- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- The superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, Marie Feagins, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I am Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm joined tonight by Dr. Marie Feagins, the relatively new superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Thanks so much for being here.

- My privilege.

Thank you for having me.

- Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

We'll talk about a lot of things today.

It's one of the interviews where I know we won't get to everything that we want to get to, let alone that everyone wants to get to.

I should say, welcome to Memphis.

I think it's been about four or five months, a hundred and something days that you've been in the gig.

You are, over the 15 years of us doing Behind the Headlines, I think you're the fifth superintendent that we've interviewed from Memphis-Shelby County Schools and the predecessor schools, along with many superintendents from the suburban schools, and folks from charter schools and so on.

But one of the things, I paraphrase this often.

One of your predecessors, Dorsey Hopson, sitting in that chair, said to me one time when we were talking about the challenges of the schools and education and of a big urban school district, and he said, and I'll paraphrase him poorly, he said, "Look, Eric, you have to understand "before we talk about education in the classroom, "so many of our kids went to bed on a couch, "they didn't have dinner, "they walked to school in the rain, "they got to school late, "they don't have their homework, "they don't have paper and pen and books.

And we," Dorsey said, "Have to deal with all that before we talk about reading with so many of our children."

And I don't know how many that is, or still is.

That was probably a decade ago that Dorsey said that.

But that is the challenge of every school system.

And that can be a challenge in the suburban school districts too.

I've talked to those superintendents as well.

But it speaks to one, the challenge of a big school district, and it speaks to the challenge of people want you, Dr. Marie Feagins to fix a lot of problems, not just educate kids.

How do you respond to all that?

- You know, that's the privilege of the role.

It's also the pressure of the same.

There are a lot of dynamic factors that go into leadership, but there are many dynamic factors and moving parts that go into leadership of an educational institution, and certainly one that is the size, that has the magnitude of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, as well as the historical context in a city like Memphis, Tennessee as well.

And so when you think about all of those moving factors, the people who are involved, the programs, the communities, it is a lot, but a lot is at stake as well.

And so before a student is thinking about biology, they are thinking about the latest meal or the last meal.

We make decisions as we're having to make today, whether we early release or not.

My first thought is how many students would miss a meal if we send them home?

Or if we were to close today, you know, how many students were there.

So yes, I would tend to agree that there's an expectation to fix many things, education just being one of those things.

- And I should say we're recording this Thursday morning as the remnants of the hurricane are coming in.

So the release would be just how you respond to that, just so people know.

One more question before I go to Bill, that's kind of on a similar theme.

How do you balance, and I've said this to many, many people in education.

You know, there's the big picture, the long term that maybe closing schools, opening new schools, new curriculum, state laws, all these medium and long-term things that you obviously have to deal with.

But kids are in school today, right?

I mean, kids are in school tomorrow, ostensibly, if the weather doesn't stop that.

But how do you make decisions that balance that, that help kids today in the classroom, but also are being smart or necessary for the medium and long term?

- So I've said it a lot and I'll continue to say it, it's about prioritizing the priorities.

Everything really is important, but what is important today, and then how to do today's decisions impact tomorrow as well as the long term.

And so it is what we call in education backwards planning.

You know, so where would we desire to be in three, six months, five years, and then working backwards from there and making the decisions respectively.

I think when we think about businesses, or excuse me, schools and closures and what that looks like, it is taking into consideration, money, funding, it's taking into consideration the aging of the infrastructure.

It's also taking into consideration with deep consideration and respect that schools mean a lot to a community.

And so overall, making decisions, it's about looking at data, it's considering the perspectives as well as the input of a wide range of leaders, and then going from there.

- Yeah, let me bring in Bill.

- So is the school system in your view, in your preference, is the school system in the process of being rebuilt or is it in the process of changing from where it is?

How would you define what you want to do with the school system and the directions that you're heading in right now with the school system?

- Yeah, great question.

It is a necessity to transform the space.

I think that we cannot continue to do many of the same things that we've done before and expect different results.

And so it is stabilizing currently while we visionary and visualize what we desire for our students, for our community, and certainly, considering the same as being the state's largest district.

