Local & National News | July 29, 2025
Written By JR Robinson for JustMyMemphis
July 29, 2025
At the heart of a furiously debated Shelby County Commission meeting on July 28, 2025, was a proposal with profound implications for the future of education in Memphis and Shelby County. The resolution put forth sought to align the election terms and impose term limits on the Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) Board of Education members, making their terms and limits consistent with those of the County Commission.
While seemingly a routine governance update on paper, this proposal triggered a storm of political, legal, and emotional conflict. The school board members, many of whom attended the meeting in force, asserted they were elected to serve full terms with the community's will backing them. They expressed concerns that imposing term limits mid-term was unconstitutional and a threat to local democracy.
Opposition advocates—many parents, students, community leaders, and education advocates—argued passionately that the current MSCS board had failed to do its job after years of struggling school outcomes, administrative instability, and policy shortcomings. They asserted that this school board had already set an example of accountability when it fired the former superintendent, Dr. Marie Fagan, but had not held itself to the same standards. The call, in plain terms, was for change—to bring fresh leadership and accountability to the schools responsible for educating over 100,000 children across one of the nation’s most challenged districts.
This article dives deep into that debate, examines the constitutional and legal frameworks, parses the heart of the community’s anger, and, above all, presents an unvarnished look at whether the board is meeting its mandate or simply clinging to power.
Terms and election cycles establish who votes when, how long elected officials serve per term, and how many terms they can consecutively hold office. Currently, the MSCS board members have staggered terms and no consolidated term limits aligned with County Commission members.
The 2025 Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation authorizing county commissions to align school board terms with commission election cycles and impose limits on the number of terms a board member may serve. The intent is to:
Improve voter turnout by holding elections concurrently with higher-profile races.
Promote fresh leadership by preventing indefinite tenure of incumbents.
Increase accountability by ensuring board members regularly face the voters.
Provide clear governance structures that support long-term planning and stable transitions.
The proposed resolution, co-sponsored by Commissioner Brittany Thornton and others, sought to implement this change locally through Shelby County’s legislative authority.
The public comment session was a highlight of the meeting, drawing out dozens of voices from all walks of life, many calling for the MSCS board members’ seats to be opened up and contested in the 2026 cycle with new term limits in place.
Many speakers framed their arguments not in abstract politics but based on direct experience:
Malaysia Pete, 11th-grade student: “Time limits for school board members are about stopping comfort zones that ignore parents and students. The board needs fresh ideas and listening ears to fix our broken schools.”
Trinisha Lowry, mother: “My daughter starts kindergarten this fall, and I want better for her than stagnation. Term limits will prevent complacency and create accountability. Our children deserve leadership that evolves with their needs.”
Cey T. Carter, concerned citizen: “Accountability matters. This board has let our children suffer from underperformance and broken promises. Leadership failure should not be rewarded with extended tenure.”
Latasha Graves, resident: “The current board is incompetent and unresponsive. They dismiss our voices. This change is needed because they have refused to listen to the community for too long.”
Jordan Johnson, member of Accountability Coalition of Transformation: “We are not anti-leadership; we want accountability and transparency. This system cannot be run on auto-pilot by a board that has been held in place for too long.”
Camo Hunt, parent: “We need fresh leadership that reflects our communities’ evolving educational needs and stops the decline we are witnessing.”
Hope Butterfield, District 12 resident: “This is about giving voters the power to decide, ensuring school boards reflect the voice of the people, and ending decades of failed governance.”
Even those supportive of term limits within the school board—like Board Member Natalie McKinney and Board Member Sable Otey—spoke cautiously. They acknowledged the importance of term limits but asked for a proper legal process involving community input, not sudden mid-term changes.
This is the crux of the legal debate.
Under Article 11, Section 9 of the Tennessee Constitution, the General Assembly cannot shorten the term of any elected official without proper local approval mechanisms, usually by referendum or a two-thirds majority of the legislature. The section is designed to protect voters from arbitrary removal or term truncation of their elected representatives.
Commissioner Henry Brooks and others cited this constitutional provision passionately, arguing:
The 2025 law authorizing term limit alignment did not require voter approval, making it constitutionally questionable.
