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The superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Colleges needs to allay considerations about pupil security within the new faculty 12 months after narrowly avoiding a walkout by faculty useful resource officers final week and accepting the resignation of the district’s new safety chief simply days after he began.
“I provide you with assurance … that our district is okay,” Feagins informed faculty board members Tuesday night after a tumultuous week wherein she and the board agreed to offer the district’s 125-plus officers important raises.
Feagins additionally reported that air-con issues that precipitated a dozen colleges to shut early on Aug. 5, the primary day of courses, additionally impacted pupil well being as the warmth index climbed to no less than 103 levels.
“We have now had some asthma-related incidents and a few seizures,” she stated. “And so that also stays on the prime of thoughts for us.”
Feagins added that technicians have accomplished a 3rd of the 1,393 work orders acquired in August to troubleshoot air-con points throughout the district’s 165 buildings.
However the upkeep points are extreme, she stated of the $1 billion backlog in Tennessee’s largest faculty system, and the district’s constructing upkeep division is short-staffed. The district not too long ago elevated pay for its technicians, partly due to workforce competitors from Ford Motor Co.’s electrical truck meeting plant beneath development in close by Haywood County.
The troubling studies got here amid generally tense exchanges between the district’s new chief and college board members in certainly one of their ultimate conferences earlier than 4 new members are scheduled to be seated in September following this month’s elections.
However they agreed concerning the significance of finishing Whitehaven Excessive Faculty’s $9.5 million STEM lab, because the board unanimously accepted $2.3 million for the job. The development challenge, which broke floor in April and likewise is funded with personal {dollars}, has been delayed three months due to a lag in disbursing cash that had been promised earlier by the district’s interim chief, Toni Williams.
The vote to disburse $1.3 million that beforehand had been accepted, plus one other $1 million to cowl the price of a storm shelter required by constructing codes, prompted cheers from Whitehaven academics and group members, a few of whom spoke in the course of the assembly.
“This can be a slam dunk; we should always have already achieved this,” stated Wayne Hawkins, a trainer at Whitehaven.
Board members additionally voted unanimously to have the college system’s lawyer report any more to the elected board as an alternative of to the superintendent — a change in organizational construction they stated is required to keep up independence and keep away from conflicts of curiosity.
Faculty security was entrance and heart final week as faculty useful resource officers threatened to stroll off the job simply days earlier than the district’s annual soccer jamboree. Final 12 months, gunfire broke out throughout two video games.
However Feagins reported that no main incidents occurred throughout this 12 months’s three-day jamboree that featured 67 center and highschool groups and attracted greater than 6,000 spectators.
She and different board members thanked officers for guaranteeing a protected atmosphere. Per week earlier, they settled their dispute with SROS over pay and different points.
However Feagins acknowledged missteps in hiring George Harris as her government director of security and safety with out conducting a extra thorough background verify.
Harris was recruited from Detroit Public Colleges Group District, the place Feagins beforehand was an administrator and he was a lieutenant within the division of patrol operations. After faculty board member Stephanie Love emailed Feagins and different board members on Aug. 16 about allegations that Harris had misappropriated funds throughout his time in Detroit, Harris resigned from his new job the following day, citing “private causes.”
“I personal that I made the provide to the person primarily based on the data that I had,” Feagins informed the board.
She stated she’s open to coverage modifications to strengthen the background verify course of for filling such jobs as she seems to be to interchange Harris in what she referred to as “an important function.”
Love responded: “I agree we have to strengthen insurance policies so it will by no means occur once more.”
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
