OPINION: Thanks to Pete Johnson for 5 years leading JMCSS Board

While last month’s Jackson-Madison County School Board meeting was a transitional one that saw the Board possibly take a new direction with Harvey Walden as the new chair, it’s worth taking a few inches of column space to thank former chair James “Pete” Johnson for his work as chair.

Fortunately for the Board that has nine members and seven of them have two years or less of experience serving on the Board, Johnson isn’t leaving the Board. But his nameplate will be moved off the center seat on the front of the Board’s dais in their meeting room where the chairman sits before their next Board meeting.

Since Janice Hampton lost her re-election bid and her 12 years of experience are no longer officially on the Board, Johnson is the elder statesman on the Board with all of six years of service under his belt in that capacity.

When he first came on, he was one of five new Board members elected. Two of those five didn’t make it for a full four-year term. One other lost re-election in 2022 and the other opted not to run for school board, but instead A.J. Massey ran for County Mayor.

The first year on the Board with that new group of five was an eventful year to say the least.

Outspoken members like Morris Merriweather and Shannon Stewart had no reservations about letting their thoughts be heard, and the long-range planning committee meetings with Merriweather as the chair because must-see online streaming for those of us who tried to go live from those meetings as new strategies would try to be implemented at almost every meeting.

Meanwhile in the center of the Board room, tensions between then-Superintendent Eric Jones and then-Board Chair Kevin Alexander were usually pretty high as Alexander and Jones would seemingly come to some type of agreement during a private conversation before some Board meetings only for Alexander to go in another direction when it was time to vote on the issues at hand that had been previously discussed.

After a year of that, Alexander no longer was interested in being chairman. Johnson was nominated and elected to serve as the leader of the leaders of the District.

Admittedly, he and I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye. Some of our readers may remember a committee meeting that was being livestreamed by my friend Steve Beverly, and after a key vote had been made (I don’t even remember what was being voted on now), I followed Johnson out to try to get comments from him and Beverly came too along with his camera and its live mic.

Some people thought Johnson was being singled out by myself and Beverly because they thought I’d never followed anyone else out of a meeting before, but the fact of the matter is I’ve followed a number of people after meetings or other events – elected officials, public servants, football coaches – but this was the only one Beverly was there filming.

But in October of 2019, Johnson took over the Board. They were about six months into the Ray Washington’s interim year as Superintendent. The County Commission had just bought the land on Ashport Road against the wishes of the Board where Pope School is being built. The Commission and City Council had to approve (again) entering into the public-private partnership that would wind up bringing Jackson-Central Merry back from the land of closed schools and send Madison a few blocks west to the campus of the University of Memphis at Lambuth. Merriweather would resign the following February because he was moving away. And a month after that, COVID-19 made its way to Tennessee and shut down school for the rest of the school year just in time for Carol Carter-Estes to be appointed to the Board by the Madison County Commission.

And while all this is going on, they’re also trying to conduct a search for the next permanent Superintendent, which had become a JMCSS tradition to do every two or three years.

Without Merriweather’s outspoken methods serving on the Board, voting to hire Marlon King as the Superintendent actually became a more civil affair than feared.

But tensions were still high as King’s approval wasn’t unanimous. But Johnson urged the Board to air their grievances with each other in a professional manner and to keep the Board meetings as drama free as possible.

Johnson made sure the Board supported King during the transition and as they dealt with the pandemic for his first couple years in leadership.

There were plenty of tough decisions to be made, and oftentimes, the choices were not black and white, but subtle shades of gray, particularly when making decisions about keeping students safe during the pandemic.

Then came the last couple of years when many local citizens – many of whom have never had a child or grandchild in the local school system – wanted to intervene to have their preference of education be what was used by JMCSS.

Charter schools, third-grade literacy, proficiency tests and altered methods of evaluation all became points of contention – and he along with King were the main people dealing with the contention.

Now that he’s passed his gavel to Walden, it’s time for Johnson to hear a collective thanks from the community – even if you disagree with him on a lot of his decisions. Because like I said earlier this month, it’s my sincere belief that every decision this Board makes, each member is voting what they think is best for every student.

That’s what Johnson has done in leading helping lead the Board and District through difficult times.

So thank you for your work, sir, and I hope you keep the new Board leadership honest by challenging them in a civil and professional manner the way they challenged you in your leadership.

Because when y’all are challenging each other, you’re more likely to hear from different perspectives and everyone make a more informed decision, which is what the community and district wants and needs from the group anyway.

Brandon Shields is the managing editor of The Jackson Post. Contact him at brandon@jacksonpost.news. Follow him on X.com @JSEditorBrandon or Instagram @Editorbrandon.