Rocky path forward for yielding SCS schools
Legislation requiring Shelby County Schools to cede four schools, including its three Germantown namesake schools, to municipality districts is unlikely to pass.
“We accomplished goal of getting discussion going so will hold off (with legislation) as long as both parties take negotiations seriously,” Tennessee Rep. Mark White, R-germantown, wrote in a text message Monday afternoon.
Without matching bills in the House and Senate, the legislation has a rocky path forward.
“I believe that as long as Germantown has interest in ... those schools and as long as SCS is operating those schools that there will always be some engagement between those parties on how we continue to work in the best interest of families in the communities in which we serve,” SCS board member Kevin Woods said Monday. Woods represents District 4, which includes the three Germantown schools.
The proposed legislation, initially introduced by Rep. White and Sen. John Stevens, R-huntingdon, stipulates that one school district would not be able to operate schools within the jurisdiction of another school district. In the case of Shelby County Schools, the legislation would affect its Lucy Elementary, in Millington, and its Germantown Elementary, Middle and High Schools, known as the “3Gs.”
Last week, the bill, SB0898, failed in the Senate Education Committee at a 5-4 vote after committee members asked several questions of German
town Mayor Mike Palazzolo and of Tony Thompson, lobbying for SCS.
Rep. White said Monday evening he plans to remove the companion House bill, HB0917, from Wednesday's calendar.
Later in committee, though, Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-germantown, proposed a near-exact version of SB0898 as a third amendment to his SB0924. Both the amendment and the bill were passed 6-3.
The original text of Kelsey's bill, which now carries as an amendment the text of the bill stipulating districts can't operate within another district's bounds, deals with education, but does not deal with district jurisdiction in any related way. Heard Monday, HB0525, the house companion to Kelsey's bill, passed, but not with the same amendment about the jurisdiction.
Germantown says support is ‘point of pride’ and matter of space
In Germantown, Palazzolo has been supportive of the bill from the start.
With 750 to 1,000 expected new residential builds for the municipality, Palazzolo has claimed the matter of the schools is a matter of space, and also a “point of pride” for the municipality, whose visitors and new residents are sometimes confused about why the three schools aren't part of the district, he said. He also suggested the school, if it became part of the Germantown district, could partner with another higher education institution.
During last week's senate committee hearing, he also voiced support for creating a “conversation” with the legislation.
“And it (the legislation) simply gets the parties to the negotiation tables,” Palazzolo said during committee. “That is all my community would like, and I think that would be well received by the good people of Shelby County as well.”
According to the legislation in its active form, as an amendment to SB0924, Germantown's municipal district would not be required to keep the SCS students currently enrolled in the school. Once Germantown established new attendance zones, the students enrolled in Germantown Elementary, Middle or High School could stay with the school only until they completed the last grade at that school, so long as that occurred before the end of the 2026-27 school year.
The legislation also states that the municipality could, in an agreement with SCS, stop allowing the present group of students attending from attending once the school switches hands.
Loss of Germantown schools would be financial, academic hit, says SCS
Nearly 3,400 students attend the three Germantown schools, which employ 283 teachers and staff, SCS has said. During committee, Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-memphis, suggested that the high school students, for example, would have to be split among the district's Southwind, Ridgeway and Cordova High Schools.
“When there's a perfectly good building, that Shelby County Schools has paid for, these students will have to be split up among multiple high schools, and learn in portables, is that correct?” she asked.
During the senate committee hearing, Thompson, who lobbied for SCS, said it would, and reiterated that the district sees the matter as settled. Germantown Elementary, Middle and High School remained SCS schools under a federal opinion issued as Shelby County's municipal districts were created after the merger, he explained.
The district made similar points in an April 6 letter signed by Superintendent Joris Ray and SCS board chair Miska Clay Bibbs.
The legislation would force negotiations, Ray and Bibbs said, and have adverse effects on the students at the four schools, eliminate school choice opportunities in the district, and be costly financially. In the letter, shared with The Commercial Appeal, SCS estimated that building a new high school would cost $94 million, and providing portable buildings for potentially displaced students would cost $7 million.
The district would lose an estimated $200 million in funding related to the loss of the school, Ray and Bibbs said. If the three schools were removed, the two officials said, the district would see a reduction in the district's overall academic performance.
Ownership of buildings historically contentious
District ownership of the Germantown schools, known as the “3Gs” by many who have followed the years-long efforts, has been a matter of contention since the Germantown district was formed in 2014 and SCS retained control. The Germantown district was particularly interested thereafter in recouping Germantown Elementary and Middle schools.
Germantown and SCS have gone back and forth on the matter over the years. In 2017, a proposed $25 million sale of the three schools to the Germantown district was never realized, with the district looking to a new school construction in order to expand.
The Germantown district's portfolio of six schools would grow to nine with the addition of the three namesake schools; SCS operates a much larger portfolio of nearly 150 traditional schools and more than 50 other charter schools.
SCS has proposed recent multimillion-dollar facilities improvements to Germantown Elementary School, which would replace 10 portable classrooms currently in use with classroom additions to the school building. Last week, the district approved additional funding for design on the project, totaling $350,000.
Later this month, SCS is expected to share a 10-year plan for its aging facilities. It was not immediately clear if any of the closures or new builds would affect any of the Germantown schools or Lucy Elementary in Millington.