Shelby board approves school agreements with Collierville, Bartlett and Millington; Germantown remains unresolved

Nov. 27--The Shelby County Board of Education unanimously approved agreements setting the stage for the development of municipal school districts in Millington, Collierville and Bartlett Tuesday night.

That leaves the more complicated proposed deal with Germantown for schools within its boundaries as the only remaining obstacle to a final resolution of the municipal school district saga.

The board last week voted unanimously to approve deals with Arlington and Lakeland.

The arrangement with Bartlett calls for the new municipal district to pay Shelby County Schools$7,298,316 in 12 annual installments of $608,193 each. The new Bartlett school district will get the deed to all of the schools within its municipal boundaries.

Collierville agreed to pay $6,093,828 in 12 annual installments of $507,819 each. It will manage all of the schools within its municipal boundaries.

The agreement with Millington calls for the city to make 12 yearly payments of $230,219 each for a total of $2,762,628. It will retain possession of all schools within its boundaries except Lucy Elementary School, which SCS wants to retain because most of its students live outside Millington's borders.

A similar situation has delayed approval of an arrangement with Germantown, where the SCS board wants to retain possession of three schools inside the city with school populations made up mostly of students from unincorporated areas.

Billy Orgel, the board's facilities chairman who has been involved directly in negotiations with representatives of the municipalities, said a meeting was held Tuesday on the Germantown situation, but there was no progress to report.

"We hope to conclude this in the next few weeks, and the board can move on to talk about important things that deal with the students who'll be in Shelby County Schools," he said.

Funds received in the arrangements are expected to be earmarked for an infusion into the school district's fund for retired employee heath and life insurance benefits.

Other highlights of Tuesday's regular school board meeting included the approval of a student congress representing SCS students that has been 2 1/2 years in research and development by students involved in the Bridges program.

The arrangement puts students on the school board who would not be able to cast votes on board decisions but would have an unprecedented level of input in board decisions. Training for the project began in July 2012 at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tenn.

On another matter, a contract with Teach for America calling for the organization to be paid $5,000 for each teacher it recruits and trains for Shelby County Schools produced a lively debate, with board members David Reaves and David Pickler questioning the expenditure for teachers who are not likely to remain with the district past their 2-year commitments.

Supt. Dorsey Hopson argued for approval, citing the funding stream -- a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation -- and the high teacher effectiveness scores recorded for TFA corps members by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.

"Just because it's paid for by Gates doesn't make me comfortable," Pickler said. "Is it the highest and best use of the Gates funds?"

The agreement calls for the district to hire a minimum of 125 teachers for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic years.

Responding to numerous complaints about the performance of GCA, the Knoxville-based school services firm that won the SCS school cleaning contract in a pitched battle with Aramark last spring, Hopson told board members that he had instructed the staff to issue new requests for proposals by year's end.

The staff also will look into the possibility of taking custodial services in-house, Hopson said.

Prior to its merger with Shelby County Schools on July 1, Memphis City Schools had an in-house custodial staff. The function was privatized in a cost-cutting move last spring.

Hopson called GCA's performance "unacceptable. I've been to three principals' meetings, and that's the number-one topic on their agenda."

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