MSCS Board to evaluate Dr. Marie Feagins’ performance, discuss ‘next steps’ in board meeting Thursday
Jackson Brown, Steffen Reals
While the MSCS School Board did not say why the superintendent is being evaluated, the meeting comes after mass criticism from parents for lack of communication.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS), Dr. Marie Feagins, who’s been on the job for less than a year, will be evaluated by the Shelby County Board of Education, where they will discuss “next steps.”
The board meeting, scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 26, just has two items on the agenda – a superintendent evaluation and next steps. No details as to why the meeting was called have been given.
While the exact reason isn’t known, the meeting comes a week after the district was slow to respond and communicate mass school shooting threats at several schools. At the time, it left several parents scared for their child’s lives.
“It is scary. It’s mind-blowing like it’s just you don’t think that it can happen to you,” Chelsea Lefay, the parent of a Southwind student, said. “You don’t think that it can happen here. You see it so much everywhere, you see it’s so much, and now that it is happening, it’s like we be stuck, we don’t know what to do.”
This also comes two weeks after a last-second decision was made to close schools early following flooding concerns from the remnants of Hurricane Francine.
Charlie Hale said she dropped her daughter off at A. Maceo Walker Middle School on Thursday morning. However, she had no idea school would be released only a few hours later.
Hale said she’s livid not only because her daughter had to stand outside in the rain after school was dismissed, but also because she was not contacted by the district or the school.
The only contact she received was from her own daughter telling her school was canceled.
“[My daughter] was like, ‘They’re telling us if you’re not here in the next five to ten minutes, they’re gonna make us go outside.’ Go outside? It’s raining outside, and it’s cold outside,” Hale said. “I pulled up to her school at 12:05, and she was standing outside with 20 to 25 kids.”
ABC24 has reached out to the MSCS school board to see why exactly the meeting has been called.