by Anna Barrett, Alabama Reflector
July 14, 2025

This is the first of a three-part series looking at state intervention in local school districts.

BESSEMER — The school year was over, but classes were in session on a recent June morning at Jonesboro Elementary School in Bessemer. 

In one room, a small class of third graders practiced pronunciation and reading as they got ready to re-take the state’s standardized reading test. 

In the past few weeks, they have learned about construction. The students applied area formulas to determine how much tile they would need to cover a floor. The week before, the class held a contest — a gift card was the main prize — for who could make the best adaptation of the “Three Little Pigs” story using only materials they had. 

“So each one, they pull a house from the pack and whatever you got, that’s what you built with,” fifth grade teacher Candace Wells said. “So we had a house full of straws, index cards and popsicle sticks. They had to use what they had to make it work.”

They also learned area formulas to determine how much material they would need to tile a floor. The class is part of Bessemer City Schools’ Fun Zone summer program to help prepare students for the next grade and teach them life skills, including balancing a budget. 

“Most of these kids have never seen a check before,” said Tieshia Collins, the Alabama Reading Initiative director at Bessemer City Schools and site leader for various summer programs at Jonesboro Elementary School. 

A group of first graders down the hallway was learning how to write the alphabet. Patrick Evans, their teacher, said that the state has provided additional resources that make it easier to teach students.

“I have an amazing team of teachers. The teachers work very well together,” Evans said. “I’ve seen these teachers work very hard. And so using that explicit instruction and that systematic instruction, especially in this small group environment, I think we’ve been making a lot of gains in the right direction.”

The resources were made available in part through the state. 

The Alabama State Department of Education took over Bessemer City Schools a year ago to address issues with leadership and finances. Both state and local officials say the intervention is helping with student achievement and training for teachers and administrators.

“We truly believe that professional development is going to be very, very important to help our school leaders, to help our teachers be successful in this district,” said Daniel Boyd, the state-appointed administrator for the Bessemer intervention, in an interview last month. “But in order to provide professional development it is important for us to determine where the deficits are at.”

Why the state intervened

Bessemer City Schools, located south of Birmingham, is considered an economically disadvantaged system. Under state funding weighted for student need, BCS receives 45% of its additional funding for students in poverty. According to its website, all 2,972 of BCS’s students receive free or reduced lunch. Of its students, 78.7% are Black and 16.2% are Hispanic.

The state cited the Bessemer City Schools Board of Education’s alleged dysfunction as a reason for intervention. According to a show cause letter sent to the board by State School Superintendent Eric Mackey on July 3, 2024, the Bessemer Board of Education canceled six meetings in the first six months of 2024 due to losing or lack of a quorum. 

“Serially canceling meetings or failing to meet a quorum arouses suspicion from which students, teachers, administrators and the community may infer an intentional lack of transparency and failure to address serious concerns such as manpower and critical maintenance operations,” Mackey wrote. 

According to the meeting minutes, there were 18 meetings in the time period. Twelve of those were called meetings. 

“Chaos is never good for schools and the Bessemer board meetings were chaotic. I don’t think there’s anybody that would question that,” Mackey said in an interview last month. 

Bessemer is one of three school systems the state has intervened in, and finances were an issue in each one. The state intervened in Sumter County Schools in western Alabama in 2023 mainly due to concerns about finances and personnel. The State Board of Education approved intervention in Dallas County Schools in the Black Belt in March because the system had leftover federal funds due to an ineffective processing system. 

In Bessemer’s case, the school failed to turn in its FY 2024 budget on time, according to Mackey. 

“September 2022 was the last time that Bessemer City Schools submitted an on time budget to Alabama State Department of Education,” Boyd said in an interview last month. “Now, we did it this last go around. But the only reason why I feel that it was submitted on time was because of state intervention.”

Under the Intervention Act of 2013, the state superintendent decides whether or not the local board of education meets during intervention. Sumter and Dallas counties schools’ boards are still meeting regularly, but Mackey said Bessemer’s board could not work together to make decisions.

“I’ve put them on a hiatus because they were not functioning well,” Mackey said.

The board will undergo professional development and training until August, then resume regular meetings in September, Daniel Boyd said in an interview last month.

Mackey also listed “clearly dilapidated school facilities” as a reason for intervention. Reginald Mitchell, the maintenance director at BCS, said in an interview that some of the repairs the local board wanted in schools were cosmetic and did not fix the underlying issues of the 50+ year-old buildings.

