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Marie Feagins was fired Tuesday as superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Colleges, setting the district again to the place it has been repeatedly in recent times: trying to find management.
A bitterly divided faculty board voted 6-3 to oust Feagins lower than 10 months into her tenure, approving a decision that cited allegations {of professional} misconduct and poor management.
Feagins, a former Detroit faculty administrator employed by a earlier board to steer Tennessee’s largest faculty district after a chronic and problem-plagued search, vehemently denied any wrongdoing. She described herself as a goal of “false accusations and political maneuvering.”
Board chair Joyce Dorse Coleman launched the decision to fireside Feagins and was joined in voting “sure” by members Stephanie Love, Natalie McKinney, Sable Otey, Towanna Murphy, and Keith Williams. Michelle McKissack, Tamarques Porter, and Amber Huett-Garcia voted no.
The board voted to call Roderick Richmond, a longtime district administrator now serving because the district’s transformation officer, as interim superintendent.
Feagins declined to reply questions from Chalkbeat as she departed the assembly, as a substitute providing her congratulations to Richmond.
After a tense and sometimes chaotic particular assembly, the board permitted a decision Dorse Coleman first launched Dec. 17 to fireside Feagins. The decision claims that Feagins:
- Failed to supply proof of her assertion that district staff have been paid $1 million in additional time for time not labored.
- Accepted a donation of greater than $45,000 with out board approval, then misrepresented what occurred.
- Misled the board and public a couple of federal grant and its missed deadline.
Feagins’ hiring was presupposed to deliver stability and rebuild belief after a turbulent 18-month superintendent search, and because the district navigated critical educational and monetary challenges, together with doable faculty closures. As a substitute, months of simmering rigidity between Feagins and nearly all of board members led to a hasty divorce with doubtlessly important ramifications.
If the choice quantities to a firing for trigger the board would keep away from paying Feagins in severance — it was estimated at $487,500 as of final month — however doubtlessly open itself as much as different prices if Feagins pursues authorized motion. Feagins started work final April on a four-year contract that was to pay her $325,000 yearly.
Lawmakers involved concerning the prospect of Feagins being fired additionally have been poised to take motion.
State Rep. Mark White, chairman of a Home schooling committee, has floated reintroducing laws he drafted final yr that will give the state the energy to nominate as much as six new members to the nine-member Memphis board. White on Tuesday wrote a letter to the varsity board urging members to retain Feagins. One other lawmaker, Democratic Rep. G.A. Hardaway has already filed a invoice that will create a course of for recalling faculty board members.
Huett-Garcia and group members who spoke throughout Tuesday’s public remark interval raised the specter of better state intervention to warn board members in opposition to voting to fireside Feagins.
A protracted line of audio system come to Feagins’ protection
Greater than two-dozen audio system — together with lecturers, alumni, and group organizers — lined up throughout public remark to assist Feagins and criticize the try and oust her.
Amongst them was Justin Pearson, a Democratic state consultant from Memphis who drew nationwide consideration in 2023 after Republicans expelled him from workplace over his participation in a disruption on the Capitol. Pearson, who was reelected to workplace shortly after this ouster, referred to as the method focusing on Feagins unfair and urged the board to “decelerate.”
The assembly grew heated when the board’s outdoors counsel, Robert Spence, mentioned his evaluation discovered the allegations in opposition to Feagins have been true. McKissack interjected, accusing Spence of appearing like he was in a courtroom giving “Perry Mason editorializing.” Dorse Coleman threatened to “clear the room” repeatedly as viewers members booed and heckled.
When the room quieted, Spence mentioned Feagins violated her contract and deviated from board coverage, and that she exhibited a sample of untruthful statements. The board then voted to launch Spence’s prolonged report back to the general public, though it was not launched instantly.
