The Shelby County Schools (SCS) Board of Education is suing the State of Tennessee.
SCS accuses the state of “failing to equitably and adequately fund public school education,” according to a media advisory.
SCS alleges that at least $100 million dollars — and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars — have not been allotted to Shelby County Schools.
The state is supposed to supply funding through the Basic Education Plan (BEP), but SCS says that the state has never fully funded BEP.
SCS held a press conference at Riverview Middle School Monday, where Superintendent Dorsey E. Hopson II, board chair Teresa Jones, and board member Chris Calloway addressed the state’s lack of funding and the school system’s impending lawsuit.
“We’re not even sure that if they fully funded it, it would be adequate for what our students need,” Calloway said.
Shortly after the press conference, SCS issued a press release drawing attention to the county’s poverty and why state funding is crucial.
It stated, “With an extremely diverse student body with a significantly high percentage of economically disadvantaged students and steadily increasing population of non-English-speaking families, SCS needs the appropriate amount of resources to ensure that all of its students have a fair opportunity to succeed.”
In the press release, Jones said, “While we appreciate and want to continue benefitting from the support of teachers, parents and community leaders who have played a significant role in donating books, supplies and time, our children deserve, and the Tennessee Constitution mandates that the state adequately fund public education.’”
Hopson addressed the school board’s need for more funding by explaining why he chose Riverview as the site for the press conference.
“As we thought about the proper setting for this conference,” he said, “Riverview just stood out in my mind. As you drove up to the school, I’m sure you saw a lot of trappings of poverty, and in fact, this ZIP code is one of the poorest ZIP codes in the country.”
He added, “What we know unequivocally is that when you have some of the suffocating poverty that we have, in order to get to some of the results we’re trying to get to, it takes resources.”
Hopson noted that the school board has had to cut $300 million dollars since 2011, and in so doing had to cut language programs, art programs and enrichment programs.
SCS has also had to lay off teachers.
In order to recover the money the school board believes it has been shortchanged, it will have to pay hefty attorney fees. The legal process could take two years to settle. But even so, the board believes the lawsuit will be worth it.
“The cost of not doing it, I think, far outweighs the cost of the dollars we’ll spend in attorney’s fees,” Jones said.
The school board’s battle cry seems to be that since the county suffers such poverty, it needs extra help from other sources, such as the state. And when those sources fail, it’s not only the school system that fails, but the students in the system as well.
“There’s so many things our students have to deal with that people don’t have a clue of,” Hopson said.
Calloway summed up Hopson’s and SCS’s concerns with the state’s lack of funding by commenting, “The fewer resources, there are fewer opportunities for the students that need them the most.”
Written by Mac Trammell, special to the Express.
