With the new Shelby County Schools cabinet’s salaries being released last week Thursday, we thought it might be interesting to take a closer look at who is running our schools. I couldn’t find any good information on CFO Pamela Anstey or Chief of Planning and Accountability William White (please email me if you have any). The following are brief profiles of the people we’ve put in charge:
Sup. Dorsey Hopson – Hopson’s parents are both school administrators (father a retired MCS assistant principal and mother an about to retire MCS principal). Hopson graduated from Whitehaven High School, University of Memphis and Georgia State. He has worked as the general counsel for Atlanta public schools and as a private consultant for Clayton County Schools in Georgia and then served as that district’s first in-house general counsel. In his own words “I was there for seven or eight months and it started going downhill and I found out about an opening [in Memphis].” 2008 he accepted the job as general councel for MCS. In that role he was instrumental in the court battle to force the city of Memphis to pay the $57 million it owes the city.
Chief of internal audit Melvin Burgess – Commissioner Burgess currently serves as the representative of the second district for Shelby County Board of Commissioners. According to his bio, Commissioner Burgess has served as the director of internal audit for MCS with 26 years experience in accounting. He is the president of the midtown/downtown democratic club and Deacon at the Metropolitan Baptist Church. He’s previously served on the Development Board of Memphis and Shelby County and the Board of directors for the Tennessee Association of Business officials. He received his masters from Grambling state university. In his political role, he’s acted as a peace maker between different factions of the Shelby County Commission.
Chief of student services Herchel Burton – Couldn’t find much information on Mr. Burton. He was the spokesperson for the “Our Children. Our Success” campaign. This campaign was designed to make the merger easier for parents and students in Shelby County.
Chief of business operations Hitesh Haria – CBO Haria came to Memphis from the St. Paul public schools system. His position was created to manage the 15% of the budget spent on facilities, contracts, maintenance, food services and info technology systems. Haria grew up in South Africa and previously also served as the deputy business operations officer in the District of Columbia Public Schools. There was some question as to the wisdom of his hiring for financial reasons back in 2010.
Chief of talent management Laura Link – Link comes over from Supt. Aitken’s staff, where she served as the director of professional development before being promoted to assistant superintendent for teaching, learning and professional development. Link worked to implement SCS’s teacher evaluation model and in general worked to implement First to the Top’s reforms in the district.
Chief academic officer Roderick Richmond – Richmond was appointed to the position of Deputy Superintendent over academic operations by former Supt. Cash immediately prior to his leaving town in February of this year. Richmond was thought to have been performing the duties of Irving Hamer after his dismissal from the district. He had been rumored as a possible contender for the superintendents job after Cash left. He is a graduate of Trezevant High School and worked in the district as a teacher and a principal at Ross Elementary and Ridgeway Middle. He first joined the central office under former Supt. Carol Johnson to turn around failing schools. There had been a motion in January to make Richmond the interim superintendent in January proposed by Martavius Jones, but that motion failed and Hopson was named to the post.
Deputy Supt. David Stephens – Stephens will work with suburban leaders and parents on the merger transition. He is the former principal of Bolton High. Stephens followed this up by becoming an administrator in Shelby County Schools and assistant superintendent in the Shelby County Schools District. Notably, he is the son of O.Z. Stephens, the co-author of the Plan Z bussing plan in the 1970s.
Chief information officer Rich Valerga – Valerga became the Chief Operating and Technology officer in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. He then moved to St. Paul, MN to become the director of information technology for the public school system. There he was named one of the top 50 innovators in education by the Center for Digital Education and Converge Magazine. He moved to MCS 2.5 years ago. During his tenure, MCS was recognized by the state of Tennessee for performance excellence for the first time ever.
Innovation Chief Brad Leon – Brad Leon joins the superintendent’s cabinet after serving four years as the executive director of Teach for America, TN. previously Brad ran recruitment efforts at Teach for America at the University of Chicago, Notre Dame and Iowa. Prior that hat he taught eighth grade language arts and social studies in New Orleans where he was his school’s teacher of the year in 2002. He served as the executive director in Memphis from 2007-2009. He graduated from Occidental college in 2000. Here’s an interview with Mr. Leon from 2009 in the Memphis Flyer if you want to learn more.
By Jon Alfuth
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