Attorney Bruce S. Kramer outlines legal options to supporters of Carver High School, which was shuttered this summer by Shelby County's school board.
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
In a Baptist church a short walk from Carver High School, attorneys shared their gameplan Tuesday evening for a potential lawsuit against Shelby County's school bord for voting to close the 59-year-old south Memphis school.
The first step will be to set up negotiations with the school board, according to attorney Patrick Morris. If those conversations don’t yield results, attorneys will explore legal action.
Morris and Bruce S. Kramer are attorneys from Apperson Crump, Memphis’ oldest law firm. They spoke to about 30 Carver supporters during a neighborhood meeting at Bloomfield Baptist Church organized by Ralph White, a Carver graduate and local pastor leading the grassroots charge against the board’s June 9 decision.
Morris warned the group to expect a “long, drawn-out fight.”
“We’re just getting our toes in the water,” Kramer added. “We don’t know all the facts and figures yet, but I’ve seen school closings disproportionately affect economically disadvantaged black kids in Memphis. That’s what we’re looking into.”
Carver served a student population that was all black and more than 90 percent economically disadvantaged, according to the most recent state data.
District administrators cited under-enrollment and chronic low academic performance as the reasons for closing the school. During the most recent school year, Carver had 198 students and almost 1,000 empty seats.
White and other members of the Carver community are crowdsourcing to fund legal fees. Kramer and Morris said they will work for half of their normal hourly rate.
“We’re not here to get rich,” Kramer said. “We believe what’s happening to these schools is wrong, and we won’t let the attorney fees issue get in the way of what’s right.”
They bring significant experience to the table.
Kramer, who joined the Memphis firm in 2012, has been a Tennessee lawyer since 1969. He was named the Frank Carrington Champion of Civil Justice Award in 2002 and formerly served as director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Tennessee.
White said there are no plans to seek an injunction against the board’s decision to close Carver, meaning there’s no chance of reversing the board’s decision for the upcoming school year. The goal of litigation, he said, would be to reopen the school.
One supporter asked how this case would differ from a lawsuit filed against the district by parents and teachers at South Side, a middle school shuttered last year by Shelby County Schools. That suit, which was later dismissed, argued that school closures violate students’ rights to a quality education.
The lawyers didn’t have an answer. “I’ll look into that,” Morris said.
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Carver High School remains closed, but its building would avoid sitting empty this fall under a proposal to let two alternative programs use the space in South Memphis.
Superintendent Dorsey Hopson presented the recommendation Tuesday evening to the board of Shelby County Schools.
Under the proposal, about 300 students from MLK Transition Academy and Southwest Prep Academy would form a new school called MLK College and Career Academy.
Currently, the alternative schools are located in separate buildings in South Memphis and near downtown. They are scheduled to move into a South Memphis building, but Hopson said that “Carver is a much better building and facility.”
Hopson’s recommendation comes in advance of the district’s long-awaited footprint study, set to come out in September as part of the district’s resizing efforts.
“We’re going to have serious conversations about our footprint starting in September about what the community wants to see,” Hopson said. “Until we have that discussion, I don’t want Carver sitting up there vacant.”
Hopson has said that the district needs to shed as many as two dozen schools — and 27,000 seats — over the next four years.
Carver High, originally built for more than a thousand students, was shuttered this year following a school board vote in early June. Its capacity was more than triple its student population, and the building was listed with $3.5 million in deferred maintenance needs.
No board members pushed back on Hopson’s presentation. Miska Clay-Bibbs said it could be a great opportunity to better serve students and make use of the facility while the district figures out next steps for the building. Shante Avant said it would be helpful to inform Carver stakeholders about how the building will be used.
Many alumni and community members opposed closing Carver High this year, and some are exploring legal action against the board to force the district to reopen the neighborhood school.
Though the building would only be used for about 300 students — about a hundred more than attended Carver in its final year — Hopson said the programs likely would use a significant portion of the facility.
The teacher-to-student ratio for alternative schools is less than for traditional schools, so more classroom space would be used. Assistant Superintendent Joris Ray said using Carver would allow the students to have a “real high school experience.”
“The buildings these kids were at didn’t have so much as a gym,” Ray said. “This will definitely boost morale.”
Thursday, July 21, 2016
There could be new life for the building that housed Carver High School in South Memphis.
The district may combine two programs and move them into the building. They are alternative schools for students who might have gotten into trouble.
"I went to Carver, graduated from Carver, played football at Carver," said Ben Anderson, who lives near the school building.
He is not sure about the district possibly re-purposing the building for something that is not Carver High School.
The School Board voted to close the school earlier this summer, citing low enrollment and performance issues.
"It's not going to be the same," he said.
Shelby County Schools said Superintendent Dorsey Hopson suggested moving two alternative programs into the building.
Southwest Prep Academy and MLK Transition Academy would combine under the new MLK College and Career Academy.
The district said the Carver building is better suited for high school students than the other south Memphis buildings they are currently in.
"I do think that it's a good idea, because the two schools that we are merging, the buildings are old and the deferred maintenance is high, but I also believe that the superintendent, along with the board members, we do need to have a conversation with the community before we make any decision," said SCS Board Member Stephanie Love.
The district agreed.
While the change could happen as soon as this upcoming school year, there will likely be community input, before sending alternative programs into the neighborhood.
A district spokesperson said this is an item that does not technically require the Shelby County School Board's approval.
School board member Shante Avant answers questions about shuttered Carver High School from community members in Memphis with Ralph White.
Thursday, July 25, 2016
While the recently closed Carver High School will have students again this fall by housing two existing alternative programs, the building will keep its name — sort of.
The reconfigured school will be known as George Washington Carver College and Career Academy, according to Shante Avant, a member of the Shelby County Schools Board of Education.
Avant offered the update to about 35 Carver High alumni and supporters Monday evening at Bloomfield Baptist Church.
The newest name serves an olive branch to the South Memphis neighborhood where Carver High was an anchor for 59 years before the school board decided in June to close it. District administrators said the school was significantly under-enrolled, with about 1,000 empty seats, and a long list of maintenance needs.
Last week, when Superintendent Dorsey Hopson announced that the district would repurpose the building by moving in two alternative schools for 300 students, the reconfigured school was to be called MLK College and Career Academy.
But Avant said district leaders recognize Carver’s history and legacy in the community. They plan to keep the high school’s current outside signage and retain part of its name in the school’s new moniker.
“We don’t want this community obliterated,” Avant said. “Closing the building and boarding it up would do just that. … And we also recognize that the name of the school is an important piece to this community.”
Though keeping George Washington Carver in the name is helpful, it’s not enough, said Edward Vaughn, president of the Carver alumni association and pastor at New Revelation M.B. Church.
“It doesn’t thrill me that this new program may be in the building indefinitely,” Vaughn said. “Moving 200 kids out of the school, then bringing in 300 kids, I just don’t understand the rationale. We understand the needs of the district, but we keep asking, ‘why our school? Why always our schools?'”
Many alumni and community members opposed closing Carver High this year, and some have been exploring legal action against the school board to force the district to reopen the neighborhood school.
Avant said the alternative programs will occupy the building for at least a year, but it’s not a long-term solution, as Carver was built to house 1,200 students.
“The meetings today are the start of a dialogue with the community about their interests for future use of the school,” Avant said. “My intent is to work closely with the community as we think of best uses for the school.”
The meeting also was attended by James Suggs, director of the new school, and Valerie Matthews, director of alternative schools for the district.