3 Frayser schools 1st to operate by state

Parents, teachers await plans, possible charters

Most of the parents crossing guard Lisa Collins has talked to at Corning Elementary have no idea what it means that the state will soon be running their school.

“I know because I talked to them,” she said. “The parents I’ve been talking to don’t know anything about what is going on.”

Days after the state Department of Education announced six Memphis City Schools would be run by the state or turned into charter schools, families of 1,600 students in three Frayser schools and dozens of teachers are waiting for details.

“It seems like it could be a good thing,” Corning first-grade teacher Teresa Shannon said as she weighs whether to apply to work in the state -run Achievement School District or cast her luck with MCS.

“The only thing is, when the school returns to the district, tenure is not guaranteed. Neither is seniority or any benefits we have,” she said.

Corning, Frayser Elementary and Westside Middle are the first city schools to be formally removed from local control and run by the state. (Other schools are being co -managed by MCS or run by charter schools.)

The taxes that support these schools will flow to ASD offices in the state Department of Education in Nashville.

Catrina Brown, parent of Corning students, is unhappy with the decision.

“They (state officials) didn’t ask the parents for any input. I don’t feel like the state needs to take over,” she said.

Instead, she said, Corning officials should work with parents to make sure they get their children to school.

“The problem is more with the parents. It’s not the school.”

ASD Supt. Chris Barbic and his staff were in the Frayser schools

every day last week, meeting parents as they dropped off and picked up their children at school.

He promises parents will see immediate changes, including prekindergarten for all 4-year- olds in the Frayser attendance zones and extended school days.

The Achievement School District that the Frayser schools will be part of is a collection of the 85 lowestperforming schools in the state; 69 are in Memphis.

The state has set aside $30 million to improve them, including $10 million to incubate new charter schools and money for outside teacher recruitment.

Frayser — where the median household income in the 1970s was 10 percent higher than the metro average, but where now, according to census figures, the average family earns $11,850 — has more low-performing schools than any other community in the state.

Delano Elementary is the only optional school in the area, and it is not at capacity. MCS hasn’t added others, school leaders say, because Frayser parents haven’t demanded it.

When Steve Lockwood, executive director of the Frayser Community Development Corp., came to Frayser in 2002, “68 percent of people owned their homes. Now, I’d guess it’s 40 percent,” he said.

The Frayser community has led the state in home foreclosures every year since 2000, its blocks of brick and stone homes now mostly rental housing.

“For a lot of people, Frayser is a step up,” Lockwood said. “As they closed up public housing in North Memphis — Dixie Homes and all of those places — those people came up here,” he said.

Spencer Carter, assistant director of Ed Rice Community Center on North Watkins in Frayser, said his wife drives her children six miles each way to charter schools outside of Frayser.

“People told her the charters were better for her kids,” Carter said.

Rev. Anthony Anderson runs Memphis Business Academy charter at the former Kmart in the center of Frayser. He has no doubt that the poor public schools fueled MBA’S growth. (It has 740 students in two schools.)

“Because it is such a tough community, it was easier for us to grow there,” he said.

“Frayser can use all the tools it can get. This change is good for Frayser,” Anderson said of the state intervention.

The creation of the ASD — grouping low-achieving schools under one umbrella and pushing resources designed to lift failing schools — was born when the state won $500 million in federal Race to the Top funds in 2010.

An early rendition rolled out last year when state officials announced they would co -manage the lowest-performing schools with local boards of education. In Memphis, that included Frayser High, Hamilton High, Raleigh-egypt Middle and Northside High.

Co -management was “a light touch,” said ASD spokesman Jeremy Jones, “that really wasn’t the best way to move the needle on student achievement.”

Now as the experiment moves forward, Lockwood, with the community development corporation, and others say it’s worth the risk.

“I haven’t seen any organized resistance,” Lockwood said. “I would suggest the consensus is we need to try something different.”

— Jane Roberts: (901) 529-2512