Controversial decisions. Unexplained dismissals. Phenix City to vote on elected school board
Fifteen years after Phenix City voters rejected the proposal, they will consider it again.
The Aug. 28 referendum will ask, “Do you favor changing the Phenix City Board of Education from a board appointed by the City Council to a board elected by the residents of the city?”
Such a referendum failed 868 to 1,146 votes (43-57 percent) on Dec. 9, 2003. That came only two years after Phenix City voters approved a referendum on Sept. 4, 2001, by 3,392 to 498 votes (87-13 percent) requesting the Alabama Legislature to allow them to consider the change.
Among the three precincts in Phenix City, the switch in preference was greatest in the predominantly white District 1 on the north side, where residents voted in the Roy Martin Recreation Center. There, 1,731 voted yes and 317 voted no (85-15 percent) in 2001. Two years later there, 433 voted yes and 741 voted no (37-63 percent).
In the more racially diverse District 2 precinct at the Central Activity Center, residents also flip-flopped, although not as severely. The votes were 769 yes and 122 no (86-14 percent) in 2001, then 205 yes and 232 no (47-53 percent) in 2003.
In the predominantly black District 3, however, residents remained in favor of the change, albeit not as adamantly. The votes at the Calvin Spencer Recreation Center were 752 yes and 48 no (94-6 percent) in 2001, then 222 yes and 161 no (58-42 percent) in 2003.
This time, it was the Phenix City Council that requested the referendum in a 5-0 vote in April 2016. It was too late for that year’s Alabama Legislature to consider. Then the local legislation was submitted by now-deceased state Rep. George Bandy and passed in May 2017, authorizing the referendum. The city council unanimously approved the referendum’s date a year later.
The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the following locations:
▪ District 1, Roy Martin Recreation Center, 110 Airport Road.
▪ District 2, C Club Gym, 1500 15th St.
▪ District 3, Calvin Spencer Recreation Center, 400 Eighth Ave.
Out of Alabama’s 139 public school boards, 89 are elected and 50 are appointed, according to the Alabama Association of School Boards. All 67 county school boards are elected, and 22 of the 72 city school board are elected.
State law requires all county boards to be elected, Dana Vandiver, the association’s public relations director told the Ledger-Enquirer, but the association doesn’t advocate whether a city’s school board should be appointed or elected.
“We are not aware of any obvious trend of city boards changing over to elected boards,” she wrote in an email to the L-E. “These moves are usually on a case-by-case basis, precipitated by local politics/issues or a push from the local community. There is not any kind of law or requirement that calls for city boards to revisit this or put it up for a vote every few years.”
Some of the politics and issues between the city council and school board in Phenix City have been controversial.
In April 2016, the council, in a series of four votes with one-vote margins and without public discussion, decided against reappointing board president Brad Baker and vice president Kelvin Redd to second five-year terms and replaced them with zoning board member John Donohue and planning commission member Will Lawrence.
Asked to explain the ouster, Mayor Eddie Lowe, who served on the school board from 2000-2012, including seven years as president, told the Ledger-Enquirer at the time, “I wanted to give other people a chance to serve.”
Without a more specific reason — and with the school system on a positive roll — conspiracy theorists speculated the moves amounted to retribution for the school board’s dismissal of two high-level leaders in the school system:
▪ The school board’s October 2014 payment of $587,412 to buy out the 4½ years left on former Superintendent Larry DiChiara’s contract, plus the more than $30,000 in legal fees spent on the 11-month-long dispute. The seven-member board refused to explain why it unanimously voted in a November 2013 called meeting to place DiChiara on administrative leave, abruptly ending his 9½-year tenure, which includes being named Alabama’s Superintendent of the Year in 2011. Board members have said the settlement of DiChiara’s breach-of-contract lawsuit prohibits them from discussing the case. DiChiara previously had complained about the city council meddling in school board issues.
▪ The board’s May 2014 decision to not renew its contract with the mayor’s brother, College Football Hall of Famer and retired NFL linebacker Woodrow Lowe, then the Central High School football coach, who compiled a 33-13 record in four seasons but went 6-4 and missed the playoffs in 2013. Despite an outcry from the coach’s supporters, the board declined three months later to reinstate him and continued to insist it couldn’t discuss the personnel matter.
In August 2016, school board president Rick Carpenter resigned. He told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email then, “Eddie has made it known in word and deed that he wants to replace everyone who was on the Board when DiChiara left, and I’m next. So, I decided I would pick the time, and I think it will benefit the children of the system if I do it now rather than later.”
Lowe said this about the school board’s abrupt dismissal of DiChiara in an interview with the Ledger-Enquirer the previous week for a story about the mayoral election:
“When that started taking place, the entire council — because of some of the nuances, when it came time for the people on that board to be reappointed — we were going to look at going a different route,” Lowe said. “All five of us said that at the time. Now some people changed their minds, which they have a right to.”
Then in March 2018, the city council, in another 3-2 vote led by Lowe, decided without public explanation to not reappoint school board president Paul Stamp and replaced him with the Rev. Samuel Estrada. Stamp was the sixth straight board member not reappointed, leaving Fran Ellis as the only remaining member since DiChiara’s 2013 ouster.
Phenix City Schools superintendent Randy Wilkes, who was hired in June 2014 from Crenshaw County, told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email after Stamp was replaced that he didn’t know why.
“Mr. Paul Stamp has served the Phenix City Board of Education faithfully for 13 years,” Wilkes wrote. “His knowledge and understanding of both school and community cannot be easily replaced. Phenix City Schools is grateful for his time and efforts as rendered. Mr. Stamp has been an integral part of the deployment of 1:1 devices to all students in grades 6-12, the development of the Dyer Family Center, Expansion Facility, addition to Sherwood School and the Transportation Facility, and the Friends of Phenix City Schools initiative which raised more than $1.1 million for school needs.
“During his tenure as Board President, the school system raised its AL graduation rate to 96%, recorded its highest math and ACT scores in system history, and has established a reserve of nearly $11 million.”