Memphis school leaders grapple with school safety, air conditioning issues

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The superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools wants to allay concerns about safety in the new school year after narrowly avoiding a walkout by school resource officers last week and accepting the resignation of the district’s new security chief just days after he started.

“I give you assurance … that our district is fine,” Feagins told school board members Tuesday evening after a tumultuous week in which she and the board agreed to give the district’s 125-plus officers significant raises.

Feagins also reported that air conditioning problems that caused a dozen schools to close early on Aug. 5, the first day of classes, also impacted student health as the heat index climbed to 106 degrees.

“We have had some asthma-related incidents and a couple of seizures,” she said. “And so that still remains at the top of mind for us.”

Feagins added that technicians have completed a third of the 1,393 work orders received in August to troubleshoot air conditioning issues across the district’s 165 buildings.

But the maintenance issues are severe, she said of the $1 billion backlog in Tennessee’s largest school system, and the district’s building maintenance division is short-staffed. The district recently increased pay for its technicians, partly because of workforce competition from Ford Motor Co.’s electric truck assembly plant under construction in nearby Haywood County.

The troubling reports came amid sometimes tense exchanges between the district’s new leader and school board members in one of their final meetings before four new members are scheduled to be seated in September following this month’s elections.

But they agreed about the importance of completing Whitehaven High School’s $9.5 million STEM lab, as the board unanimously approved $2.3 million for the job. The construction project, which broke ground in April and also is funded with private dollars, has been delayed three months because of a lag in disbursing money that had been promised earlier by the district’s interim leader, Toni Williams.

The vote to disburse $1.3 million that previously had been approved, plus another $1 million to cover the cost of a storm shelter required by building codes, prompted cheers from Whitehaven teachers and community members, some of whom spoke during the meeting.

“This is a slam dunk; we should have already done this,” said Wayne Hawkins, a teacher at Whitehaven.

Board members also voted unanimously to have the school system’s attorney report from now on to the elected board instead of to the superintendent — a change in organizational structure they said is needed to maintain independence and avoid conflicts of interest.

School safety was front and center last week as school resource officers threatened to walk off the job just days before the district’s annual football jamboree. Last year, gunfire broke out during two games.

But Feagins reported that no major incidents occurred during this year’s three-day jamboree that featured 67 middle and high school teams and attracted more than 6,000 spectators.

She and other board members thanked officers for ensuring a safe environment. A week earlier, they settled their dispute with SROS over pay and other issues.

But Feagins acknowledged missteps in hiring George Harris as her executive director of safety and security without conducting a more thorough background check.

Harris was recruited from Detroit Public Schools Community District, where Feagins previously was an administrator and he was a lieutenant in the department of patrol operations. After school board member Stephanie Love emailed Feagins and other board members on Aug. 16 about allegations that Harris had misappropriated funds during his time in Detroit, Harris resigned from his new job the next day, citing “personal reasons.”

“I own that I made the offer to the individual based on the information that I had,” Feagins told the board.

She said she’s open to policy changes to strengthen the background check process for filling such jobs as she looks to replace Harris in what she called “a very important role.”

Love responded: “I agree we need to strengthen policies so this will never happen again.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org .