Any resolution shortening existing board terms or imposing new limits mid-term could be invalid.
Constitutional protections ensure voters’ choices are respected; elected board members must be allowed to serve out their terms fully.
If changes are to be made, they should be presented directly to voters in a binding referendum, as was done for County Commission and City Council term limits.
Conversely, supporters argued that:
The new law passed by the General Assembly provides explicit authorization to county commissions.
Aligning election cycles has precedent in other counties.
The legal question is pending before the Tennessee Attorney General’s office, with a formal expedited opinion requested by State Representative G.A. Hardaway to clarify constitutionality.
Delay is prudent but should not permanently block the reform area the public demands.
This network of legal, legislative, and procedural tension explains why the Commission wisely deferred a final vote to August 6, 2025, pending the Attorney General’s opinion.
The resignation—and firing—of former Superintendent Dr. Marie Fagan has been a lightning rod in Memphis education politics.
Dr. Fagan, hired to reform the school system, was abruptly fired less than a year into her contract by the MSCS board.
Critics of the board hailed the firing as overdue accountability.
Supporters of Dr. Fagan decried it as political sabotage, lacking transparency or due process.
As Commissioner Brittany Thornton and many community advocates argued, the board set an important precedent: when leadership fails the children, the board acted decisively to remove the superintendent.
Yet the question looms: If the board demands accountability and the firing of the superintendent citing non-performance, shouldn’t the board itself be held to similar accountability standards?
Many in the community—and dozens of public speakers—emphatically believe the answer is yes.
They say the board’s failure to improve test scores, graduation rates, infrastructure, and equity, despite having had more time than the superintendent, requires fresh leadership. Unilaterally holding onto power while the system falters is unacceptable. The framing of the term limits as “retaliation” for the firing of Dr. Fagan is, in their view, a defensive distraction from the core issue: the MSCS board has been failing our students for years.
Two school board members who addressed the Commission at length—Sable Otey and Natalie McKinney—offered perspectives worth considering.
Sable Otey, a board member, stated firmly that the proposal amounted to a power grab, not sound governance reform. She warned that cutting terms short undermines democracy and invites costly lawsuits. Otey supports term limits but wants them applied properly, on a timeline voted by the people with full due process.
Natalie McKinney, a longtime board member, defended the board’s service and cautioned that changing terms mid-cycle is unprecedented and unfair to voters and candidates. She highlighted the poverty and systemic inequities faced by the district’s largely Black and Hispanic student population:
“Nearly two-thirds of poor children here are Black and Brown; 39% of Black children live in poverty, impacting readiness to learn and attendance. Our underfunding and systemic injustice require thoughtful, stable leadership, not sudden political moves.”
She warned that the current resolution, relying on questionable legal grounds, threatens to destabilize governance during a critical moment for the district’s 105,000 students.
While courageous and insightful, McKinney’s defense did little to quell the broad community perception that the MSCS board has failed to deliver meaningful improvement despite years and ample opportunity.
The hard data and lived experience tell a story the community cannot ignore:
Shelby County Schools serves over 105,000 students, with 94% identifying as Black, Hispanic, or Native American.
Child poverty rates are alarmingly high: 29% across Shelby County, 39% for Black children.
The economic climate reproduces inequities in school funding, resource access, and educational outcomes.
Test scores and graduation rates have stagnated or declined in many sectors.
Facilities and infrastructure are aging, inadequate, or unsafe in some areas.
Parental and community engagement with governance bodies has been fraught, marked by frustration and perceived unresponsiveness.
The district experienced high superintendent turnover, including the abrupt firing of Dr. Fagan.
The school board itself has been accused by some constituents of lacking transparency and failing to present a coherent strategic plan.
Voter turnout for MSCS elections has been critically low, with just 13% voting participation in August 2024, raising questions about accountability and representativeness.
From academic performance to system stability, the community’s assessment is clear: the current school board has not met its responsibilities to the children of Memphis and Shelby County.
If Memphis-Shelby County Schools were a large corporation—a business with over 100,000 “customers” (students) and millions in public investment—the standard for leadership and accountability would be clear:
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) would measure progress continuously: test scores, graduation rates, attendance, equity gaps, financial management.
