MSCS board narrows field of superintendent finalists to three. Here's who's left.

When the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board first attempted to find a replacement for former superintendent Joris Ray earlier this year, the search process was turbulent, with members of the public complaining that the search lacked transparency and community involvement.

Ever since the board reignited the search in August, however, the process has gone much more smoothly. On Dec. 15, board members publicly interviewed the five finalists for the district’s superintendent position, asking each the same six questions and allowing them to make closing remarks. They scored the candidates using a rubric, which was also given to community members in attendance.

Then, on Tuesday, the board members were presented with the average scores they gave to the candidates, as well as the average scores of the community; and they used these results to whittle the number of finalists down from five to three. Making the decision wasn't hard - because both the board and the community gave top scores to the same three candidates.

Here are the remaining three finalists for the superintendent position:

Yolonda Brown

Chief Academic Officer, Atlanta Public Schools

Brown has spent her entire 30-year career with Atlanta Public Schools, which has around 50,000 students. About 71.9% of them are Black, 15.9% are white, and 7.8% are Hispanic. According to her resume, which has been posted online by MSCS, Brown started as a middle school teacher in 1993 and then became a model teacher leader and facilitator in 1999. In 2005, she was made a principal, and in 2016, she was named associate superintendent of schools. She became chief academic officer in 2020; and in the role, she oversaw the district’s three-year COVID-19 academic recovery plan, which had three major components: a robust assessment system, an additional thirty minutes to the elementary school day, and full days during the summer focused on academic recovery, support, and enrichment.

During her tenure as chief academic officer, third through fifth graders have seen the largest gains in English Language Arts and Math since 2015, while the four-year graduation rate has reached 86.6%, surpassing the state of Georgia’s average for the first time.

Cheryl Proctor, Ph.D.

Deputy superintendent of instruction and school communities, Portland Public Schools

Currently, Cheryl Proctor is a deputy superintendent with Portland Public Schools, a district with over 49,000 students and a budget of about $2.3 billion, according to her resume. But this isn’t the first school system she’s worked for. In 1998, Proctor started as a special education teacher with Broward County Schools, a district in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area with over 250,000 students. In 2013, she became a school principal, and two years later, she left Florida to become the director of school improvement and regional data support with the school district of Philadelphia, which has over 203,000 students and operates a $4.1 billion budget. In 2016, Proctor was named executive director of School Improvement Planning and the Evidence-based Support Office; and in 2018, she was named an assistant superintendent and deputy chief of schools.

Proctor left Philadelphia in 2021 to join Portland Public Schools, starting as chief academic officer and stepping into her current position as deputy superintendent last year. Under Proctor's leadership, post-pandemic reading and math rates improved for third through eighth graders in 2022, with proficiency rates rising double digits over state averages.

Marie Feagins, Ed.D.

Chief of Leadership and High Schools, executive director of high school transformation, and special assistant to the superintendent; Detroit Public Schools Community District

While she currently works in Detroit, Feagins spent much of her career in Alabama. From 2006 to 2012 she was a teacher and head coach with Jefferson County Schools, and in 2013, she became a senior counselor and building testing coordinator with the district. In 2016, she was named an assistant principal and building safety coordinator with Huntsville City Schools, and in 2017, she joined Cleveland Metro Schools in Ohio, where she worked as an assistant principal and principal. In 2021, Feagins stepped into her current role with Detroit Public Schools Community District, which has about 51,000 students. Around 82% are Black, while another 14% are Hispanic, and 2.5% are white.

As Chief of Leadership and High Schools, she helped raise the graduation rate from 64.5% to 71.1% ― the first time it had risen in nearly a decade ― and grow enrollment in advanced placement courses by 19%.

The board gave the highest score to Feagins, the second highest to Brown, and the third highest to Proctor. The community gave its highest score to brown, followed by Proctor, and then Feagins.

What happens next

With the slate of candidates now narrowed down to three, the board is expected to break for the holidays, and then resume the selection process. The goal is for a superintendent to be announced in January or February and begin on or before July. But until the board makes a final decision, it plans to thoroughly consider each candidate.

"We just saw a preview of what these candidates shared," said board member Amber Huett-Garcia, during the meeting. "We're going to dive into their resumes, ask them what their vision is, what are the results? It's really our job to hold them accountable... You’ve seen the movie trailer, and we’re about to make three movies."

As they make those movies, the board members are also poised to continue involving the public in the search process. And on Tuesday, community members emphasized the importance of this.

"Thank you for your transparency; transparency remains a critical element. Thank you for last Friday, it was refreshing," said Charles Lampkin, an MSCS parent involved with the nonprofit Memphis LIFT. "You involved the community. Please, please, please, remain diligent and committed in this second round... Please, engage the community, the staff, these teachers, these educators, the people who are going to be doing the heavy lifting in these classrooms."

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis-Shelby County Schools superintendent search: 3 finalists named