Phenix City Board of Education to vote on giving superintendent a raise

The Phenix City Board of Education is scheduled to vote Friday on renewing the superintendent’s contract to give him an undisclosed raise and possibly a $50,000 bonus if he completes the new five-year term.

The board hired Wilkes in June 2014 from Crenshaw County, where he was superintendent for four years. Board secretary Marie Long referred the Ledger-Enquirer’s request Wednesday for a copy of the current contract to board attorney Robert Meadows, who hasn’t responded. The Alabama State Department of Education lists Wilkes’ salary as $147,664.

Board president Brad Baker declined to disclose the amount of the proposed raise before the vote, but pieces of the pending deal were gleaned from the board’s discussion during Tuesday night’s work session, despite documents not being shared with the public.

Although the new contract would be for five years, the board could terminate it at any time for cause. The board would need to give the superintendent a seven-day notice to terminate it without cause and buy out the remainder of the contract. The superintendent could leave with a 90-day notice.

Board member Mesha Patrick suggested the proposed bonus should be awarded not only for longevity but also with “stipulations” that Wilkes accomplishes the agreed-upon goals. Baker countered that the board already monitors the superintendent’s progress through its annual evaluation. “If he isn’t hitting the benchmarks in five years,” Baker said, “he probably won’t be here anyway.”

By all public accounts, Wilkes has been hitting grand slams during his 21 months in Phenix City.

Before he retired last month, Alabama state superintendent Tommy Bice lauded Wilkes and his administration for their leadership during a visit to Phenix City in December. He said he hasn’t seen any school system in Alabama that invests in its people like Phenix City for the professional development to utilize excellent facilities and equipment in excellent ways, changing the old model of teachers lecturing to the new model of teachers facilitating the students’ learning.

“Based on what I’ve seen today, you’ve not only made the shift, you’ve implemented it,” Bice said then. “Every child could tell me why they were doing what they were doing, which is the true measure of a school meeting the needs of their students.”

Other accomplishments for Wilkes’ administration include:

▪  Increased graduation rate from 63 percent in 2012-13 to 86 percent in 2014-15.

▪  Approved plans to expand the high school with a $3,296,335 project.

▪  Constructing the $2.1 million Dyer Family STEM Center at Phenix City Intermediate School. Bice said during his December visit that the facility will be “unmatched” and that if educators want to see what innovative instruction “looks like in reality, you come to Phenix City.”

▪  Planning a STEMposium expected to host more than 300 participants from around the world June 26-28, 2017. “I’ve never seen anything like what Phenix City is trying to do, in total, anywhere else in the world,” Amy Knower said in March about the school system embracing STEM education in a dynamic way better than the hundreds of communities she has visited as partnerships director for Discovery Education.

▪  Installing an estimated $1.75 million worth of SmartLabs in the seven elementary schools by next school year.

▪  Spending $750,000 over three years to equip students and teachers in grades 6-8 with iPad Airs and $534,000 over three years to equip students and teachers in grades 9-12 with Google Chromebooks.

▪  Despite all that spending, the board has increased the reserve fund from less than one month’s worth of operations in 2013 to more than two months now, Baker said.

▪  The Friends of Phenix City Schools has raised $805,000 in 10 months, part of a $1.1 million campaign to help pay for those projects.

“Look at the turnaround we’ve had in the two years he’s been here,” Baker said. “It’s phenomenal. Everyone has rallied around him. I mean, he’s pumping out new ideas every day.”

Wilkes is Alabama’s 28^th-highest paid superintendent in the state’s 32^nd-largest school district. But when that list is reduced to only city school districts, Phenix City ranks ninth in enrollment and 21^st in superintendent’s salary. That was the argument board members made Tuesday night as evidence that Wilkes is underpaid.

“I think you’ve got to compare the city school districts to the city school districts,” Baker said Wednesday. “It’s comparing apples to apples.”

Two versions of the proposed contract could be presented for votes Friday, Baker said, one with the bonus and one without it. He favors the bonus.

“It’s an opportunity to make sure he stays and finishes out his vision,” said Baker, adding that he isn’t aware of any job openings where Wilkes is a candidate.

Wilkes told the Ledger-Enquirer in a voice mail Wednesday evening, “I appreciate the board’s consideration. My full intent is to finish the job we started here in Phenix City, and it very likely will be the place I retire from.”

Baker emphasized that Wilkes “took a chance on us” two years ago, when the board was plagued by controversy.

The vacancy was created after the board unanimously voted without public discussion in a November 2013 called meeting to place superintendent Larry DiChiara on administrative leave, abruptly ending his 9½-year tenure, which includes being named Alabama’s Superintendent of the Year in 2011. In October 2014, the board agreed to pay DiChiara $587,412 to buy out the 4½ years left on his contract. The 11-month-long dispute also cost the school system more than $30,000 in legal fees. Even now, board members say the settlement of DiChiara’s breach-of-contract lawsuit prohibits them from discussing the case.

In July 2014, a month after Wilkes was hired, the Rev. I.N. Hudson Jr., senior minister of Nichols Chapel AME Church, sued the school board, alleging it violated the Alabama Open Meetings Act by voting to hire Wilkes without public discussion. After the two judges in Russell County Circuit Court recused themselves, Judge Howard Bryan of Chambers County ruled that there wasn’t enough evidence to support Hudson’s claim, backed by the Community Concerned Clergy, a group of black ministers in Phenix City.

Hudson’s attorney, Joseph Wiley, appealed to the Alabama Court of Appeals, “but we elected to not spend the money to pursue it any longer,” Wiley said Wednesday.

Wiley, however, did see a victory in Tuesday night’s work session.

“That’s part of the reason we fought that battle,” he said, “to force them to start discussing things in public.”

The five-member Phenix City Council appoints the seven-member school board. The council unanimously voted last week to request the local state delegation seek permission from the Alabama Legislature to conduct a referendum on turning the school board into an elected governing body.

Phenix City Mayor Eddie Lowe declined to express his opinion about the superintendent’s contract.

“This is an autonomous board,” Lowe told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email Wednesday. “They make the decisions. I have never crossed that line with an autonomous board.”

Lowe, a former president of the school board, cast the deciding vote three weeks ago in the Phenix City Council’s decision to not reappoint Baker and vice president Kelvin Redd. Zoning board member John Donahue and planning commission member Will Lawrence will replace Baker and Redd on the school board, starting their five-year terms in June. The school board members vote among themselves to determine their president and vice president.

Baker insisted the timing of his pending departure from the board and his effort to renew the superintendent’s contract and give him a raise aren’t connected.

“We were supposed to negotiate a new contract around this time anyway,” Baker said. “I’m just trying to do what’s right.”

This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 6:15 PM with the headline "Phenix City Board of Education to vote on giving superintendent a raise."