Students in four Achievement School District schools left in limbo following Memphis-Shelby County School Board vote

Members of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) Board of Education voted to deny four out of five applications Tuesday night from public charter schools vying to transition from the state’s Achievement School District (ASD) and into MSCS.The vote means an uncertain future for Humes Middle School, Martin Luther King Jr. College Preparatory High School, Cornerstone Prep Lester, and Fairley High School in the 2024/2025 school year. Each school could face closure, a merger into the district’s IZone turnaround school model, or potentially even remain open as public charter schools if leaders successfully appeal to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission.Each of the five schools applying for transition to MSCS is doing so because the school is in the last year of a ten-year term with the Achievement School District. The ASD is an intervention run by the state to serve schools that are in the lowest five percent of schools, or a low achieving school across the state.Last week, the MSCS’s charter review team recommended board members deny all four of the public charter schools’ amended applications for transfer along with Journey Coleman, claiming each failed to meet both state standards and the local board policy.Reviewers cited a history of low performance as a primary reason for the denial recommendations for multiple transfer applications, including those from Fairley High School and Cornerstone Lester Prep. District reviewers additionally recommended Humes Middle School for denial because of its academic model and low enrollment numbers.MSCS reviewers recommended denying MLK College Prep High School’s transfer application for similar reasons along with the school’s academic model failing to show success. However, the public chart school is different from the others under consideration as the district had already planned to merge MLK College Prep with Trezevant High School in 2027 to become the new Frayser High.Tuesday’s decision leaves open the possibility that MLK College Prep could close before the new high school is built. Board member Michelle Robinson McKissack (District 1) expressed concern over denying MLK College Prep’s transfer due to this possibility.“So, the reason why I just want to be extra cautious with this and I’m saying this because it is impacting a whole community, and you know, MLK Prep High School is a pillar in that community. And we’ve had three years of a pandemic and I know they’ve had years and there are a lot of extenuating circumstances,” said McKissack.However, board member Keith Williams (District 6) argued the decision to deny the school’s application to transfer to MSCS was the right one.“I do not subscribe to the fact that if you leave children in a burning building until you build a new one. Certainly, if it is ineffective, and you have issues there, you don’t put money in gasoline on fire. So we need to save children where we find them and when we find them. And to wait until the school is built, if the school is inefficient where they are, why would we do that? Why would you keep someone someplace that is failing and clearly failing, and you know it? We need to address the issue of academic achievement and academic achievement only,” said Williams.Board members opted to support Journey Coleman’s application to transfer to MSCS, despite the district review’s denial recommendation because of questions about the long-term sustainability of the school’s network operations and finances. Journey Coleman will continue operating as a public charter school and transfer to MSCS in the 2024/2025 school year.