Mobile Area Education Foundation Brings Together Discordant School Factions

On December 18, Mobile County Superintendent Harold Dodge and 47 educators and community members sat down to talk about their district's educational needs and a plan for change over the long term. The meeting occurred just a few days after all 100 schools in the district had been put on probationary accreditation because the Superintendent and school board members could not get along. Credit for bringing together the different sides goes to the Yes We Can project of the Mobile Area Education Foundation, a local education fund affiliated with the Public Education Network. The Foundation paid for an educational consultant, Cheryl Wilhoyte, a former Madison, Wisconsin schools superintendent, to come to the district and sit down with representatives of all its stakeholders. The discussion's point of departure was the "community agreement" that Yes We Can produced based on conversations held since 2001 with parents and community members about areas of education that need improvement.

Mobile County residents have been looking for more accountability from their schools, even the lowest-performing ones, following the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act and a voter-approved increase in school taxes, the first in decades. The Foundation plans to bring Wilhoyte back to the school for future talks, and school board members have pledged to help pay her fee. The goal is to have in place by August a strategic plan for improvement with built-in accountability measures, in which as many people as possible are invested.

Prepared December 23, 2002