BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The elected Bessemer City Board of Education has been suspended from regular meetings indefinitely by Alabama State Superintendent Eric Mackey, according to a statement from state officials.
The state board of education voted to intervene in the system in August 2024, and placed Daniel Boyd, a former superintendent and state chief academic officer, as the district’s chief administrative officer.
“While a city or county board of education is operating under educational intervention, the chief administrative officer shall have the power and authority to act for and on behalf of the city or county board of education and its superintendent in all matters and for all purposes,” state officials said in an emailed statement.
While under intervention, the local board acts only in an advisory capacity, the statement continued.
“The chief administrative officer, as appointed by law, has determined that those advisory meetings are not offering meaningful input. Therefore, the Bessemer School Board Members have been suspended from regular meetings until further notice.”
The state law governing intervention gives Mackey authority over a local board of education, despite the board being an elected body. Bessemer City Schools, southwest of Birmingham, serves about 2,800 students across seven school buildings and employs roughly 425 people, including about 250 certified employees and 175 classified staff.
Erika Hughes, the president of the Central Alabama Federation of Teachers, has attended every board meeting for the past four years, including during the state’s intervention in the district. She said that prior to the last few regular board meetings, there had been no public meetings to explain the status of the intervention.
The Bessemer school board did not meet from April until September 2025, according to information posted on the district’s website. The board later held monthly meetings in September, October, November and December.
“It’s a disaster,” she said, of the current situation. She said she initially wanted the state to intervene, but the situation in the district has only gotten worse since the state arrived.
Hughes said crucial positions have gone unfilled, faculty are waiting on paychecks, and that in one elementary school, students haven’t been able to use the gym at all this school year because of problems with a roof repair the state completed.
Mackey named a new superintendent, former Pinson Valley Principal and long-time educator Michael Turner, in April 2025, giving him a two-year contract. Alabama Daily News was unable to reach Turner for comment.
Mackey gave an abbreviated progress report on the district’s intervention at the Alabama Board of Education’s Oct. 9 meeting. He told board members a new strategic plan had been written and that a new payroll system was implemented, which was among the first problems they identified after the state intervened.
Mackey said that local board members had been through “intensive boardsmanship and prescriptive professional development” during the previous six months, with assistance from the Alabama Association of School Boards.
In remarks to reporters after the October state board meeting, Mackey said there had been academic and structural improvement in facilities but that he remained concerned about board governance.
“The board took that pause (in April),” Mackey said. “It’s not gone that well. We still don’t have a lot of confidence in the local board.”
“As it stands right now, we’re going to continue the intervention indefinitely, because we don’t have confidence in turning the system back over to the local board at this time.”
In Hughes’ view, the state’s actions have failed to improve conditions in the district.
“It’s time for the board members and the state board of education to do what they were elected to do,” she said. “And that is to fight for Bessemer City Schools – the students, the community and the staff.”
“It’s time that they work together on a solution in order to get Dr. Boyd and the state out, because what they are doing is making the situation worse.”
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