As Memphis-Shelby County Schools goes, so goes the State of Tennessee.

And so there's a lot that rides on the status of the district, and certainly, all of that rides on the decisions that we make.

I think when we think about what overall this has to be, rebuilding some, transforming more of, there's reforming certain aspects.

And so it's a both/and, it's a conglomeration.

There are a lot of things that if you ask some, Hey, tear it down and just start afresh, and then there are a lot of things that we're doing well that we just need to strengthen and enhance.

And so it is identifying those respectively and moving accordingly.

- And it's also pretty complex because as Eric said, you have children who come every day to that school system.

And it seems to me that you've outlined the need to work on several different levels on this, work on the everyday, and also work on the long-range view of it.

And those really have to blend at some point.

They can't be mutually exclusive, can they?

- That's right.

There's a business aspect to this, right?

We are in the business of people, but there are business processes and systems, and practices that make all of this work or not work.

And so there's a consideration of the people and doing what's best for the people, but also understanding that this is a business.

When it comes down to it though, Bill, we understand that each decision is as important as the one that wasn't made and certainly the ones that have to be made.

And so a lot of where we are has come from great consideration for the long term, but then a necessity to go deeper into the granular areas, the details, and considering the long-term impact.

- Right.

You talked a bit about where schools are, what the populations are around them.

Have there been population shifts that always comes into the mix it seems when you're talking about school closings or school transitions and that.

Tell me what is guiding the different pieces of that from things like the transition of IZone schools, ASD schools, looking at future populations where populations of school-aged children and families are going in the city.

- Right, all of the above.

And so it's certainly data, demographics, birth rates, and certainly, nationally we're looking at birth rates that are just generally declining, but in the city of Memphis and Shelby County, just looking at the respective areas where that is taking place more of, where there's an over concentration of certain schools.

We have spaces where there are multiple high schools in a small proximity from the other.

And so looking at that as well.

We have several buildings that are just simply being underutilized.

So there's an opportunity to repurpose there.

And so looking at the data broadly, student performance in those spaces, but also the building infrastructure itself.

And so we have a third-party that's been performing those assessments and analysis.

And so we expect to receive the latter 50 to 80 of those assessments towards the end of October.

And so we've begun already looking at the FCI scores.

What does the facility conditions index score say for the next 3, 5, and 10 years.

And then we'll start to make some decisions and recommendations with the board and bring those publicly.

- And what do you want schools to do?

I mean, right now, let me explain that a little bit.

- Sure.

- Right now we have optional schools, we have schools that students go to for a certain pursuit.

Is your goal here to have schools that you can get the same thing at in different communities?

Or is it kind of the open enrollment model?

If we got room in that school, it's like an Overton that pursues the arts, your child might be able to go there?

- Sure, there's a way to do both, right?

And so ultimately, we want every child and family to believe that their school is the option for them.

And so across our nine districts that make up the district of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, I'd like for Marie Feagins and build for their families to believe that this school that is in proximity to them is a great school because it has the type of programming, the quality of instruction, and the level of teaching that is desirable and necessary to create the type of community leaders that we need more of.

And so we do have to expand programs across the district.

We're talking about access.

Not excluding individuals, but certainly creating the types of programs and pathways that lead our students forward across the district.

- About 15 minutes left here.

You mentioned 50 to 80 schools buildings, I took it as that are being assessed right now, that's not all the schools buildings in the system.

Is 50 to 80, do I take that as those are the ones that are on the table to be potentially closed?

- No, so we have 200 buildings.

- Right.

- Where we are in the process.

This process started before me in terms of the analysis and assessments.

That's the number of assessments that remain to be shared with me to review.

- Gotcha.

Do you have any sense of how many schools could be closed?

- I don't right now.

I think that we have to take a bigger look at it.

And so we will start that in October as soon as we receive those additional assessments.

- Let's also talk, in your first 100 days, before your 100-day mark, I think in the summer you announced the elimination of, was it 1000 positions?

You were up against the end of a whole lot of COVID money that was in the school system, and this was a national thing, it wasn't unique to Memphis.

Without getting too far in the weeds, but let's get a bit in the weeds.

You've kind of restructured a lot of staff.

