Humes Middle School, MLK College Prep High School in Memphis set to close this year

A local public middle school is slated to close at the end of this academic year.

Humes Middle School is set to shut its doors, and its students are expected to shift to Booker T. Washington Middle and High School. Humes is the alma mater of international icon Elvis Presley, who graduated from it in 1953, back when it was still a high school. The plan to close Humes was discussed during a Memphis-Shelby County Board of Education committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon.

New superintendent Marie Feagins, Ed.D., who was participating in her first committee meeting, explained that the district thinks about three things when it considers closing or transitioning schools: proximity, capacity ― in reference to the number of students being impacted ― and the status of the school building itself.

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How we got here

The fate of Humes has been uncertain for months. In 2014, the Tennessee Department of Education moved it from Memphis-Shelby County Schools to the state-led Achievement School District, due to its poor performance. At the time, Humes’ academic performance ranked among the bottom 5% of schools, and the intention was for it to improve under the purview of the ASD ― which assigned it to a charter school operator, Frayser Community Schools.

But Frayer Community Schools’ 10-year contract to operate Humes as part of the ASD ends at the conclusion of the 2023-24 academic year. The charter operator had hoped to continue running the school as part of the district, but the MSCS board denied its application to do so in July 2023, because of its past performance, academic model, and level of financial stability.

Another ASD school closure

Humes also isn’t the only ASD school that MSCS is set to close.

The district is planning to close MLK College Prep High School, another school operated by Frayser Community Schools. Its students are expected to attend Trezevant High School until construction of the new Frayser High School is completed.

Frayser Community Schools also had a 10-year contract to operate MLK College Prep under the ASD, just as it had for Humes, and it applied to continue operating the school as part of MSCS going forward. But this application, too, was denied in July.

At the meeting, Feagins assured the board that the district had been working with families who have students at Humes and MLK, and “walking shoulder-to-shoulder with them.”

“Any of these transitions consist of a lot of engagement with families,” she said.

School board member Stephanie Love, however, expressed some concern about the transition of Humes students to Booker T. Washington, saying she wanted them to get some experience there before the first day of school. She also alleged that she had not heard about the planned closure of Humes prior to the Tuesday meeting and made it clear she was frustrated by this.

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“If you change something within our district, the board members are supposed to know,” she said. “We get parent complaints and teacher complaints and student complaints. It does no good to have your administration privy [to information]… and the board is just left without.”

Other school transitions

There are three other schools set to transition from the ASD back to MSCS, but they aren’t expected to close.

Fairley High School has been operated by Green Dot Public Schools Tennessee for the past decade, as part of the ASD. Green Dot applied to continue operating the school and its application was denied by the board in July. Unlike Humes and MLK, however, Fairley High is expected to remain open, as a standard public school run by MSCS. The district is estimating the school will have around 400 to 450 students next year.

Journey Coleman School and Westside Middle School, meanwhile, will continue to be run by their charter operators under MSCS.

Journey Community Schools has operated Journey Coleman School under the ASD for the past decade. Its request to continue operating the school as part of MSCS was granted in July. Frayser Community Schools, likewise, has operated Westside Middle School. With its contract nearing completion, its application to continue running the school under MSCS’ jurisdiction was granted in July 2022.

The infrastructure plan

The news comes as MSCS continues to hammer out its comprehensive infrastructure plan. The district is facing $500 million in deferred maintenance and it has discussed how to tackle this issue going forward. Feagins acknowledged during a session with members of the media last week that school closures were a possibility as part of the plan.

“A safe place to be right now is just owning that,” she said at the time. “That is highly likely, and so not being afraid to just be transparent, that those conversations not only will be held, but on the other side of the conversations will be the actions.”

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Still, she also emphasized that it was a complicated process.

“We're still on the front end of those decisions,” she said, “as we think about the audit that’s being done, to really give the concerted attention of looking at, building by building, community by community, listening to the feedback from the community, and then finding that general compromise and happy medium, about making perceptually tough decisions, but also honoring the nostalgia that comes from maintaining some of the buildings.”

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis-Shelby County Schools set to close two ASD schools in 2024