Frank Johnson appointed to Memphis-Shelby County Colleges board

Frank Johnson, a neighborhood activist and former educator, will signify District 7 on the Memphis-Shelby County Colleges board for the subsequent two years, commissioners determined Monday.

The Shelby County Fee selected Johnson to exchange longtime board member Miska Clay Bibbs, who left the board in August after successful election to the fee. Clay Bibbs had represented District 7’s southeast Memphis neighborhoods together with Parkway Village and Oakhaven since 2014. 

Johnson is a South Memphis neighborhood activist with the Heart for Reworking Communities, a nonprofit that describes itself as “devoted to the holistic transformation of neighborhoods and communities in and round Memphis.” Earlier than that, Johnson spent three years as a instructor at Memphis’ LaRose Elementary Faculty, the place most of his college students skilled excessive ranges of poverty and trauma, in keeping with his software.

Johnson beat out one different applicant for the MSCS board seat: Jason Sharif, a longtime Memphis youth and neighborhood advocate and likewise a former instructor. Terrell Mitchell, a Memphis instructor who additionally utilized for the appointment, was disqualified earlier than his interview after the fee realized he lives outdoors of District 7. 

Throughout interviews with the county fee on Tuesday, Johnson stated he plans to deal with rebuilding the district’s relationship with households, particularly mother and father. Reflecting on his experiences educating second, third, and fourth graders at LaRose, Johnson pledged to do his half as a college board member to make colleges neighborhood hubs for not simply college students, however for fogeys, too.

“Our colleges are usually not simply college students — they signify households,” Johnson stated. “After we speak about college students, we have now to speak about households, and we have now to speak about communities as an entire.”

Johnson additionally promised to place academics on the forefront of his choices as a board member.

“We now have to begin listening to our academics and the individuals in our colleges coping with college students day-after-day,” he stated.

Johnson will be part of the board at a pivotal second because it embarks on the district’s first nationwide superintendent search in over a decade. The board can be within the midst of inside transitions: Johnson is the third new member in lower than two months. Keith Williams and Amber Huett-Garcia joined the board in August after successful election in Districts 6 and eight.

Given the current upheaval inside the college board and the district due to COVID and Superintendent Joris Ray’s resignation, Johnson stated his first transfer as a board member is a listening tour with stops at each District 7 college in order that he can gauge tips on how to higher assist kids who’re affected by lingering pandemic trauma and different essential neighborhood points like poverty.

“We’ve acquired to get a studying on what’s occurring with our college students,” Johnson stated. “I need to speak to the principals; I need to speak to the academics to know precisely what the wants are.” 

Johnson believes speaking to the neighborhood will higher put together him to assist the district transfer ahead. Requested how he would deal with MSCS’ low literacy charges and standardized take a look at scores, Johnson stated the board ought to take into consideration the problems kids face outdoors of faculty that stop them from studying, resembling housing and meals insecurity or psychological well being struggles, and associate with neighborhood organizations to deal with these points.

Johnson stated he hopes the subsequent superintendent has a deep understanding of the state’s largest college district and likewise will  take heed to the neighborhood and be keen to adapt their management and choices based mostly on what they hear.

“We can not have a top-down dictatorship,” Johnson stated, including that the subsequent superintendent ought to stand robust in opposition to what he believes are “assaults” from the state, resembling  its new non-public college voucher program.

Johnson additionally advocated for elevated funding for MSCS, calling on the town to chip in to assist the district deal with its tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in deferred facility upkeep as an alternative of being pressured to delay development initiatives or shut neighborhood colleges that usually function the center of neighborhoods.

“They do have to spend money on our faculty system, and we have to begin some kind of petition or rally to get the town to pony up some cash for our college students,” he stated.

Samantha West is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, the place she covers Okay-12 schooling in Memphis. Join with Samantha at swest@chalkbeat.org.