A Chalkbeat Tennessee analysis of state data finds nearly 20 percent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools educators resigned in 2024, against about 12 percent statewide, with the heaviest churn in the district's lowest-rated schools. Superintendent Roderick Richmond says competitive pay could mean job cuts.
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District data reported to the board shows enrollment above 101,000, down from 103,280 last year, a roughly 2.2 percent drop in a funding formula that pays per student, while the takeover fight is still in federal court.
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Memphis-Shelby County Schools had 45 days to respond to the Comptroller's forensic audit, a clock that ran out August 22. As of August 29, neither the district nor the Comptroller's office will say whether a response exists. The office has issued four other news releases this month.
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State figures put per-pupil public school funding at $7,272 for 2026-27 and the Education Freedom Scholarship voucher at $7,530. In 29 districts the gap runs wider, and at one Memphis school system it reaches $663 per student.
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Tennessee publicized its 2025-26 TCAP results twice, state-level in June and district-level in July. The school-level data, the only version that names individual campuses, went up during the week of August 24 with no announcement, while the state is in federal court arguing it should run Memphis-Shelby County Schools on the strength of school performance.
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T.L. Harris took District 6 and Tanya Frey took District 8 in the first partisan school board election in the district's history. No Republicans filed for any seat. What the winners control depends on litigation neither of them is party to.
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Classes began Monday, August 3, 2026 with a federal judge's pause keeping the state-appointed oversight board from taking control of Tennessee's largest district, and with the litigation unresolved while students are in class.
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Auditors identified email exchanges among board members and the district's legal counsel that they concluded may have influenced district decisions, including superintendent searches and contract negotiations. The finding is a management finding, not a charge.
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The state-ordered forensic audit found more than $54 million in Memphis-Shelby County Schools spending that auditors identified as potential fraud, waste or abuse. More than $48 million of it traces to one 2022 custodial award to ServiceMaster Clean. The district awarded the company a new yearlong contract effective January 1, 2026.
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A federal judge suspended the state oversight board's authority on July 1, the day it was to take control. Four weeks later there is still no preliminary injunction hearing on the calendar. Classes begin August 3 with the governance question open.
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Superintendent Roderick Richmond told board members this week that improvements are coming to internal controls, procurement, human resources and cybersecurity. The district's own rules say the corrective action plan has to be far more specific than that.
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Together4Students launched in May, backs the state-appointed oversight board, and is gathering signatures to pressure the district into abandoning its case. Its founder says it has no funding and declines to name the organizations on its strategy team.
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Early voting is underway for the District 6 and District 8 seats on the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board. Because the state takeover of the district remains tied up in federal court, it is not yet clear how much authority the winners will hold when they take office September 1.
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On July 1, the day a state oversight board was to take control of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, a federal judge ordered everything paused. The district calls the takeover unconstitutional. The state has asked the judge to lift the freeze. The case will decide who runs the district as the school year begins.
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The Tennessee Comptroller's four-volume review flagged about $54.2 million in transactions the auditors called consistent with potential fraud, waste, or abuse, most of it in procurement, and made 133 recommendations. It is an accountability review, not a criminal case, and no one has been charged.
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Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the Shelby County Commission, and all nine elected board members filed a federal lawsuit on June 19 seeking to block the state-appointed oversight board from taking control of the district on July 1.
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Gov. Bill Lee just turned Memphis schools over to a nine-member state board of Republican appointees. That means Shelby County’s largest district is entering a new power structure - and families need to know who will be held accountable when decisions land.
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Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act is now a live fight for Memphis families, not a talking point. The question for Shelby County is simple: who gets paid first when the state redirects education money?
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MSCS has put a $1.7 billion budget on the table for 2026-27, and the new state-appointed board is walking into the hardest question in city schools: what gets cut, what gets protected, and who owns the fallout?
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Memphis-Shelby County Schools unveiled a roughly $1.7 billion 2026-27 budget as lawmakers moved to put the district under a state-appointed oversight board.
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