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Humes Middle School in North Memphis will close at the end of this academic year as it returns to the Memphis Shelby-County district’s control after a decade in Tennessee’s failed turnaround district for low-performing schools.
The last-minute decision to shutter the nearly 100-year-old building, where a young Elvis Presley attended high school, is a change in plans since the fall, when teachers were told the school would stay open, said Bobby White, head of Frayser Community Schools, the charter company that runs Humes for the state’s Achievement School District.
“I just wish it had been sooner,” White said of the decision.
The school has long struggled with low enrollment. Students will be rezoned to Booker T. Washington, a grade 6-12 school 3 miles away in South Memphis, according to Memphis-Shelby County Schools documents.