Failure to meet KPIs would trigger immediate interventions.
Leaders failing to execute strategy or showing repeated underperformance would be held accountable — including termination or replacement.
Stakeholders (parents, employees, communities) would expect transparent reporting and corrective action plans.
Holding onto leadership merely by tenure or political inertia, while outcomes decline, would be unacceptable.
Applied to MSCS, these principles suggest that the current school board should be judged by measurable outcomes, not just electoral timing or political wrangling. The reality is that most objective metrics reveal a system that is underperforming, without clear plans for improvement put forth by the board.
The MSCS school board and some of their defenders have made several legal points contesting the resolution:
Constitutional protections prohibit shortening terms without voter consent.
The resolution is a power grab targeting specific board members or agenda opponents.
Sudden changes will destabilize governance during a fragile period.
Term limits and election alignment should come through a referendum, not commission decree.
While these concerns have legal merit and warrant careful deliberation—hence the Commission’s decision to defer pending the Attorney General’s opinion—what the school board and its allies have not provided is:
A credible plan or vision to turn the system around.
Demonstrable progress during their time in office.
Trust that current leadership can right the ship.
In effect, their resistance appears to be more about clinging to power than serving the public interest.
Throughout this controversy, the school board has offered:
Objections to process, legality, and political motivations against them.
Calls for “due process” and fairness.
Personal appeals and defense of their earnest service.
Criticism of the proposal’s intent as “punitive” or “retaliatory.”
But on the core question—how to fix the failing school district—the board’s collective response has been strikingly thin. There has been no meaningful strategic plan, no aggressive policy initiatives with measurable goals, and no unity among board members to address systemic challenges.
In fact, the community grievance is that after years and high-profile decisions like firing Dr. Fagan, the board has:
Failed to reduce educational inequities.
Not reversed declining academic outcomes.
Not improved voter engagement or transparency.
Not presented feasible improvements to facilities or resources.
Ultimately, the board’s silence or evasiveness on these profound issues feeds the community’s loss of confidence and urgency for wholesale leadership change.
The issue of term limits and election alignment for the Memphis-Shelby County Schools Board of Education is complex—woven with legal, political, and historical threads. The community deserves legislators who respect the Tennessee Constitution, democratic principles, and voting rights. They also demand leaders who produce tangible improvements for children.
The MSCS School Board fired their superintendent for underperformance. That was a clear, if controversial, example of accountability. The question now is whether this body charged with directing the district itself is ready to be held to similar standards.
The board’s defense largely rests on legal challenges and procedural objections. Meanwhile, the public—parents, students, educators, advocates—demands results and new leadership. The stark reality is this: if MSCS operated like a typical professional organization, the board members themselves would face job performance reviews and termination for cause.
Instead, this school board offers reasons why change is legally complicated or politically fraught—but not why it should persist despite record failures.
At some point, facts must overrule sentiment. The district’s children cannot wait for procedural debates while their education declines. If the MSCS board cannot present a coherent, effective vision for improving schools, then the community is justified in demanding a new team. The public deserves leaders who not only claim to represent them but produce measurable progress reflecting that trust.
The 2026 term limits and election alignment question is not just legal footwork. It is a referendum on leadership, vision, and accountability in Memphis’ public education system.
The Shelby County Commission is considering term limits and election alignment for MSCS Board members, raising constitutional questions and deep public debate.
Community voices overwhelmingly call for new leadership citing failing schools, poor governance, and lack of accountability.
Tennessee’s Constitution protects elected terms but includes mechanisms for change through legislative and electoral processes.
The MSCS board’s firing of Superintendent Fagan set a precedent for accountability; the board now faces similar scrutiny.
Some board members defend themselves but struggle to combat widespread community dissatisfaction and lack a clear turnaround plan.
Objective educational outcomes paint a grim picture of progress; change in governance is viewed as urgent.
Legal review and further community input are forthcoming; the issue will continue to dominate discourse about Memphis education and equity.
Ultimately, leadership in public education demands transparency, responsiveness, and measurable outcomes beyond politicking or power holds.
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