“At the end of the day, you can put a pig on lipstick, but it’s still a pig,” Mitchell said. “Our buildings are so old in age, and we keep dumping money in them and it makes them look good. But what about our pipes and sewage lines and water lines?”

Mitchell said since intervention, the maintenance side of the school system is doing better than it ever has in his 20 years at BCS. 

“I’m just elated at the status here when it comes to my particular area with facilities and stuff trying to get stuff done,” Mitchell said. 

Mackey said that the productiveness of maintenance is simply due to the state approving projects, instead of the board. There are no additional funds for maintenance, he said.

“There were multiple times when the board would not act on recommendations of the superintendent, not act on the recommendations of their architects, not act on the recommendations of their attorney,” Mackey said. “It just didn’t act. You can’t move forward if somebody’s not making a decision in Bessemer.”

Student learning

In 2019, the state released a list of “failing schools” that included Bessemer City High School. Bessemer Board of Education member Margie Varner, an opponent of intervention, claimed that since only one of the system’s nine schools was on the list negates the claim of low student learning.

“I am not saying that I’m proud. I am simply saying that we are not at the bottom,” Varner said at a community meeting in June.

On the 2023-24 state report card, a collection of data that determines a school system’s success, Bessemer City Schools scored a 69 (D). Boyd said in an interview on June 23 that he expects Bessemer’s score to be a C when the 2024-25 report card is released this fall. 

“I don’t want it to be made official, but we feel pretty confident that the release of this report card will be the first C that this school district has ever made, which is huge,” Boyd said.

According to Alabama Comprehensive Assessment of Progress (ACAP) reading scores, BCS regressed in third graders that are at or above grade level. In 2024, 15.29% of BCS third graders scored below grade level, and in 2025, 31.87% scored below grade level. At least part of the reason may be a higher cutoff grade. The state this year raised the score that determines grade-level reading from 435 to 444. 

Students that scored below the cut score were studying at school last month to take the ACAP test again to prevent being held back. DeNitta Easterling, the principal coach and director of school leadership at Jonesboro Elementary, said the school collaborates with parents to make sure the students are successful.

“They get another chance,” she said. “There have been some identified deficits that these children have that may keep them from being on grade level.”

The school also hosts Camp Bessemer at Jonesboro Elementary. The program employs Bessemer high school students through the city to help teachers with summer programs. The students in summer school have a combination of learning academics and life skills.

“It’s a great introduction to the work force,” Collins said. 

New leadership and changes

Boyd was appointed chief administrative officer of the system by Mackey when the state intervened in August 2024. Boyd hired Michael Turner on April 1 to be the school’s new superintendent, who was the principal of Pinson Valley High School in Jefferson County for ten years. He said in an interview on June 23 that he plans to stay at BCS after the state withdraws.

“Why would we not believe that our kids, our investment, would deserve as good an education as the students at Mountain Brook, Vestavia, or any other OTM (Over the Mountain) school or wherever?” he said. “They deserve the absolute best quality of education.”

Boyd said that in order to set BCS up for success after intervention, board members and administrators are going through as much training and professional development as possible. 

“We’re trying our very best to train everyone to be as competent as they can be,” he said. “We truly believe that professional development is going to be very, very important to help our school leaders, to help our teachers be successful in this district.”

Turner said there are three “big rocks” to move the district forward: school board/superintendent relationship, personnel and operational procedures.

“If we can fix those three things, this school district, there’s no question in my mind, can excel, we’ll go past being a C,” Turner said.

The changes will take time, Boyd said, but the progress is good at this point.

“Engineers build bridges and build buildings,” Boyd said. “We’re offering a person to come here and build a person’s future. There’s no more rewarding work than doing that.”

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

The post One year later: What state intervention has done in Bessemer City Schools appeared first on alabamareflector.com

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article presents a balanced and factual report on the state intervention in Bessemer City Schools without promoting a specific political agenda. It focuses on educational challenges, leadership issues, and efforts to improve the district through professional development and resources. The tone remains neutral, providing multiple viewpoints, including those of state officials, local educators, and board members. The article neither criticizes nor endorses state intervention but reports on the situation and its complexities objectively, adhering to straightforward journalism rather than ideological framing.