A lot of people might say it really doesn’t make any difference that Shelby County Board of Education members call themselves ”commissioners” rather than “board members,” the title given to their positions by state law.

However, it seems to me that public officials have some responsibility to use the title the law gives to their positions rather than using a title that may sound more prestigious.

The use of “commissioners” has some history as far as members of the old Memphis Board of Education are concerned. But it has no history on the Shelby County Board of Education.

The old city board ended as an entity when the federal court consent agreement formed a 23-countywide board that included the nine city school board members and seven county board members then in office plus seven additional members appointed by the Shelby County Commission.

The seven appointed board positions were later filled by voters. On Sept. 1, the old city and county positions will drop off the board and the board will continue with the seven elected members for at least a year.

Starting in 1907 or perhaps before, Memphis school board members were referred to as commissioners in special private acts of the legislature that amended the school system’s charter.

More thorough research would be required, but that practice may have continued for a while.  Whatever the case, references to city board members as commissioners remained in older sections of the school system’s charter.

However, an act in 1970 that restructured the city board from a five-member board to a nine-member board refers to board members as board members and not as commissioners.

That law said a person who ran for the board had to qualify as “a candidate for the office of member of the board of education of Memphis City Schools.”

Prior to 1970, several other legislative acts had also referred to board members as board members instead of  commissioners. It seems that members of the board had been called board members rather than commissioners for a number of years.

However, according to at least one account, a non-board member conducting research on old board records in the 70s came across the references in older parts of the charter to board members as commissioners.

That apparently led city school board members at the time to start calling themselves commissioners. News reporters at the time never referred to the board members as commissioners.

It seems clear that with the surrender of the city school system charter, the commissioner title went away whether it had been a correct title or not.

Chapter 381 of the Tennessee Private Acts of 1923 is the authorizing law for reorganization of the Shelby County Board of Education. It is still the basic governing act for the board.

In that law, school board members are called school board members. They are not called commissioners.

The 32-member Shelby County Board of Education met for the first time on Oct. 10, 2011, the board members are not referred to as commissioners in the minutes of the meeting. The minutes also do not report any discussion about the title of board members.

The second meeting was on Oct. 25, 2011. The board members are referred to as commissioners in the minutes. Again, the minutes do not reflect any discussion about what board members should be called.

The minutes refer to the board several times as the “Shelby County Board of School Commissioners,” a title which does not appear in the 1923 act or apparently any other state law.

It is not clear whether the decision to call board members commissioners came from among the 32 members themselves or from staff members who were keeping the minutes of the meeting.

And, there is no indication that any board or staff members did any research into whether it is proper to call board members commissioners when the law does not designate them as commissioners.

The former city board members may have believed they should continue to be called commissioners. But there doesn’t seem to be any reason that the old county members and the appointed members at the time should have believed they are commissioners.

Asked about the title recently, board chairman Billy Orgel said he calls himself a board member ”if anything at all.” Since Orgel is chairman, he is referred to in the minutes as chairman.

Some news reporters call the members commissioners while others call them members.

Some board members who have written opinion columns have identified themselves as a commissioner.

I think that school board members who call themselves commissioners tell us something about themselves.