“Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools. The three candidates running to represent District 1 on the Memphis school board have deep ties to the school system as teachers and key leaders. All will be on the May 5 primary ballot as Democrats, including incumbent Michelle McKissack, who’s been on the board since 2018. Dolores Missy Rivers, former head of a local teachers union, and Hailey Marie Thomas, an early career educator, are running as challengers. Early voting begins on April 15. This is the first political primary election for the Memphis-Shelby County school board and the last chance for members elected in 2018 to serve again under new term limits . The 2026 race also comes as Republican lawmakers in Nashville push forward a state takeover of MSCS that would strip the board of some key responsibilities. District 1 spans downtown Memphis and Cooper Young , covering 24 schools with more than 10,500 students. At most of the schools, Hispanic students and English learners are less than 5% of the student body. And while the district’s literacy and math proficiency rates slightly exceed MSCS averages , there’s a wide range of school performance. Only 7% of A.B. Hill Elementary students achieved proficiency on last year’s Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP, and less than 5% did the same for math. But at Idlewild Elementary, those proficiency rates were 71% and 62% respectively. Use our interactive map to see if you’ll be voting in this district based on your home address. And read full responses from District 1 candidates to a Chalkbeat survey here: Michelle McKissack McKissack has served on the Memphis school board representing District 1 since 2018. She was one of three members who voted against the controversial firing of former Superintendent Marie Feagins in January 2025. McKissack is a graduate of White Station High School, as are her three sons. Her daughter is a ninth grade student there. “And so I’ve just got all of this positive association with our public school system,” she told Chalkbeat. “I did debate whether I would continue for one more term. But I felt there was more work to do … I wasn’t ready to pass the torch.” McKissack started her advocacy in 2003 as a parent at Downtown Elementary, where she wrote the bylaws for the school’s Parent-Teacher Organization. She currently serves as the vice president of the Tennessee School Board Association . “I was in the trenches as a regular person, as a parent, just wanting to give back,” she said. “But then I didn’t stop there. I didn’t stop with our local school board. I wanted to see how things were happening across the state of Tennessee.” Most important MSCS issue to address: Literacy “My biggest concern is continuing to stay student-focused and improving literacy among our students, especially ensuring that students are reading on grade level by the end of third grade.” Dolores Missy Rivers Rivers started her work in MSCS as a teacher on a provisional license at Doubletree Elementary School. She stayed in the district as an educator for 26 years, spending most of those years at Ross Elementary, and retired in 2023. Rivers then served a one-year term that ended in February as the interim director of the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association, one of two teachers groups in the district. “People understand my work and they know my work in the community,” she said. “Teachers know what I have done. I didn’t just wake up and just say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna run for school board.’ I’ve always done this work.” Rivers is an advocate for increasing teacher pay and offering tuition support, especially to Memphis students, to become educators. She thinks MSCS should expand its Innovation Zone approach, which targets low-performing schools by placing strong principals in struggling schools and providing more practical teacher training. Most important MSCS issue to address: Teacher recruitment and retention “When teachers are paid fairly and feel respected for their profession, districts are better able to attract strong candidates and retain experienced educators who know how to help students succeed. However, pay is only part of the solution. We must also improve working conditions by protecting instructional time, reducing unnecessary testing and paperwork, and ensuring teachers have the resources and support they need in their classrooms.” Hailey Marie Thomas Thomas is an early career educator who started working at Larose Elementary, a District 1 school, in 2021. She’s now a literacy instructor at MSCS charter school Beacon College Preparatory. Thomas says she has a realtime perspective into what teachers and students need to succeed, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. “I’m seeing the issues that are impacting people daily,” she said. “All of the issues that educators have been complaining about for years have stayed the same, but with this group of children, all of those issues have been exacerbated.” Thomas says teachers need better pay and more support in handling classroom discipline. She’s also against school closures and consolidations because class sizes are too big and unmanageable already. Most important MSCS issue to address: Low enrollment “A lot of our money from the public schools are being transferred to the charter schools when our numbers go down. And a lot of parents want to go to charter schools. They want to go to private schools, because they’re not satisfied with the results that MSCS is providing. Once we do things to improve our numbers, we get access to more funding.” Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.
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