MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Disheartening. That’s the word Superintendent Dorsey Hopson used to describe the latest state test scores at a Shelby County School Board meeting Tuesday evening.
While the official results are being embargoed until a later date, Hopson confirmed he has seen some of the TN Ready results for the district.
He added there is a lot of work to be done.
It’s unclear when those results will be released to the public.
During Tuesday’s meeting the board also approved the first phase of a proposal to consolidate schools.
Just last month Hopson presented his plan that called for seven schools to eventually close. Three new schools would also be built.
“What we’re doing is we’re combining some underperforming schools also into a better performing school,” said Shelby County School Board Chairman Chris Caldwell.
Caldwell said the buildings are also old, forcing the district to continually shell out money.
“Rather than continuing to put money into building that are in need of repair, we’re taking some offline and coming up with a new building,” he explained.
One school set for demolition is Knight Road Elementary. Those students would go a few miles away to Goodlett.
While there’s several slated buildings set to come down there’s also plans for others to pop up. One example is at Goodlett where there’s plans to have a new state of the art campus
There’s also plans to build a new campus at Alcy Elementary and rebuild the Woodstock facility reconfiguring it to K-12.
Another school set to eventually go is Dunbar Elementary in Orange Mound. It would be consolidated into Bethel Grove Elementary and Cherokee Elementary.
Caldwell said students won’t be going far.
“All these buildings are in close proximity so it’s not like we’re moving them to another part of the city,” he explained.
With shrinking enrollment the district said consolidation is a solution to save money.