In a first, SCS and state ASD may unite to operate Raleigh-Egypt Middle.

Would be first joint operation involving SCS and ASD

Shelby County Schools and the state-run Achievement School District are in talks to partner in the operation of Raleigh-Egypt Middle School, SCS Superintendent Dorsey Hopson said Tuesday.

The plan would have SCS putting the school into its Innovation Zone turnaround program and eliminating a plan already in place to add grades six through eight to Raleigh-Egypt High School. The ASD would offer resources, including teachers and school leaders who have already been hired for RaleighEgypt Middle, which is set for takeover by Scholar Academies in the fall.

The move would be unprecedented for the two districts, which have fought for the last four years over control of the most challenging schools in Shelby County. SCS has attributed much of its budget deficit this year to loss of enrollment due to the ASD.

But Hopson and school board members had concerns about the offer, including questions about autonomy and the further disruption to families’ lives.

“I personally feel like this would jeopardize everything that we’re working for,” board member Stephanie Love said. Her district includes the Raleigh-Egypt feeder pattern, which is all on one campus.

Love has blasted the ASD for disrupting the feeder pattern by taking over the middle school. The board approved a work-around, adding the middle school-level grades to the high school to provide families another option if they wanted to avoid the ASD.

Realizing that one campus would then contain two middle schools, Hopson said he began seeking a solution with ASD Superintendent Malika Anderson.

ASD’s new chief of external affairs, Robert White, said the conversations have been around the best option for students regardless of who runs the school.

“Honestly, that type of collaboration, that type of synergy, it would have quite frankly been something to behold,” White said, adding that as an iZone school, SCS would have full control over staffing.

Hopson said the ASD may be able to give SCS the philanthropic dollars it had received to help run the middle school under Scholar Academies.