District Overview (map): District 3’s map is shown below and covers parts of Raleigh and Frayser. The candidates for district three are Theodore (Teddy) King Jr., Anthony Lockhart and Stephanie Love. Only Mr. King submitted his policy positions for publication.
District is pink and highlighted in yellow for emphasis.
Theodore King Jr. Overview:
District in which you are running and years lived in the district:
| District 3 resident for 27 years |
Please list any prior experience in elected office:
| None |
Please list any public service accomplishments, especially related to education:
| I wrote the grant for and manage the ASD’s AmeriCorps VISTA project in District 3. The project is designed to create sustainable and collaborative relationships between parents, community and faith-based organizations, businesses, community members and schools to ensure the success of our students in career and life. The project is part of the White House’s Together for Tomorrow initiative and designated a demonstration site. |
What is your campaign website and do you have any social media pages you wish to publicize (twitter, facebook, etc.)? If so, please list below
| Facebook – Theodore King |
Policy Positions
1. Reason for running: Tell our readers why you are running for school board.
| A child that spends entire K-12 educational experience in District 3 has a 100% chance of attending a low performing school. Our children, families and community deserves better. |
2. Your Vision: Shelby County Education has undergone dramatic changes in the past three years. Describe your vision for the future of our school district going forward and the role you believe educators and community members should play in achieving this vision.
| My vision is for every school to provide access to an effective education for all our students. Education is everyone’s responsibility. Students, parents, community members and educators must work together to ensure that education is always our top priority. |
3. Evaluations Pt.1: Rate the current system of teacher and principal evaluations here in Shelby County, and describe what if any changes would you make to this system. Please explain why you would or would not change the existing system.
| I would rate it average for fairness. I think we should work with teacher to ensure that it is fair and equitable and that they agree upon the weight of each category. |
4. Evaluations Pt.2: Explain whether you believe that the district should use teacher and principal evaluation scores in compensation, hiring and firing decisions. If you believe that they should not, describe how the system should best be utilized to improve education overall in Shelby County.
| I believe that scores should not be used in these decisions. I believe the scores should be used to determine the appropriate professional development and supports needed for these individuals to be successful in meeting the academic needs of their students. |
5. School Closures: School closures have become a hot button issue in our community. Explain under what conditions and for what reasons, if any, schools should be closed in our district and any alternatives you would pursue other than school closings if you do not believe they represent good policy.
| I would consider closing a school that is severely under-utilized and not financially feasible to continue to operate. |
6. Teacher Recruitment: Shelby County brings in hundreds of new teachers every year from alternative certification programs (Memphis Teaching Fellows, TFA, and Memphis Teacher Residency). Explain whether or not you believe we should continue partnering with these programs for the purpose of teacher recruitment.
| I believe that teaching is a calling and each of these programs have produced some good teachers. I would support partnering with these organizations however I believe that SCS needs to create its own teachers pipeline. |
7. School Choice: Describe your thoughts on the current state of school choice in Shelby County (charter schools, vouchers, the ASD). To what extent should school choice play a role in Shelby County education and how would you take action as a school board member to support on your position?
| I don’t think that Shelby County has true school choice. The majority of our parents are choosing between a low performing and a higher performing school.That is not choice. Once all schools are providing an effective education then parents will have school choice. |
8. Teacher Compensation: The State just passed regulations giving districts more freedom in teacher compensation structures this past fall. Describe your knowledge of the existing teacher compensation system in Shelby County and identify any changes, if any, that you believe would improve it.
| Teachers hire prior to August 1, 2013 are compensated by the degree that they hold and the step they are on. Teachers hire afterward are not compensated for advance degrees and only receive the step raises. I believe that we must ensure that the system is fair and that under no circumstances that teachers don’t receive their annual increases. |
9. Personal Policy Priorities: What education policy issue is most important to you personally and how will you work to advance this issue as a school board member? Please use this section to highlight any policies that you believe were left out in any prior questions.
