MONTGOMERY — On Thursday, the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce and some city and county elected officials asked the Montgomery County Board of Education to consider bringing back outgoing Montgomery Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Melvin Brown.
Members of the Montgomery County Board of Education (MCBOE) voted by a 4-3 margin last week to accept Brown's resignation.
Brown has been superintendent since April 2022. His resignation is effective November 1. A special MCBOE meeting is scheduled for Thursday night.
Caryn Hughes, Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Board Chairman, called Brown a "world-class superintendent" and said Montgomery Public Schools is in a "state of crisis."
Hughes called on MCBOE to "reconsider its conduct and actions that led to the resignation of Brown."
Hughes said at a press conference the chamber's board passed a resolution Thursday morning stating, "There is no evidence that the four members of the board of education responsible for this crisis of leadership have a plan nor have they demonstrated they're open for collaboration with other community leaders to find a way forward."
The chamber's resolution also called on Alabama State Superintendent of Education Eric Mackey, the Department of Education, and the State Board of Education "to place MPS under state control and intervention until such time the local board demonstrates that a majority of leadership will make the needed changes to move Montgomery forward in a true spirit of partnership."
The state released MPS from intervention in 2021.
Mackey declined to comment on the resolution, but said he had "a lot of concerns over what we see happening at MPS."
"I think we're going to have a hard time maintaining academic momentum, we're going to have a hard time maintaining also the momentum behind the new tax, behind the investment in this community without stable leadership. Even though Dr. Brown resigned and said he's moving on, it sends a message out there to potential candidates that Montgomery is one of those places as it used to be and was for about 20 years a place where after 18-24 months the board is going to get tired of you and you're going to have to sell your house and you're going to have to move on. Well, you don't really bring great candidates to the table with that kind of message across the United States," Mackey said at the press conference.
Montgomery County Commission Chairman Doug Singleton said, "Dr. Brown is the guy that we need to do everything we possibly can to see if we can somehow open the lines of communication and somehow work to keep him on board."
"I don't know that we're going to find anyone better," Singleton said.
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