Phenix City superintendent’s job on the line when school board meets. Here’s why
Two weeks into the school year, the job security for the superintendent of Phenix City Schools appears to be on the line when the Phenix City Board of Education convenes Thursday.
The board is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. in the PCS Auxiliary Building, 1210 Ninth Ave.
A called meeting was scheduled for Tuesday to “discuss the superintendent’s job performance and contract,” according to the agenda. But the seven-member board unanimously approved board attorney Bob Meadows’ request to postpone that discussion until Thursday.
Meadows told the board during Tuesday’s meeting that “new information … came to my attention within the last hour and a half, and I need to fully develop that in order to properly present that to the board.”
The Rev. Brady Baird, the board’s District 1/Place 1 representative, told the Ledger-Enquirer on Wednesday that he and some other board members are upset with superintendent Janet Sherrod’s “failure to effectively plan” for how the state’s curriculum changes would affect the PCS Accelerated Academy, which invites the top 180 qualified students coming out of elementary school, starting in sixth grade, to take courses at higher grade levels after showing mastery of the content at their current grade level.
Despite the Alabama State Department of Education announcing its new curriculum standards “years and months prior to the changes being implemented,” Baird said, Sherrod didn’t provide the state proper documentation to continue the Accelerated Academy this year.
“Our system was completely unprepared to incorporate these changes into a program that has served academically motivated students and families for over 11 years,” Baird said, “and I cannot for the life of me understand how we would allow that to happen.”
Baird added, “I am deeply disappointed that our current leadership allowed this type of change to take place without exerting some appropriate preventative measures or creating an alternative sooner.
“The major issue we have right now is an inability to plan for and execute quality educational programs for every student at every level of academic ability.”
The Ledger-Enquirer tried to reach Sherrod for her response via phone and email, but she had not replied as of Wednesday evening.
Asked what Thursday’s meeting will be about, Baird said, “There may be an opportunity for us to discuss in a more meaningful way what was planned for Tuesday. Hopefully, we’ll have some better information and some meaningful conversations will have taken place that had not taken place. And hopefully Thursday will be a day where the meeting will offer us some exciting resolution for some of the issues that we’re facing.”
In a text message to the L-E after the phone interview, Baird added, “I am deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disappointment these changes have caused for all the students and parents looking forward to another great year of accelerated learning.”
The Phenix City-Russell Count NAACP’s Facebook post alerting its followers about the called meeting shows the high level of concern about the situation.
“This is a critical moment for our community to come together in solidarity,” the post says. “We hope to see you there.”
This story was originally published August 20, 2025 at 7:32 PM.
