Ten years ago, around December 2010, the Memphis City Schools board voted to surrender its charter and remove its ability to run the school system forcing Shelby county to accept the responsibility for city and county schools. Two years later, around November 2012, the Memphis City Council approved the Memphis City Schools BOE decision to surrender its’ charter, thereby dissolving the school board and eliminating the board’s power to run the Memphis City Schools system. The Shelby County Schools (SCS) Board of Education (BOE) held a public hearing at GES the evening of February 3, 2014, to propose the merger of Graves Elementary, which sits at the border of ZIP Code 38116, into Ford Road Elementary and Levi Elementary Schools, both of which are in the adjacent 38109 ZIP Code area. At the time, Dorsey Hopson was the Superintendent of SCS, Kevin Woods was Chair, Chris Caldwell was Vice Chair and board members included district representative Shante Avant, Teresa Jones, Billy Orgel, David Pickler, and David Reaves. It had seemingly already been decided to close Graves Elementary School deeming it was suffering from the following two conditions: 1. A decline in student enrollment or underutilized; and 2. Declining academic achievement or not performing academically. Then GES Principal, Debra D. Martin, presented a proposal to discuss strategies to keep Graves Elementary School open. The school ended with the 2013-14 school year, never to serve neighborhood children as it had gracefully done so for the past 60+ years. The community started it’s own proposal to save the facility in 2014 focusing on repurposing the building into a self-sustaining, multi-functional, “Person-Centered,” planned resource and community center pilot that would add value to the area surrounding it based on current and future needs of the community. The proposal showed the steps that could be taken to duplicate the process of re-purposing buildings all over Memphis and Shelby County. The School Board rejected the plan without even hearing it. Fast-forward to 2019. A discussion of the SCS BOE Facility Committee that included the disposal of GES was held in July 2019. The following November a meeting convened for the purpose of selling the property that the district had declared surplus and no longer needed now or in the future. Like I said earlier, the closing and now selling of Graves Elementary School seemed predetermined. A board briefing document of the meeting indicating that an offer to purchase the property had been made. The document noted the following, “It is recommended that the Shelby County Board of Education should approve the sale of the former Graves Elementary School at 3398 Graves, 38116, to Made in Memphis, LLC c/o Elvis Presley Enterprises for $200,000.00.” The board briefing document went on to state “Made In Memphis wishes to create a light manufacturing facility for apparel, jewelry, home de cor and collectibles. They plan to train students in manufacturing and provide jobs.” I immediately made contact with Graceland CEO Jack Soden who I had spoken to many times before. Rather than call, I reached out to him through his social media LinkedIn platform. On November 10, 2019, I requested Soden to “please provide some sound advice on how the MRNDA (McCorkle Road Neighborhood Development Association) should proceed to gain information regarding the pending proposal concerning the former site of Graves ES.” I got no reply. Recognizing such, I requested information again on December 6, 2019, congratulating the organization on its purchase and again mentioning that “my neighbors and I were ready to sit down with Made In Memphis to learn all about the light manufacturing facility and training proposal.” I asked when we could expect such a meeting to take place and who would be invited to attend. This time I received a response. It said, “I am sure that when Joel Weinshanker has completed the purchase and developed plans he will look forward to working with the neighborhood.” Well, the neighborhood did not wish to have a light manufacturing facility plopped in the middle of it and we wanted to speak in advance of any plans to do so were made. Again, the decision to do what was being proposed had already seemingly been made. I called in January and then waited a month and asked again so that I could report back to the community on what was taking place during our regular meetings. I was told that Mr. Weinshanker was a “particular kind of guy on the phone in January to which I think I replied that I was a particular kind of girl..., and on February 6, 2020, I inquired in writing as follows, “...has there been any notable developments on this venture as of today…?” I also mentioned that the association was anxiously awaiting, but had not heard anything about a meeting from Weinshanker. Again I got a response that said, “…Once again, I believe that when and if the purchase is completed Joel Weinshanker will look forward to working with the neighborhood.” Although I wanted to provide additional information to the community during our upcoming annual 19
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