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Board selects Freeman as new superintendent

by

Emily Featherston

Sydney Cromwell

The Vestavia Hills Board of Education voted tonight to offer the job of superintendent to Michael Todd Freeman of Sylacauga City Schools.

The vote was unanimously to choose Freeman over Gardendale City Schools Superintendent Patrick Martin, though board members agreed in a pre-meeting work session that it was challenging to make a choice between the two.

“I think we agree that either one of them would do a good job for our system,” Board President Nancy Corona said.

The next step for the board will be to work with attorney Pat Boone to negotiate a contract and start date for Freeman.

Freeman has been superintendent at Sylacauga since 2013 and previously worked in the Auburn school system for 20 years. He holds a doctorate in educational leadership from Valdosta State University, a master’s degree from Auburn University and a bachelor’s degree from Jacksonville State University.

The BOE members all said during the work session that they would be confident with either Freeman or Martin at the helm. They mentioned several major priorities that were on their minds as they made the decision, including a number of construction projects, the acquisition of Berry Middle and potential acquisition of Gresham Elementary, rezoning and grade alignment and more.

Corona said the new superintendent would need exceptional leadership abilities, both in finding consensus and making hard decisions, as well as community involvement and visibility, past experience and strong integrity.

“I was looking so hard to find a red flag,” said board member Lisa Baker. “It just wasn’t there for either candidate.”

Baker said she received the most emails from parents regarding concerns about racism.

In Sylacauga, Freeman dealt with racial tensions in October 2016 that resulted in a fight among students and one child being assaulted. In Gardendale, Martin oversaw the school system’s attempts to break away from the county school system, which U.S. District Court Judge Madeline Haikala remarked had discriminatory motives in an April 2017 ruling.

Board members said they “dug deep” on these issues when interviewing the two candidates’ professional networks, and Baker said they found both candidates had a history in their previous roles that proved their commitment to diversity and inclusion.

“I feel very, very comfortable that we have done our due diligence in that area,” Baker said. “I do not believe that is a concern with either one of the candidates.”

“The Gardendale situation – it factored not into my decision,” said board member David Powell about his decision to pick Freeman over Martin.

In the work session preceding tonight’s BOE meeting, Baker was the only member of the board to list Martin as her top choice.

Board member Jerry Dent said that while he was a “big Patrick Martin fan,” he felt that Freeman was the better choice to handle the major tasks in the near future for Vestavia Hills City Schools. Powell said it was a comparison of potential versus proven experience that tipped the scales in Freeman’s favor.

Interim Superintendent Charles Mason’s contract ends in February.

Mason said it was “incredible” to watch the extensive interview process the board members have gone through to arrive at this decision. He said he anticipates the new superintendent will have a “thoughtful but inclusive” approach to the decisions and changes to come.

“I look forward to working with Dr. Freeman,” Mason said. “I have absolute confidence in Dr. Freeman. I think he will prove to be a strong leader for this school system.”

“I’ll do everything I can in the next 30 days, or 300 days or however long it is, to support him and work with him,” Mason added.

Also at tonight’s meeting, Mason updated the board on the ongoing efforts to rezone the school system.

Mason said the school system has worked with Cooperative Strategies in January to develop options for rezoning the schools to balance populations and take advantage of Berry Middle and potentially Gresham Elementary. This included a committee of about 15 people discussing traffic, student body population and other rezoning impacts, as well as parent focus group meetings on Jan. 23-24.

However, the rezoning process has hit a roadblock in that Jefferson County School System is still waiting for a federal judge approval of its capital plan before it can sell Gresham to Vestavia Hills. Until that acquisition is approved, Mason said he does not want to make plans that rely on the addition of Gresham.

“We’ll be ready to move forward with the public aspect of this if and when we know if we can obtain Gresham,” Mason said, adding his suggestion that the board “pause our process at this point” for the time being.

If the Gresham purchase is approved, Mason said the school system would then move forward with presenting three possible rezoning options in a series of community meetings and an online survey to gather input before selecting a plan.

Though he said not everyone would be happy with the final zoning decision, Mason said the goal is that “these schools will be indistinguishable in terms of leadership, faculty, student achievement” and other markers of success.

At the Jan. 31 meeting, the board also:

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