Parents: Want your state-run school to return to local control? Memphis’ school board wants a new state law to allow that.

If parents and teachers can vote to convert their school into a charter school, shouldn’t they also be allowed a vote to take their charter school back?

That’s the argument for a proposal being discussed by Memphis school board members who want to accelerate the return of state-run charter schools to Shelby County Schools.

Several members discussed the idea Tuesday evening as the board worked on a legislative agenda for next year at the state Capitol.

Board members floated the possibility of a new state law that allows parents to drive decision-making on governance of underperforming charter schools, including a vote to return state-run schools back to the local district.

“It’s the parental choice they always talk about,” Board Member Teresa Jones said of state officials.

The push for a new law to convert charter schools into district schools perpetuates the district’s resistance of the state’s growing role in local schools. Shelby County Schools has used increasingly aggressive tactics to retain students and related funding, including reconfiguring schools, zoning students out of the Achievement School District’s jurisdiction and telling students they are assigned to district-run schools when they were actually zoned to state-run ones.

The state’s school improvement plan under the new federal education law gives the Achievement School District 10 years to get its schools off the state’s list of low-performing schools or be returned to the local district. The state law board members want would allow that to happen before that time period is up.

The existing state law to convert a school into a charter (not necessarily a state-run one) requires 60 percent of parents and teachers to vote for the conversion. Rodney Moore, the district’s top lawyer, said the legislative request could replicate that percentage. The district’s legal team is still working on finalizing the language.

“If we mirror that language it’s harder for them to say it’s an unfair process,” said Board Member Chris Caldwell.

A version of the legislative agenda is scheduled to go before the school board at its work session on Tuesday, Nov. 28. A vote would likely come the following week.