MEMPHIS, Tenn. —
Thursday morning, a mixture of faith and community advocacy groups across Memphis joined together for a common cause. They outlined a new list of demands to the Memphis Shelby County School Board, following two candidates dropping out in the late stages of its search for a new full-time superintendent.
Days after the MSCS board pushed back against Hazard, Young, Attea, and Associates, an outside search firm the district is using to find superintendent candidates, more community advocates speak their minds.
“It’s imperative that we get this moment right so we can change the paradigm on the narrative of our children across the county," community organizer Devante Hill said.
The interfaith group 'MICAH' along with Memphis For All and other organizations say the search firm's process of scoring candidates and narrowing its choices wasn't clear.
"These candidates weren’t even close to each other," Marcus Randolph, an MSCS parent, said. "And the candidate they have been backing this whole time and I've been to several meetings at different schools and every time we went they would talk about their candidate, their interim, and how she’s qualified. She’s clearly not qualified.”
The group says they want the MSCS board to adopt what they call the "Community Super Search Plan".
“The call is just to bring integrity back to this process," Tikeila Rucker with Memphis For All said. "Because it has lacked transparency since the beginning. The transparency that many of the board are also in agreement that is not existing in this space we want to help support those board members.”
Their plan requests the school board reconvene the superintendent search advisory committee Friday, April 21, review the list of remaining qualified candidates, pick the top five finalists and announce them by Saturday, April 29. The group also wants the board to hold public interviews, from May 4th through May 9th.
"We’ve seen the power of the people,” Rachael Spriggs said. “It will be no different when it comes to having a qualified superintendent and making sure this process has integrity.”
We reached out to several MSCS board members for their response to the new list of community advocate demands but haven't heard back.
On April 20, the MSCS board called a special meeting about the superintendent search for Monday, April 24.