Frayser leaders want the next head of the state-run schools to live in Memphis

The question was bound to come up eventually. It came up quickly in a meeting Wednesday afternoon with members of the Frayser Exchange community group.

If chosen to lead the Tennessee Achievement School District, which operates nearly all of its schools in Memphis, would you live in Memphis or Nashville?

Stephen Osborn, a Rhode Island resident and one of the candidates to hold that job, said he'd been asked the same thing throughout his day meeting with parents, students and local education leaders.

His honest answer to this point, he said, is he doesn't know. But he wanted to hear what the Frayser folks thought.

"If you're going to have a meaningful relationship with Memphis, you need to be here," Shelby County Schools board member Stephanie Love, who represents Frayser, said.

More: Memphian among the four candidates vying to lead Tennessee's Achievement School District

The Nashville residency was a sticking point with Memphians for the last two superintendents of the state-run district, as so much of the work turning around struggling schools happens in Memphis.

But the job is with the Tennessee Department of Education, headquartered in Nashville. And the district may expand on the other end of the state in the not-so-distant future.

Osborn, the chief for innovation for the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, is the first named finalist in the search for the new superintendent.

The state named four people who were in the running earlier this month, but Education Commissioner Candice McQueen, who was also in Memphis on Tuesday, said the list could get bigger instead of smaller moving forward.

The department has heard from other interested people, she said, and is not ruling anyone out.

But Osborn is the first to be presented to several stakeholder groups as a finalist, and as such, had a full day of meetings at Martin Luther King Jr. College Preparatory High School.

McQueen, acting as a facilitator instead of the usual focus of a visit to Memphis, told the five Frayser Exchange members that she was committed to finding someone who hasn't been with the ASD since the beginning.

"It's a new-start moment," McQueen said. "Not a continuation of what has been."

That appealed to the Frayser group, which has watched the ASD take over most of its schools in the last six years but has seen few positive results.

Ricky Floyd, pastor of Pursuit of God church across the street from the high school, said he was originally a "cheerleader" for the ASD, but felt like he was "left in the cold."

ASD and state leaders came to his church, he said, making promises of improvement.

"Then all the sudden, I didn't get any more phone calls," Floyd said.

Osborn, who previously ran charter schools in New Orleans and worked for the Louisiana Department of Education, said he was sorry to hear that had been Floyd's experience.

As an outsider, Osborn said he knows trust won't happen overnight.

"I need to focus on learning how to earn that," he said.

Mendell Grinter, executive director of the Campaign for School Equity, noted that trust will start with his commitment to Memphis.

"You'll have a difficult time convincing people" if he lives in Nashville, Grinter said.

Bobby White, the CEO of Frayser Community Schools, which operates MLK Prep, said the ASD is "at a crossroads." The next leader, he said, needs to make it clear if the district is there to improve schools or to push the charter school reform movement forward.

"Where do we go from here?" White asked.

Osborn said his first phase of leadership on the job would be listening, and then collaborating on how to move forward.

"We need to develop a plan that is our plan," Osborn said.

The other candidates named so far are:

Brett Barley, deputy superintendent of student achievement, Nevada Department of Education

Adam Miller, executive director, office of independent education and parental choice, Florida Department of Education

Keith Sanders, CEO of Keith Sanders Group, Inc., former chief officer of school turnaround, Delaware Department of Education

The school district serves predominately impoverished Memphis students, but has never had a leader from Memphis. The district takes over struggling schools, and mostly outsources their operation to charter networks.

This is the first time the state has extensively involved the community in the process of picking a leader for the ASD. But as there is no elected, or even appointed, school board that oversees it, McQueen will make the final hiring decision along with Governor Bill Haslam.

In Rhode Island, Osborn leads the Division of Innovation, a 50-person team responsible for charter school authorization, school transformation and high school redesign.

From 2012 to 2014, he was the assistant superintendent of student programs for the Louisiana Department of Education. He was also the chief operating officer and chief financial officer for New Beginnings Charter School Network in New Orleans.

Reach Jennifer Pignolet at jennifer.pignolet@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @JenPignolet.