Commissioner Mick Wright Speaks Out: A Defense of Dr. Marie Feagins
Local & National News | February 09, 2025
Local & National News | February 09, 2025
In the MSCS resolution terminating the employment contract of Dr. Marie Feagins, the first allegation deals with a comment she made about overtime.
The comment in question is heard during discussion of a policy change to the way overtime for hourly workers is pre-approved and documented.
The allegation reads:
"1. Dr. Feagins misled the Board and the public when she stated during a Board Work Session that the District had paid employees $1 million in overtime wages for time not worked. Dr. Feagins never presented any evidence suggesting that her statement was true, and she did not correct or clarify her statement to the public."
Every aspect of this allegation is incorrect:
To begin, the comment by Dr. Feagins is stripped from context. The resolution puts a period after "time not worked," where a comma or semicolon would better represent the content of her remarks. The resolution's use of punctuation and editing distorts her meaning.
The quote comes from a longer statement in which Dr. Feagins answers a board member by saying, "To be transparent, we have [,...] we have [,...] we have [...]"
The resolution places a period at the end of her second "we have" clause and presents only that fraction of her remarks.
The "Spence Partners report" duplicates this error, clipping her remarks in the same place and ending it with a period.
But that wasn't all Dr. Feagins said. Ending her remarks there misses the point of her answer, the thrust of which was that the district needed a policy change to better document and account for overtime in order to prevent waste and save tax dollars, savings that had already been observed upon implementation.
Next, the resolution alleges that Dr. Feagins never presented supporting evidence, but this is also untrue.
The topic was discussed on July 23 and again on July 30.
It is clear from the discussion that members of the board do not understand that the policy deals specifically with hourly employees. Three board members ask questions about salaried teachers and central office staff who are not covered by the policy.
But in the second of the two meetings, Dr. Feagins states that the district was "well under $10,000" for July and had already experienced significant savings in overtime vs the previous year.
She also states that she arrived at the figures in consultation with General Counsel, that her focus was on the district and not on individual persons or positions, and that she would answer any specific questions from board members outside of the context of a public meeting so as not to subject any individual employee to public scrutiny.
Dr. Feagins also defends the comment in her written public response, indicating that the district's overtime expenses had decreased by $1 million year over year. The claim is further supported in the document by linked overtime reports for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Last, it should be clear from the preceding paragraphs that Dr. Feagins did in fact clarify the comment cited by the resolution, both in her continued remarks and in a subsequent meeting.
The topic is discussed by Dr. Feagins and the board for 11 minutes in the July 23 work session and for an additional 8 minutes in the July 30 work session.
Along the way, Dr. Feagins clarifies and expounds upon her remarks in exquisite detail.
So, in conclusion, every aspect of allegation one is wrong, and Dr. Feagins is innocent of the charge. And that's not to mention the fact that these discussions occurred before several current members of the board were even elected.
The second allegation in the MSCS resolution terminating the employment contract of Dr. Marie Feagins concerns a $45,000 donation to the district.
It also calls into question everything we thought we knew about the time-space continuum and our ability to escape the chronological forces that constrain our mortal experience.
The ramifications for humanity at large, and our concept of science, hang in the balance.
The allegation reads:
"2. Dr. Feagins accepted a donation of more than $45,000.00 without Board approval. At a Board Work Session, Dr. Feagins misrepresented her knowledge of and involvement in depositing the unapproved donation check in violation of Board Policy."
Once again, all aspects of the allegation are false.
According to the "Spence Partners report," Dr. Feagins violated Board Policy 2019 by accepting and directing that a $45,635.33 donation from SchoolSeed Foundation be deposited in August 2024 without the approval of the Board.
POLICY-19 specifies that donations of $15,000 or above require acceptance by the board.
Let's pause here to reflect on what is not being alleged:
Here's what happened. A donor gave the money to the district, and the district received the money. That's it.
Quite the scandal. My world is rocked.
The policy violation hinges on a claim that Dr. Feagins personally and knowingly accepted and deposited the funds without board approval.
To prove this claim, the "Spence Partners report" references an email from Dr. Feagins to a school administrator on July 21, 2024.
One minor detail the Spence Partners fail to establish is exactly how Dr. Feagins was able to travel backwards through time, allowing her to confirm knowledge in July of something that allegedly took place in August.
Resolving this mystery will be key both to proving the allegation against Dr. Feagins and to freeing the human race from the cruel and unrelenting ravages of time.
Unfortunately, Dr. Feagins' written public response does not hint at any alien technologies. But it does plainly remind readers of some basic, mundane facts.
So unless more adventures in time travel or other supernational forces are at play here, all indications show POLICY-19 was satisfied, and Dr. Feagins is innocent of the allegation.
The third allegation in the MSCS resolution terminating the employment contract of Dr. Marie Feagins concerns the district's use of a federal grant.
This allegation is related to the second one in that both involve the same non-profit organization, SchoolSeed.
