9486 in the collection
If Birmingham school superintendent doesn't explain, school board can fire him
NOTE: This is the district that systematically issues involuntarily withdrawal papers to high schoolers. The World of Opportunity exists to rescue these students.
Superintendent Mims signed a three-year, $175,000-a-year contract with the system in June 2006. The board offered him a chance to resign last week; he refused.
Editorial
Maybe the Birmingham Board of Education thinks it has to spend $200 an hour to investigate whether Superintendent Stan Mims intentionally altered a report critical of the school system.
But with the state Department of Education ever more close to taking over city schools' finances, this is yet more money draining from a school system that can hardly afford it.
While the cost of the investigation by retired Madison County Circuit Judge Joe Battle may not exceed more than a few thousand dollars, that the school board felt compelled to have an outsider look into Mims' role concerning the altered report shows just how little confidence this board has in its superintendent.
Mims has been in hot water with the school board for much of his year and a half on the job. The questions surrounding the report from the Council of the Great City Schools might do him in - as it should, if Mims intentionally altered the report so the public and media wouldn't see the criticisms.
Here's what happened: A report by the Council of the Great City Schools, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that helps urban school systems, identified lots of problems within the Birmingham system, including serious lapses in leadership. When the 24-page report was distributed to the school board, it was complete, but copies of the report given to the public and media were missing the most critical sections. That report was 19 pages and had been renumbered.
Originally, Mims claimed somebody told him to remove pages, but he wouldn't say who gave that order. Later, Mims admitted pulling the pages, but said it was so his staff could study the findings and deal with the report's criticisms. Mims couldn't explain how the report was renumbered.
Supposedly, Battle will talk to Mims, staff members and others to find out exactly what transpired. Board President Willie J. Maye Jr. said the board hired independent counsel because the system's two law firms - paid more than $1 million a year - are too involved in the matter. What Maye and other board members fail to explain is why they need to pay $200 an hour to anybody to investigate Mims.
School board members claim Mims' three-year, $175,000-a-year contract allows the board to dismiss Mims for just cause without having to buy out the remaining time on the contract. If so, the board should call in Mims, demand a credible explanation and then act accordingly. Mims works for the school board; he is required to respond to board inquiries openly and honestly.
If Mims doesn't, that'd be "just cause." Paying $200 an hour for an investigation the board should conduct in one or two quick meetings is a waste of taxpayer dollars.
— Editorial
Birmingham News
2008-02-20
http://www.al.com/birminghamnews/stories/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1203499052299290.xml&coll=2
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