all, let's lay out.
Are these arrangements written in stone at this point and when
does the school board get to voting on these plans and
possibly making changes, if there are any?
Well one of the first things we wanted to do was make sure we
went out to the community and heard from the community as far
as how they felt about the impact of the rezoning plan.
One of the first things we did as a board is we asked our
planning office to create the least amount of disruption for
families as possible.
You mentioned in one of your scenarios where families were
actually going to pass possibly three schools to get to another
school.
What you simply have in those cases were capacity issues.
So what the planning office had to do was look at capacity.
They looked at academic performance.
And they looked at distance of transportation to get to those
facilities.
So all that went in to play as far as making a decision.
I think we'll continue.
We've had all our committee meetings.
The board will then continue to probably deliberate on the
possibilities.
Possibly some additional tweaks maybe made.
But no final.
Nothing is set in stone until the board votes on it.
David Reaves, this is your district I believe.
What are you hearing from people,
especially the parents of those students who would go to Dexter
Elementary School?
Well obviously many of these people bought homes in this area
particularly with the understanding that they were
going to go to school at Bartlett Elementary,
Shadowlawn and many times, Bartlett High School.
And what I'm hearing from them is that they want to continue to
go to those schools.
But as a Shelby County School Board member in the Shelby
County School system, we have to make sure that we plan for
capacity for those students in our existing system because we
can not commit them to another system.
And so that's the reason why we came up with the Dexter solution
is because it was the closest to their home and provided a
solution to the capacity.
But by and far, most of these kids can walk to Bartlett
Elementary and I think they're going to continue to want to do
that.
And I believe that most of them will apply for open enrollment
within the Bartlett system.
Teresa Jones, you have been at all of the hearings that I've
attended and more beyond that.
Do you think that citizens are as familiar as they should be
with just how this demerger is going to work?
No, I don't think they are.
I think they're mainly focused on their child and the school
that they thought their child would attend.
And they don't really.
They didn't have a vote in many of the issues that created this
situation.
And they just feel as if they have now been basically thrown a
punch, that they're not able to go to the schools as Mr. Reaves
indicated that they thought they were.
And they don't really..
They understand there was a merger.
They understand there was a de-merger.
They understand the concept of new municipal districts.
But they still either don't understand.
They really can't accept the fact that they're not going to
be able to attend those schools or possibly not.
There are decisions to be made to determine that yet.
Well and also, you were at the Cordova hearing.
And this was a different scenario because the new
municipal schools boundaries did come in to play but not
directly.
You were dealing with changes because half of Cordova has been
in the city of Memphis and half of it has been in unincorporated
Shelby county.
Talk a little bit about the transition there.
Well of course many of those students would prefer to go to
Germantown.
But again, we have capacity issues.
The audience at Cordova, they pretty much a lot of them want
to stay there.
So it's all about how far my child has to travel.
They understand that the re-zoning has to take place.
But it's all about how far the chid has to travel,
the safety issues.
And of course for us, it's capacity and providing those and
trying to address those safety issues.
So that's primarily what the concerns were.
There were a few situations I guess that didn't fall within
those categories.
I'm trying to think of one now.
But, um..
Let me get a quick read if I can from each of you going because
the board has not voted on these attendence zones at this point.
Do you think there will be some tinkering wtih it?
Can there be some tinkering?
Of course there can be.
Until there's a vote, there always can be.
I know in the last meeting there was a parent who expressed,
and I think I asked her specifically what would your
suggestion or your desire be in terms of the zoning.
And she gave a scenario and we did acutally have to look at
that to see if that was possibly something we consider -- we
could consider.
And I think they will.
So at the end of the day, no decision has been made and there
can be changes.
I don't expect major changes but if an adjustment makes sense and
we can make it work and it's better for the chidren,
then I expect we'll do that.
David, what about this?
Are changes possible?
Well I mean if we're gonna make changes,
I expect them really in two areas.
One is in the Cordova area, particularly as we split
Ridgeway and Cordova.
There was..
At the meeting the other night, there were parents who would
rather go to Cordova than send their child to Ridgeway
particularly because of the distance.
The other one is northwest Shelby county as it pertains to
Shelby Forest area, Northaven.
the original maps that I'm going to,
Craigmont and Raleigh-Egypt.
But I think a new map potentially might have them
going to Bolton.
But we're still trying to work out potentially converting
Woodstock to a high school this year.
So there's still a little bt that needs to be done in those
particular areas.
And I expect that it will probably.
There might be some changes.
Kevin, are you expecting amendments?
Are you expecting Superintendent Hopson to possibly come back
with some alterations on this?