| The no fail policy that we use to allow students to be promoted without meeting the requirements. Instead we need identify their academic challenges and provide the necessary resources and supports to increase their academic success. |
10. Personal Policy Priorities: Describe your personal leadership style. How will this allow you to be a productive school board member in addressing the issues you highlighted in questions 8 and 9?
| I lead with humility. Everybody is important and has something to contribute. I like to have facts and data to help validate my position. |
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Is it not a conflict of interest when an employee of one school district sits on the school board of another, competing school district. This is problematic as the ASD slowly absorbs SCS schools, particularly in the district in which Mr. King is running. Wouldn’t it make more sense for Mr. King to advocate for an approachable and accountable school board for the ASD?
Interesting idea, but unfortunately that’s not the reality right now. If one wants to impact Shelby County education through elected office school board is the only opportunity. Alternately, SCS could change its policy to allow employees to run for school board. Currently anyone who works for shelby county schools cannot run for school board which, while I understand the reasons, severely reduces the pool of people with direct experience in education (i.e. teachers) that we can get on the school board. With that in mind, if my choice was between someone with no education experience and someone who worked in education in a charter school or a district like the ASD and all else being equal, I’d rather have the person working in education (not saying this is true or not true in the case of Mr. King) as they will have a better understanding of the issues facing teachers, schools and the district at large.
You point out a major problem with the ASD. We have two competing districts yet if we want to effect education change we can only run for office in one of these school districts. It seems to me the reality is a sad one, and needs to be rectified.
Good information about the SCS school board regulations, I thought employees of SCS couldn’t run for school board but couldn’t find the source. If you have it, share it. Generally, I would agree with you that I would trust an educator to run for office.
However, it doesn’t really address the issue of a conflict of interest. Whether or not Mr. King can legally run for the office, and I’m not saying he can because I haven’t seen the regulations, doesn’t dismiss the fact that he has a professionally vested interest in the Frayser neighborhood. To break it down, he wants to represent the Frayser neighborhood with SCS, yet works for the ASD. The ASD is taking over schools from SCS, the majority of which are in Frayser. The ASD has literally something to gain with one of their employees representing the Frayser neighborhood with the SCS school board. This is textbook conflict of interest.
I understand if you can’t really comment on what King should or should not do, but being an elected official of one school district and administrator of another, competing district just seems like a situation into which a reasonable person just wouldn’t put themselves.
Thanks as always for the thoughts Bert. I’m reserving judgment on my end because in running this series, I committed to not endorsing any specific candidate over another either directly or tacitly. I do think that generally the concern that you bring up is an important one that does need to be considered given that Memphis is moving towards a systems of schools approach as opposed to the traditional approach. I think there’s a blog post in this somewhere…
Actually we have several districts due to the de-merger. But only two urban districts, one of which lacks an elected school board. The suburban districts also all have an elected school board.
here are is the qualifications document I referenced: http://shelbycountytn.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/2375 Interesting to note that it is a state law that teachers cannot continue to teach and hold a school board position, not a county law. Also of note, this document seems to indicate that if we ever went to any at-large seats (of which I’ve heard rumblings) we could see people from the suburban districts running for those seats.
Thanks for this.
I understand, in theory, why an SCS teacher or administrator should not hold a school board seat. “The tail wagging the dog” and all such wisdom.
I am interested in this little snippet: “If there is no conflict of interest, appearance of a conflict of interest, or impairment of work performance for Shelby County, secondary employment may be permissible if a written request describing the work and hours of work has been approved in writing by the appointing authority.”
While mostly clarifying time and responsibility, I would be interested in reading what Mr. King has to say on how this is not a conflict of interest, or does not appear to be a conflict of interest.
There are a couple community led forums coming up in next week, maybe you can ask him that question yourself!
Bert is 100% correct. King has a glaring conflict of interest. As more SCS schools fail, the ASD gets richer. Therefore, the collapse of SCS is a pot of gold for Teddy King. We can’t elect this man.