You've eliminated a lot of positions, people have moved to other positions.

Talk about your goals with those elimination of positions and restructuring of existing positions.

What are you trying to get done there?

- Sure, great question.

Certainly we're talking about efficiency here, and more importantly, we're talking about placing the resources where they should be, and that's as close to the classroom, if not directly in the classroom as possible.

I wanna circle to the positions though.

We talk about the 1,100 positions.

We're talking about 1,100 positions, not people.

And so nearly 600 of those were vacancies.

So the remaining 500 or so, we're talking about nearly 200-plus that were teachers who didn't fulfill the requirements based on the state's criteria for their three years to finish the pathway to become a licensed teacher.

The remaining individuals, we have a combination of those who were in ESSER funds or grants, other dollars that cliffed.

And so making those business decisions, trying to keep people at the center as well, and providing additional opportunities to serve in the district and other positions where the work is necessary.

So that's attendance liaisons, truancy liaisons, as we think about the goals and the priorities and the focus areas for the district.

So restructuring many of those positions was just looking at the overarching performance of the district and where the needs are.

I think you're having a question here.

- No, no.

No, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

No, there's so many...

It's really helpful, and all these things I wanna follow up on, but obviously, I can't do all, so I didn't mean to interrupt you.

- No worries.

- One thing you mentioned was the 200 positions where they hadn't fulfilled.

Is that that they should have not been teachers or they... Is that a normal process that a certain number of teachers in training don't make it and are released?

- Yeah, so it's a great opportunity in the field of education for those who are outside of the field and have an interest and aspire to become a teacher.

It's on a permit.

You receive a permit each year from the state, but there are certain requirements, classes you have to take to fulfill that obligation.

You have about three years to do that.

At the conclusion of three years, we're unable to reissue an additional year.

And so about 200 plus individuals fell in that particular category.

- Well, one more and I'll go back to Bill.

As long as I've been covering local news and we've been doing the show, every school year seems to start with not enough teachers in the classroom.

- Yeah.

- That reminds me of that.

And I'm not saying or suggesting you should push forward people who aren't permitted.

And so that's not the point, but what do you do with the shortage of teachers?

Which I think is a national issue, but it has a huge impact here.

And teachers are moving around from different classrooms or different schools.

You go to substitute teachers, you go to outside services, like you put more kids in a single classroom?

How do you deal with the teacher shortage?

- Sure, it's certainly a national issue.

Several hundred thousand teachers left the field at the onset of the pandemic and COVID.

And so that is just not something we will be able to replace in the next three to five years.

It's also a general lack of respect for the field.

And so we're working on trying to improve just the narrative and the appeal around being an educator again.

It used to be highly respected.

I think when we think about where we are, Memphis-Shelby County Schools, certainly, we do have several vacancies that exist.

We have fewer vacancies this year than we had last year this time, and nearly 3,000 more students enrolled as well.

Some of those key areas, exceptional education.

You cannot throw anyone in a classroom in exceptional education that is not certified.

And so that places us in a very tough predicament.

But overall, it is about stretching outside of the field, finding individuals who are interested.

We rely on our substitute teachers.

Many of them are certified as they are retired teachers.

And so they are certified in content areas, and we rely on education services to support as well.

- And one last follow-up.

Apologies to Bill.

In terms of teachers and the shortage, that has put pressure on pay.

You talk about this being a business.

People are not volunteering to be teachers, they wanna be paid.

Give or take, I mean, what is a starting salary?

And that's not a fair question, but give or take what a starting salary is and what a 5, 10, 15, 20-year teacher makes in the Memphis-Shelby County School system?

- Yeah, so compensation has been the opportunity for Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Several teachers mentioned that it's been a long time since they've seen an increase.

So now we are the highest paid in the state.

I think as we think about moving along the salary, the continuum, we were able to add an additional $3,000 for those who were serving 25 years or more as we continue to build and do better in that regard.

Compensation is important.

I don't know that we can ever pay an educator what they're truly worth and valued, especially for the level and the magnitude of work that is done.

But it is an area that we continue to have conversations with both of our teacher associations about.

- Bill.

