Education system takes turn for unity
New school district has same zones, phone numbers and e-mails
No ribbon cutting, no speeches, no ceremony of any kind is planned Monday to mark the birth of the unified Shelby County Schools, as Memphis City Schools officially goes out of business in a merger with its county counterpart.
The consolidation has dominated the public education story in Shelby County since March 2011 when Memphis voters ratified the Board of Education’s decision less than three months earlier to surren- der the MCS charter.
But employees are too busy making the transition a reality and preparing for schools to open on time, Deputy Supt. David Stephens said Friday after emerging from a meeting of top staffers.
“July 1 is the (official transition) day,” Stephens said, “but the date everybody has circled on their calendar is Aug. 5. We have to have the buses ready. Nutrition has to be ready. The teachers have to be ready. The buildings have to be clean. All the support materials have to be ready. We’re charging ahead as hard as we can to be ready for the 5th.”
Stephens said many employees have been working nights, Saturdays and Sundays to make sure information technology and other pieces of the new system’s infrastructure are in place.
“But we’re cautiously optimistic that everything is on track and we’re ready to go.”
Administrators also have spent considerable time finding ways to ease the pain from the transition to new payroll schedules for various classes of employees — a transition that has fallen heavily on former Shelby County Schools employees retained by the new district.
In one cost- saving move, the Memphis City Schools logo — although it has more than likely disappeared forever from public school diplomas in Shelby County — will still be seen on maintenance trucks, school buildings and the like.
Because the merger is, technically speaking, a switch in the administration of city schools to the Shelby County Schools district, the merged district has officially retained the name of Shelby County Schools, at least for the time being.
In a meeting earlier this year, however, the unified board of education put off a decision on what to call the new district at least until September.
Most telephone numbers will also remain the same, and old e-mail addresses are still expected to connect correspondents to whomever they’re trying to reach. The vast majority of the two districts’ schools are preparing to open with, for the most part, the same students, many of the same teachers and principals and the same attendance zones. As has been the case in the past, the teaching ranks are shrinking to adjust to declining enrollment.
A lot of familiar faces will no longer be seen in the adjacent Frances E. Coe and George H. Barnes administration buildings at the corner of Avery and Hollywood, which used to house the separate offices of MCS and SCS, respectively.
About 300 members of the central office staff have been laid off to eliminate duplication of duties and save money.
“It’s been a tough week,” Stephens said. “As Supt. (Dorsey) Hopson said the other day, when you cut 26 percent of the staff it’s tough. It breaks your heart. You hate that people have lost their jobs. It’s extremely tough.
“But we’ve got to get ready for Aug. 5, when our kids show up. We’ve got to keep that in focus. So much of all this hasn’t been about our children, and that’s the most important thing. That’s why we do what we do every day — make sure that every kid in this community has a great opportunity.
“I think we’ve gone through the stormy part. The sun’s out, and we’re ready to move forward.”