Earlier than voting to terminate Feagins’ contract, the board rejected a counterproposal from board member Huett-Garcia to maintain Feagins and try and restore her relationship with the board. Underneath that decision, Feagins would have had to supply month-to-month updates to the board, and board members would have been required to finish board governance coaching.
Even the superintendent’s most vocal board supporters mentioned Feagins bore some accountability for the deterioration of that relationship since she began in April.
Nonetheless, McKissack pleaded together with her colleagues to hearken to group members and undertake the counterproposal to retain Feagins, which she described as honest and balanced.
“We will hit the reset button on all of this,” she mentioned. “We completely can do that collectively.”
It was clear final month {that a} majority of board members have been inclined to sever ties with Feagins. However Dorse Coleman hit pause, casting the deciding vote on a proposal to delay the dialogue till this month to permit for extra deliberation and a response from Feagins.
Throughout a board committee assembly final week, Feagins shared a point-by-point response to the unique allegations in opposition to her. She mentioned some faculty board members offered deceptive and false info, calling the trouble to fireside her “politically motivated” and vowing to not resign.
Board member McKinney leveled extra allegations finally week’s committee assembly, accusing Feagins of “a sample of failed management” and citing commencement points, considerations about insufficient staffing, and chopping pupil assist techniques.
That prompted McKissack to say a few of her friends have been “hell-bent” on dismissing Feagins, and Huett-Garcia mentioned McKinney was overstepping and “crossing the road of governance.”
When it got here time to lastly vote on the decision to fireside Feagins at Tuesday’s particular assembly, the dialogue was extra procedural than emotional. The board members in favor of ousting her didn’t make speeches explaining their vote. The roll name was taken, and the votes have been tallied.
“The decision was adopted,” Dorse Coleman mentioned. “Thanks.”
Superintendent drama has been operating for greater than two years
A distinct board took a markedly completely different strategy in parting methods with Joris Ray, who resigned in August 2022 within the midst of a board-ordered outdoors investigation over claims that he abused his energy and violated district insurance policies. That board permitted an settlement that gave Ray a severance bundle equal to 18 months’ wage — about $480,000. The settlement additionally ended the investigation into Ray earlier than any findings have been made public.
District administrator Toni Williams then took over as interim superintendent. She went backwards and forwards on making use of for the job on a everlasting foundation, and in the end withdrew from consideration. The district restarted its nationwide search in June 2023, after the board agreed on a recent set of job {qualifications} and standards. That finally led to Feagins’ hiring.
Feagins lasted simply 110 days within the position, or lower than one-fifth so long as Williams served as interim superintendent.
Earlier than coming to Memphis, Feagins was an official within the Detroit Public Colleges Group District, which, in contrast, has skilled a protracted interval of management stability beneath Superintendent Nikolai Vitti. Vitti, who was employed in 2017 because the district emerged from state management, acquired a second contract extension in March that can maintain him within the submit till 2028 and make him one of many longest-serving leaders in district historical past. He mentioned on the time that working with the board on a succession plan could be one in all his high targets.
One among Feagins’ harshest critics in latest weeks has been board member McKinney, who unseated then-board Chair Althea Greene as District 2’s consultant within the August 2024 faculty board election after campaigning as an advocate of management change. She signaled in her marketing campaign that she would emphasize communication and group involvement, telling Chalkbeat Tennessee: “Household and group engagement should be significant, real, inclusive, and responsive to actually assist our college students.”
Memphians are “uninterested in watching their college students graduate however not be ready for postsecondary alternatives,” McKinney mentioned on election night time. “In some unspecified time in the future we have now to determine who might be accountable for this. If issues haven’t labored beneath that management, it’s time to strive one thing new.”
McKinney was one in all 4 newly elected board members final yr. However Feagins’ board opposition included a mixture of veteran and new board members: Dorse Coleman, Williams, and Love joined with McKinney and two different newcomers, Murphy and Otey. The opposite newly elected board member, Porter in District 4, sided with Feagins, together with McKissack and Huett-Garcia.
