SCS, MCS superintendents speaking regularly - Action News 5 - Memphis, Tennessee

By Kontji Anthony - bio | email | Facebook

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) - If Memphis voters surrender the Memphis City Schools charter, current Shelby County Schools Superintendent John Aitken is the man who would run both school systems until a new countywide school board is formed.

Aitken spent Wednesday morning at a Shelby County Commission meeting, taking notes.  The Commission is the body that will draw the school board boundaries, appoint interim school board members, and fund the countywide school system.

"It's just all of us trying to grasp what may or may not happen," he said.

Aitken said he and Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash speak regularly about the outcome of the proposed charter surrender.  They have been comparing and contrasting the two school systems.

"Their method of governance, their organizational structure, their departments, their employees and vice versa," Aitken said. "We're just trying to gather as much information as we can between the two systems, and, as they said, be prepared for what may or may not happen."

And their staffs are working together.

"Even though there is a not a transition plan in the way it was surrendered, there is some transition planning that is going on between the staffs as far as talks and communications and just simply gathering information," Aitken said.

He also commented on rumblings of a deal cut between the school systems that would stop the charter surrender vote:

"I think it's a little premature to say that...right now," he said. "There have been talks.  Those have been going on since the December 22nd vote, quite honestly."

Aitken said he will be listening closely for what comes out of Thursday's Memphis City Schools work session, which he believes will set the tone for what comes next.

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