Well again, the board members I'm sitting here with now,
they've attended most of the meetings.
I've attended hearings, as well.
And for the most part, I think families are grasping the
reality of what has happened with the formation of the
municipal districts.
And so we're listening to those concerns.
I think as board member Jones indicated,
there maybe some small tweaks, listening to the areas Mr.
Reaves indicated.
As Superintendent Hopson as indicated on many occasions,
the reason for a public hearing is not just a process that we go
through with our minds already made up.
You'll see tweaks based on input from those families and from
those communities.
And so yeah, I think there should be some changes.
But as board member Jones indicated,
overall I think the zoning team did a fairly good job based on
what we had to work with.
At the end of the day, we had to find a solution for those
families to attend a school within the confines of Shelby
County School system.
And at the end of the day, the municipalities have formed the
school system that is of their city.
And as you mentioned about Bartlett Elementary,
it is in the city of Bartlett.
So families who live in unincorporated Shelby attending
Bartlett Elementary before, our goal was to make sure that there
is a viable option for those families in the unlikely event
that Bartlett says we don't have capacity for you.
We had to make sure that we had solutions for those families.
Mhm.
You think it's unlikely that Bartlett will say we don't have
room?
They'll probably have room?
You know as I've indicated at the hearings that we've gone to,
in addition to creating a plan for families and making sure
we're attracting families in unincorporated areas to make
sure we have good school options for them,
we've also been talking to the municipality and municipal board
members and making sure that they understood the impact on
the families that have gone to these schools for years not only
in Bartlett but Germantown and Collierville.
Many of the municipal leaders have come out publically and
said hey, listen.
We want to have an open enrollment policy to make sure
that we have the families that have been going there for many
years can continue to still get an education here.
Publically, we understand that they have to say their number
one priority are the families that live within those
municipalities.
But at the end of the day, I think they'll do right by those
families and make sure that if they have space to continue to
try and attract those families to their schools.
And what you'll see from our system is to make sure that we
can continue to attract those families as well.
Our responsibility is to Shelby County School system and we
should be making sure that we're creating a quality school
system, You look at what's going on with the Bolton and Bartlett
High School issue.
It's pretty interesting watching,
you know, principals' leadership within those schools and say we
want your kids.
We don't care if you live in Bartlett.
We want you coming to our schools.
And I personally think that that competition is going to raise
all boats.
Mhm.
Teresa, talk about the competition factor because I
think at some of the hearings, I've seen parents who were
keenly aware of when the open enrollment periods might be for
those suburban school districts.
Parents seem to be very well-clued in to that in some of
the areas where these changes take place.
Right, some parents are very informed.
Of course parents want the best school that's available for
their child.
And it's up to us to make sure that we are providing those
services.
Community wide, certain schools have certain reputations.
And it's not likely that we're gonna change that within the
course of this school year or maybe even the next couple of
years.
So schools that are popular and sought after are going to be
popular and sought after by these parents.
And the capacity of those schools is going to be pretty
much full.
And so parents, I think, parents are educating themself.
And we've encouraged parents to go to those municipal districts,
go to those meetings, go to those principals in those areas
and ask what their options are.
And that's one of the reasons we wanted to have these meetings.
Because parents -- number one, needed to know what we had
planned for the children in that they want to educate and also,
have time to explore other options.
And we've heard all types of scenarios -- private schools,
of course that's an option.
Education reform is about change and about choice.
And so parents, I think, even in the inner-city are becoming
aware that there are choices out there.
Whether you like charters or not,
there are choices for those parents.
So I think parents, as this process continues,
are going to be more engaged and more aware and educate
themselves what the possibilities are.
Mhm.
David, there is the pitch and then there is the still
unfolding reality that involved the funding and the budget to
come.
And you talked about this in Bartlett several weeks ago,
a meeting of the neighborhood council there.
And a number of the parents told Keith McDonald,
the mayor of Bartlett.
They said look, the principal of Bolton High School is making a
really good pitch for our kids.
When are your schools going to start telling us what they have
to offer?
And you made a point about what's gonna happen with the
budget because the budget situation is going to continue
to be complex.
It's going to continue to involve making some hard choices
and some priorities here.
Well so what you're finding within the budget this year,
and it's kind of hit the news here lately,
is significant amount of staffing cuts.
And one of the big ones that is part of the staffing cuts is
change in the classroom size.
And Bolton has always -- well, over the last 20 years has
really performed well.
A lot of great programs.
Has international baccalaureate program there.
Has been a beneficiary of a desegregation order where a lot
of students in Bartlett were sent to Bolton.