- I'm interested in your perspective on what we saw before the pandemic nationally, and that was this school system and certainly many other school systems saw an influx of teachers from programs like Teach for America, Memphis Teacher Residency here was another of them.

How do you think those programs worked?

- Yeah, Memphis Teacher Residency has contributed to Memphis-Shelby County Schools having several additional teachers, so very thankful for our partnership there.

Budding and then continues to expand.

Teach for America, certainly a wealth of experience with Teach for America as well in previous districts before arriving here as superintendent.

And so I think the standing up of those organizations and their goals are admirable and certainly serve to support the purpose of providing additional individuals for the field.

I think we need more individuals to be interested in pipeline programs like that and pathways like that in order to, as I shared earlier, just to place a small dent in the several hundred thousands that left and are still leaving.

We have an aging population of personnel as well.

I think there are more than 3,000 teachers alone in the classroom that if they wanted to say goodbye to me today, they could for retirement purposes alone.

And so those who are staying, we're grateful for as well.

And that's what the greatest recruitment is is to re-recruit those who are here.

And so we're just trying to create the environment that is conducive to both leading and learning, both for our staff and our students.

But programs like Memphis Teacher Residency, Teach for America, we have several others that are budding and blooming now, the state's own pipeline program, involving yourself in an Educational Pipeline Program, EPP is what it's called, is also beneficial.

Everything that we can get our hands on.

I have a Retired Teacher's Association meeting today, so whoever we can get into the room with and have conversations about, that's what we're doing.

I entered the field through alternative certification.

And so I know that there are individuals who have a wealth of experience in other areas outside of education that would also serve as phenomenal educators.

- Do you see what we've heard in other employment areas?

Do you have young folks who in the case of Teach for America, they might not have majored in education at all.

They may have majored in something totally unrelated to education who come in and say, "I think I want to do this for five years, but I don't want this to be my career."

How common is that?

- I think that, yeah, I mean, yes, the short answer is yes.

There are individuals who have a very narrow commitment to that.

I'm committed to doing this for the two years that are required, but not longer than five, where they've mapped out, if you will, their next steps.

Several come and then they go to law school, several come and then they go to med school, which is great, but then we have more who come and then they fall in love with the art, with the science, but certainly with the experience of being a leader of learning.

And so that's who we're looking for more of.

But certainly, it requires us providing the type of support, the professional learning experiences, certainly compensation, just making that entry just a little more easier for those who are interested, who are coming from different fields from their respective institutions.

- What do you think about advanced placement courses?

Do we have enough of them, and do we have enough of them at enough schools across the system?

- I think that our offerings can always serve to expand.

I think our thought process around who should be taking advanced placement programs or courses also stands to have the most improvement, right?

Who we think should and who qualifies for.

As a principal, I placed all of my sophomores into AP courses, and you teach up and you coach up.

That's how you provide the level of access and the type of learning that is necessary to prepare our youngest leaders to accelerate in many areas, but certainly, to perform on and above levels.

We're talking about competing not just with Memphis-Shelby County School students and not just students in the region, but we're talking nationally and internationally.

And in that regard, we're severely behind.

And so our access to advanced programs require certainly us providing the professional learning and opportunities for our teachers to receive the training in that regard, and it certainly requires us looking deeper at our master schedules across each of our middle and high schools, and certainly, Bill, thinking more innovatively.

How soon can we introduce a student to an advanced class, an honors class?

That's as early as sixth and seventh grade, and that's how you shift the trajectory of learning for our students.

- To what extent does the system do dual enrollment?

Kids who are in Memphis-Shelby County School, high school kids, but also doing college courses at U of M or other schools.

Is that a program that you'd like to see expanded and so on?

- Absolutely.

With all of our local colleges and universities, and those are the conversations that I've been having with presidents, and certainly, that my team has been having with their representatives as well.

Maintaining what we have, but certainly, strengthening and expanding in areas that interest our students.

But certainly, it's the caliber of learning that takes place on campus, being immersed in that environment that levels up the performance for our students.

- With four minutes here, we're gonna go through a bunch of stuff that we could do whole shows on.

so we'll touch on... And we've written about extensively in The Daily Memphian and others have too.

But I want to touch on chronic absenteeism.

