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A Shelby County Commission committee advanced a resolution Wednesday to align school board races with the general election cycle by 2030, dropping an earlier plan that would have cut short five members’ terms.
Last week, commissioners delayed voting on a proposal to put all school board seats on the 2026 ballot. They said that proposal, which shortened some current terms, raised constitutional concerns. The full commission is expected to vote as early as Monday on the new resolution, which also includes term limits that could start with those elected in 2030.
A state law with bipartisan backing made the election cycle changes possible. The Memphis lawmakers who sponsored the bill, Democratic Rep. Torrey Harris and Republican Sen. Brent Taylor, had argued that syncing up election cycles would save money and increase voter turnout, which is consistently low for school board-only elections.
But some have characterized the move as a school board reset amid the controversy that followed Superintendent Marie Feagins’ January ouster.
Resolution opponents said Wednesday that the new proposal still violates the state constitution because it would create term limits without a voter referendum. That concern caused Memphis Rep. G.A. Hardaway, who originally voted for the state legislation, to ask the Tennessee Attorney General to weigh in.
School board member Natalie McKinney told Chalkbeat that she doesn’t oppose board term limits but said that voters should decide whether or not to implement them.
“We don’t have to do this, and we don’t have to do it this way,” she said. “So you have to ask yourself, what’s the real goal here?”
Commission Chair Michael Whaley, who sponsored the original resolution, refuted the claim that these changes are about individual board members or district performance.
“We are talking about an issue of governance, and whether we want this [system] to exist decades from today, with new people in these seats,” he said. “We really need to look at it longer-term.”
But Commissioner Miska Clay Bibbs, who leads the county education committee, said Wednesday that she doesn’t think aligning election cycles will increase turnout. She cited current voter data that, she said, “shows that as you go down the ballot, based upon what the seat is, less people vote.”
Commissioner Erika Sugarmon, who sponsored the new resolution, said the amended measure, which pushes back changes for four years, would make a lawsuit less likely. But a representative for the county attorney’s office said that isn’t guaranteed.
Four of the five school board members who originally faced shortened terms voted to fire Feagins after just 10 months on the job. Towanna Murphy, one of those members, called the measure a “form of retaliation.” She said delaying the timeline doesn’t change that.
“None of this was happening until that incident with Dr. Feagins, and then they decided to take these measures because they were angry at us,” she told Chalkbeat Wednesday.
In January, the county commission issued a no-confidence vote for the school board members who voted to fire Feagins. Some Republican state lawmakers subsequently advocated for a state-appointed board to control the Memphis-Shelby County district.
Commissioner Henri E. Brooks, one of three who voted against the revised resolution, said the state law allowing for election-cycle changes has “discriminatory intent,” since it applies only to county boards of education and not to the six suburban districts within Shelby County.
“If we’re going to do it to the Memphis-Shelby County Schools, then the others should be susceptible,” she said.
Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.