So for several years, they have had large amounts of students.
That's why Bartlett High School has dwindled.
As a result, they've had a lot of great programs -- theatre,
I-B, all of those programs.
But the unfortunate part is that we are going to have to make
some adjustments.
And at the end of the day, we really don't know what the total
impact is going to be to some of these schools.
We know that some of the classrooms may get larger.
We don't know if we're gonna have to cut anything out of
these schools.
So at this point, it's still kind of up in the air.
And that's what I was talking about the other night.
A lot of people wanting to know is my school going to stay the
same way it's always been?
Well most of your teachers will stay there and probably most of
your programs.
But we can't guarantee that given the fact we have such a
large budget gap to close.
So I think that the principal up there is doing a great job of
selling the school.
But I do think that looms a little bit on the horizon.
So what we're primarily talking about here is the pupil-teacher
ratio in the classrooms.
And the way Superintendent Hopson has described it is in
the merger this school year, we've gone to kind of the middle
between Memphis City and Shelby County Schools.
Mr, Chairman, how far are we going to go toward the Memphis
City Schools model or the Shelby County Schools model once you
all get a look at this budget?
Well what we do know is that we won't go all the way back to the
Memphis City School model.
I think there was some misconception that as soon as
the de-merger happened, we would go back to the Memphis School
model of staffing, which overall,
you have some of our high performing schools that did very
well with that staffing model.
You look at how well some of our schools have done with the
growth.
We know that that model, although is not ideal,
teachers continue to do what teachers do,
which is educate kids.
And having a more robust staffing model toward the Shelby
County side, teachers were definitely in favor of that.
But Superintendent Hopson did indicate that he would probably
be looking at somewhere in the middle of where we were this
year and where Memphis City was before.
Mr. Reaves is right.
Obviously any time you're impacting the staffing formula,
you're impacting the number of kids in the classroom.
We want to make sure that we can limit that impact in making sure
that we keep most of the resources going toward the
classroom.
But at the end of the day, I think Superintendent Hopson is
committed to making sure the schools that remain in Shelby
County School systems are still doing what they've done in the
past, which is educate kids and like at Bolton,
doing a great job at it.
I think more of our principals should be doing what Bolton is
doing, which is hey, we were good last year.
We're gonna be good next year.
And we're gonna do everything to attract kids to our school.
That's not just an unincorporated issue that we
should be dealing with.
That's every principal should see it as his or her
responsibility to make sure that we're attracting families to our
schools.
And once we do that, you'll continue to see more programs.
Our staffing formula as well as our budget is based on the
number of students that we're serving at each school.
So the larger your school is, the more kids you're serving.
What you'll see is it impacts your budget greatly.
So I think Bolton is doing exactly what all principals
should be doing, which is attracting families to their
school.
So when you go to vote on the budget,
when you get this book and you look at the numbers,
where does the pupil-teacher ratio..
Where is it on the list of your priorities in setting a budget?
Well I think it's extremely high.
One of the main concerns I've heard at the community meetings
from parents and from teachers -- the number of students in
each classroom.
So that's an important factor.
And to the extent that we can maintain smaller classrooms,
obviously there will be certain situations we can not.
But it's at the top of the list.
I can't say one, two or three in terms of rank.
But it's extremely important because it's important to
parents.
And I think the data shows that that has a tremendous impact on
the outcomes.
How much..
We've got a short amount of time left here.
And I think we have enough time to kind of get in to this.
But as a result of parental choice in this through open
enrollment, more choices really than parents have ever had
within our experience with public education,
how much are the choices that they make for this coming school
year going to kind of re-orient the school system?
Or will it?
Let me start with you.
Yeah, so I think it's just not this one year journey.
I think it's been happening over the past couple of years and it
will continue in the next five years.
Shelby County School system will not be the same as it used to
be.
The A-S-D will continue to take over schools.
We'll have more charter schools.
And I think what you'll find at some point in the future is that
Shelby County may actually be a small school district compared
to what we've been in the past.
And so but from a funding view point,
it impacts us tremendously because we have to do is we have
to scale the district up and down based upon parental choice.
And it's not easy when you take a child out of one school or
another school.
You know they're not altogether because we can't easily change
the number of teachers, right.
So we continue to have overhead issues that we try to address.
And but I think we're getting better at that.
And I think that it has forced us to really adopt a more modern
model to where we can scale our system to where it's not as
expensive to run from an overhead view point.
And it's going to continue to be an issue that we're going to
have to work at over the next several years.
Mhm.
Kevin, your view on that.
