Agreement Reached to Provide Custodial Services to More than 30 Memphis Schools

Idlewood Elementary School (Photo by Memphis-Shelby County Schools)

Under pressure from parents, the Memphis-Shelby County School Board reversed an earlier decision and approved a custodial contract with ABM Industries to clean more than 30 schools in the district’s northwest region.

Those schools have all been without formal custodial services this year, and multiple parents, including Audrey Royal, complained about the impact at Thursday’s special-called meeting.

Royal’s daughter, Ivy, attends Idlewild Elementary, and she’s concerned the school’s environment may not be healthy.

“We’re all very aware that the flu has been terrible this year. We have to have sanitation in our schools,” said Royal. “I can not be sending her to a school that does not have the very baseline of psychological needs met.”

Royal and other parents of Idlewood students say cleaning duties have been filled after hours by the school’s plant manager and during school by a combination of teachers and students.

“When the contract was rejected last month, why wasn’t there something to take its place?” asked another Idlewood parent.

Board Reversal

District leaders say ABM Industries narrowly won a bidding process last year over 11 other vendors to serve the region, despite being fired years ago from Memphis-Shelby County Schools amid complaints of poor performance. The board failed to approve the contract at a December meeting, leaving schools in the region without custodial services to start 2026.

At Thursday’s meeting, Board Member Towanna Murphy listed off ten other government entities that have fired the custodial company in recent years for poor performance. She argued the district should choose another vendor to clean its schools.

“We deserve better,” said Murphy. “We don’t have to accept this contract, but we have something better in place that can take place right now, that we don’t have to deal with this company. We can move to the next step.”

Murphy was the only board member to speak against awarding the contract to ABM Industries, and she opted to abstain from the final 8-0 vote to approve it.

Board Member Stephanie Love was among six who either voted against the contract last month or abstained from supporting it, and reversed course this week.

“I still have questions about the contract, but we hired the superintendent to hold the vendor responsible for cleaning the schools in an orderly manner. I am going to trust that the superintendent does that,” said Love.

AMB’s new contract will run from February 1 to December 31.

Contract History

Custodial services for the district’s northwest region were previously handled by Fresh Start, but the district terminated the agreement last fall and temporarily contracted with existing vendors Service Master Clean, LLC, and ParCou, LLC to split cleaning services for the remainder of 2025.