It obviously exploded during the pandemic.

In 2022/'23, it was about 28% of students in the Memphis-Shelby County Schools who missed 18 or more days.

The numbers are very high around the country.

But it's not coming back.

We're some years removed from COVID.

What can you do to get kids in school more?

Because nothing you're talking about matters, right, if those kids aren't in school.

- That's absolutely correct.

You know, Eric, we did a, Hey neighbor, we knocked on doors, we went to find... - And you knocked on doors.

I did, and took the team and we knocked on doors for students who haven't shown up yet.

And there were several students who have not been in school since the pandemic.

There are several students who didn't know that we had started school.

And so there's several families that lacked resources.

And so it's really strengthening our relationships with our families-- - And does that go on on a regular basis?

I mean, that throughout the year that people are doing like literal physical visits and outreach to families and students?

- Absolutely.

We will continue.

We were missing more than 2,000 students as of August the 16th.

As of today, we're short around 800 or so.

And so it is working.

We'll continue to do the same.

- This was all done before you took over, so I want to be fair about this, but there was a pretty damning report about a preschool Headstart, a federally funded program.

What is it, some $30 million.

It's a five-year program that the Memphis-Shelby County Schools got five years ago.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools has lost that contract, may reapply.

It lost the contract because of deficiencies, you know, hitting, kicking, some really, obviously awful behavior on the part of instructors.

Do you expect that the school system will reapply?

That would, I think, take place this fall and you'd find out in June, July if you were gonna get that contract again, or are you gonna walk away from the Headstart program and let someone else do it?

- No, we will reapply.

We have taken the steps and continue to take the steps as I've reviewed and analyzed the scenarios, many of them, incredibly unfortunate.

But taking the steps, placing the protocols and systems in place, the training that is necessary, doing all that was required and a little bit more, but we will reapply.

- The legislature is sort of, they're not in session yet, they'll go in session in January, but they do a lot of work in the off season, has a huge influence on the policies and the funding of all the school systems in the state.

Vouchers is very much on the table.

What do you want to see from the legislature?

This will be your first legislative session as the school, here.

What do you want to see from the legislature?

What do you not want to see from the legislature?

- I think overall, we wanna see what's best for kids.

I think that looks very different in many different spaces, including across our schools.

The many dynamic factors that I mentioned earlier that to consider.

We haven't had our conversation in depth yet as a board and a governance team about what our legislative agenda we'd like to actually, you know, for it to consist of and really approach.

I think overall, when we think about anything that takes away funding from public schools, we certainly would not be for.

- That would include vouchers.

- That would include vouchers.

I've had conversations with a few legislators and just shared as I think about the components in the areas that vouchers serve to speak to.

Those same considerations could be given for public institutions as well.

- People said there's been a pushback on charter schools.

Memphis has had a lot of charter schools for I think two decades now, but that charter schools take money from the system.

Are you pro-charter school, against charter school, or is it case by case?

- I'm deeply collaborative and to ensuring that every space where students are served, excellence should be there.

I've worked with the charter schools, I meet with them, I huddle with them, they're included in all of our meetings.

Wherever there are students, there's excellence.

I don't know about the concept of taking away funds.

I do know we pass through those funds, and so certainly, that is the case.

But anything that we advocate for, we want it to benefit all of our students.

- That is all the time.

I could do 26 more minutes, but I'm sure we both have many more questions.

We really appreciate you being here.

We'd love to have you back as you kind of get into the job and are making the decisions, and appreciate it very much.

Thanks so much for being here.

- Thank you both.

- And thank you, Bill, and thank you all for joining us.

If you missed any of the show today, you can get the full episode at wkno.org or on The Daily Memphian site.

You can also go to YouTube and search for Behind the Headlines.

Coming up in the next few weeks, we've got Bacarra Mauldin, the interim CEO of MATA, and their challenges.

Paul Young is coming on, the mayor Memphis in about a month.

And we recently had Doug McGowen, Protect Our Aquifer, talking about MLGW, water, xAI and so on.

All those are available at wkno.org.

Thanks very much, and we'll see you next week.

[intense orchestral music] [acoustic guitar chords]