And are we heading toward a Shelby County School system that
is possibly smaller than we're looking at?
Well I think at the fact that the bottom 5% schools,
a majority of them are in Shelby county.
You obviously know that we're going to be operating fewer and
fewer schools.
But at the end of the day, I think Superintendent Hopson is
committed to the fact that the schools we are running,
if we're servicing 140,000 kids or 80,000 kids,
at the end of the day, are we doing a great job of educating
those kids.
I think Superintendent Hopson has stated on many occasions
that what we should be doing is making sure that we're doing a
great job of every kid having a great chance at a quality
education.
At the same time, our central office only exists to service
our schools.
So we have to make sure that we're operating an efficient
central office to make sure that all the resources --if it's 200
schools or 100 schools -- that they're getting all the
resources they need to attract more families to their schools
and the kids that are attending those schools are getting a
great education.
Mhm.
Teresa, your view on the impact of parental choice on the school
system?
Well in terms of Shelby County School system,
I agree.
I think it's going to be obviously smaller.
We're all waiting with bated breath this year to determine
those trends and what choices parents make and to determine
where exactly we will fall in terms of numbers.
So I think we have to take every opportunity,
make sure that we are putting the dollars in the best place
that has the most impact, that we're looking at the office
staff, that we're looking at the staffing model,
we're taking advantage of technology because we are going
to have to be sleeker, leaner and meaner.
We're going to have to make better financial choices going
forward.
I don't know that we're ever going to be small because of the
number of urban children that the system serves.
But we're certainly going to be smaller.
Well and during the whole run up to the de-merger -- to the
merger, I should say -- there was so much discussion about
Shelby County Schools, the legacy Shelby County Schools
being a small school system, which it really wasn't.
Forty-thousand students in a school system in Tennessee is
not a small school system, either relatively or just in the
raw numbers of it.
So parents are waiting on the school board to make a decision
on attendence zones.
And the school board is waiting on the parents to then make
their decision to see what you have.
But you know the money travels with the students to whatever
school system they go to.
And Superintendent Hopson, who will be on this program next
week, has talked about a dollar figure in the most recent budget
briefings to kind of kick off you all's budget season.
What's that number of funding that he expects to possibly
leave the school system as a result?
Well if you count in the fact the kids that are going with the
municipal districts combined with charter schools,
I've heard numbers as large as, you know,
$200 million in budget impact.
But at the end of the day, most of those kids are going to go
with municipal schools and we knew we were prepared for that.
We knew that was going to happen.
A-S-D, the communication with Chris Barbic,
Superintendent Hopson has always been one that we have an idea of
what's going on their side.
I think the supertintendent has done a great job of the best he
can to plan for the number of kids that we're gonna have in
this district.
He indicated just in the conversation we had recently,
you know, we may get 10,000 fewer kids than we thought or
10,000 more kids than we thought we were gonna get.
But at the end of the day, we sure hope to get more than less.
And so what we have to do is exactly what the principals you
indicated are doing, is making sure that families know what
their options are, making sure we're looking at extending our
general transfer process to make sure families have more time to
choose their school options once they know what the zoning plans
are.
But just doing eveyrthing we can to make sure people know that
hey, listen.
There are good schools in Shelby county.
You need to be aware of what those schools are and making
sure we're doing the best job of attracting families to our
schools.
But most importantly, making sure that we're doing a quality
job at educating our kids.
And then the reputation will exceed any marketing that we
could possibly do.
Okay.
And we should also point out that I think the common thing
that I've heard here is that if you have a child who's a senior,
going to be a senior next year at one of these high schools
that's affected, the odds are pretty high that your child is
probably going to continue to attend that school,
given space considerations are always being the prime driver
here.
I would say that there is potential to that.
However, it's still subject to open enrollment.
And the reality is a lot of these municipal school are full
like at Houston High School or Bartlett High School.
They are full with their own children.
So we're going to run in to those schools running to
capacity issues.
And it's going to be up to them to make that decision.
So I don't think we can guarantee anything because we
can't guarantee what municipals do.
But I can say that there could be some difficulties in that
area.
I would indicate I take this opportunity to say that I think
those municipal boards, those superintendents will do right by
those families.
Those families have been there for many years.
They didn't ask for this process.
I think those boards will realize that their political
interests may lie with those folks that vote for them.
But their job as a school board is to educate those kids that
are currently at those schools.
Alright.
We'll leave the discussion there.
If we had one more school board member here,
we would have a quarum and possibly make some decisions.
But we don't.
Thank you for joining us this evening and we'll see you next
week with Dorsey Hopson.
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