From the Commercial Appeal:
A federal judge ended the first round of the school-consolidation legal battle Monday by ruling that the Memphis City Schools charter was properly surrendered in February and that the current all-suburban-member Shelby County Board of Education is unconstitutional because it lacks Memphis representation.
U.S. District Court Judge Samuel “Hardy” Mays also ruled valid a new state law, known as Norris-Todd, aimed at guiding the merger of MCS and Shelby County Schools with the appointment of a 21-member transition committee.
Mays said consolidation must be completed in time for the beginning of the 2013-14 school year. MCS and SCS currently have about 150,000 enrolled students combined.
Mays directed the parties involved in the lawsuit — MCS, SCS, the Shelby County Commission, the Memphis City Council, the city of Memphis and the Tennessee Department of Education — to submit by Friday ideas about how to create a countywide school board giving Memphis proportional representation. Mays will discuss the case with the parties today. SCS filed the lawsuit in February.
See also Jackson Baker, who observes the judge follows the exact timetable set for the merger in legislation passed by the General Assembly earlier this year and known as the Norris-Todd law.