Discussion that later formed the basis of the second allegation transpired in a November 19 work session, prompting a public comment by the organization's leader on December 3, as well as further discussion among the board later in the same meeting, and a series of emails in the days that followed, all culminating in this third of three itemized allegations.
The allegation reads:
"3. Dr. Feagins was dishonest with the Board and the public when she stated that certain federal grant funds were still available to the District despite Dr. Feagins failing to obligate the funds prior to the required deadline."
The Board's resolution provides no further detail of this allegation, which requires us to hunt for context in the "Spence Partners report" and Dr. Feagins' written public response, as well as review hours of riveting board meeting video.
From those sources, we find the funds in question were the unexpended balance of a federal grant that had already been in use by the district for a number of years. The funds were used to identify and provide support to homeless students.
The district at some point initiated a RFP process to award a portion of the remaining funds to one or multiple non-profit sub-grantees. On September 25, the district's Procurement Services department sent a letter of intent to make such an award to SchoolSeed.
The award letter reads, "If an agreement is required, the recommendation will be submitted to MSCS General Counsel Office for contract preparation. MSCS will move forward with the award upon approval, which may include full execution of a contract and approval of Shelby County Board Members at the next scheduled Board Meeting Session."
Under the terms of the grant, the sub-grantee award was an allowable use of the funds only if a contract was in place by September 30. That left only 5 days from the date of the award letter for a contract to be drafted, agreed to and signed.
It is unclear what actions the awardee and the district took next, but the General Counsel stated that his office never prepared or completed a contract. And because there was no contract in place, the topic did not make any Board meeting agenda for approval.
When the Board learned of the missed opportunity for SchoolSeed, certain members asked Dr. Feagins if the district still had access to the funds. She answered, correctly, yes – the district could still access the balance of the grant for allowable uses, including reimbursement for district personnel wages and benefits.
Because this topic was not on the agenda, the detail provided to the Board by Dr. Feagins in the meeting was offered without any specific, advance preparation.
And yet, the worst insult the "Spence Partners report" could invent was to state, twice, that Dr. Feagins' remarks were "only accurate to a degree."
In fact, they were accurate to the degree that MSCS submitted six-figure reimbursement requests that were approved by the State of Tennessee and allocated to the district, as evidenced by financial statements linked from Dr. Feagins' written response.
Once again, this allegation is false and Dr. Feagins is innocent of the charge.
That's not to say that MSCS couldn't have put the funds to even better use or spent them down more quickly and efficiently. It's clear the timeline was less than ideal and improvements could be made.
What's more, Dr. Feagins agrees. Here's an important passage from her January 6 letter to the Board Chair:
"To directly speak to the meritless claims, I have never, under any circumstances, intentionally or unintentionally misled a Board member or the Board as a whole. Furthermore, I have not mismanaged District funds. The two transactions at issue adhered to the Tennessee Comptroller Internal Control and Compliance Manual, District Policy, Federal Law, and Tennessee State Law as written.
"Most importantly, as a solutions-oriented leader, I have prioritized enhancing internal grant management processes and fortifying internal controls to prevent similar issues in the future, while ensuring the Board remains fully informed through transparent and consistent reporting. My efforts include, but are not limited to, requesting earlier issuance of solicitations (RFP) and timely notifications, stricter deadline monitoring, and enhanced staff training on policy, grant guidelines, and reporting."
One could spend days dismantling the bogus claims and misrepresentations contained in the MSCS resolution terminating the employment contract of Dr. Marie Feagins, and in the surrounding debate.
Indeed we have spent days, but only on the highlights. There's plenty more that could be exposed.
To take just one example, consider this statement from the "Spence Partners report" that I did not have space to include in the post covering the third allegation:
"The January 6, 2025 letter from Dr. Feagins did not respond to this matter and instead claims she could not respond without more detail about the specific policy violations. Consequently, this communication did not address the question."
These lines by the Spence Partners rely on the reader first not having access to the report prior to the Board's decision, and then the likelihood that you would not follow the breadcrumbs from footnote 44 to pages 134 and 135, where they are quite clearly debunked.
The section of the letter they quote refers not to allegation 3 but to the 5th WHEREAS clause in the resolution, a clause that provides no detail, no clarity, no references, and no support.
Dr. Feagins wrote that she and her attorney would need detail and policy references for that charge because none were provided. Everyone was expected to conclude "Dr. Feagins has engaged in conduct detrimental to the District and the families it serves" without a single shred of evidence.
This is malpractice. There's no other word for it.
In summary:
The Board and its advisors have slandered and wrongfully terminated their employee. Board members communicated in secret and invented bogus charges to draw attention away from their true motivation. Both the content of the resolution, and the way it was passed, are deeply deserving of being overturned, vacated and nullified.
The rogue Board members owe all of Memphis an apology and a letter of resignation.
Reinstate Dr. Feagins and let her cook.
