Construction on a STEM lab at Whitehaven High School has been given the greenlight, after the Memphis-Shelby County Schools Board voted to approve $2.3 million to complete funding for the long-delayed project during a Tuesday, Aug. 20 special-called meeting.
Board members approved the resolution 8-0. District 1 representative Michelle McKissick was not present for the vote.
The resolution provides $1.3 million in funding previously approved by the board. It also adds $1,041,243 to cover the costs of a state-mandated storm shelter. The $9 million project is expected to take up to 13 months to complete.
“I am thrilled that the Board voted unanimously to approve this significant investment for the Whitehaven High School STEM building. We hate that this investment and construction was derailed, but we are always in support of giving our students and educators the resources they need to succeed,” said Althea Greene, Board Chair, Memphis-Shelby County Schools Board of Education.
Whitehaven community members held a groundbreaking ceremony in April.
In addition to a STEMnasium, the planned facility would feature 12 classrooms for instructors to aid students in A.P. and Dual Enrollment classes in biology, chemistry, calculus and college algebra. Computer science and coding classes will also be offered.
First proposed in 2019, the project was delayed by the COVID pandemic. It stalled again in 2021, when the changes in state building codes that went into effect.
However, pressure to access the funding grew after new MSCS Superintendent Marie Feagins balked at a funding promise from former interim superintendent Toni Williams.
“As it relates to the storm shelter, I do not show where the board approved additional funding beyond the $1,3 million. The team did not have knowledge of, or possession of board-approved documents reflecting funding for the storm shelter,” Feagins said in an email.
The matter gained momentum during an Aug. 6 Shelby County Commission Budget Committee meeting. Member Edmund Ford Jr., introduced a resolution to secure the funding – while extending an opportunity to the school board to secure the funding itself.
Although the resolution was pulled after members were informed the funding is required to come from the MSCS’s budget, chair Miska Clay-Bibbs urged the school board to override the superintendent’s refusal.
“We can’t move the dollars. We need for Memphis and Shelby County Schools to sign the check,” said Clay-Bibbs. “We said ‘yes’ to it. We put it forward. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be there.”
The bulk of the funding for the public-private partnership – around $7 million – has been raised through donors.
The money for the partnership is planned to be administered by local nonprofit SchoolSeed. Montgomery Martin Contractors have been hired for the build-out.
