Jackson Free Press

As Jackson Public Schools Superintendent Lonnie Edwards makes the case for keeping his job, he has relied on the support of a variety of visible community members.

Monday was the second day of a public hearing on Edwards' contract. Edwards has requested the hearing to appeal the JPS board's decision not to renew his three-year contract, which ends this summer.

Edwards' supporters in attendance Monday included political figures such as Hinds County Tax Collector Eddie Fair, as well as politically active community members like perennial candidate Dorothy "Dot" Benford, and restaurant owner Clarence Bolls.

Indeed, Edwards' popularity among many Jacksonians has been a key point argued by his attorney, former Mayor Dale Danks, at the hearing.

Both on Monday and on the hearing's first day, March 25, Danks cited a laudatory evaluation of Edwards' communication abilities conducted by the Council of the Great City Schools, a coalition of the nation's urban school systems.

Among its conclusions was the finding that "one the district's biggest assets is its passionate, articulate and highly accessible superintendent," Danks said.

Even the superintendent's detractors have acknowledged his visibility as the public face of the district. George Schimmel, one of the three board members to vote against extending Edwards' contract, emphasized in his March 18 testimony that his opposition to renewing the contract was not based on Edwards' public-relations work.

"No one is arguing that Dr. Edwards is not a likable individual," Schimmel said. "As I've mentioned before, he has done a wonderful job in the community, healing wounds."

The Council of the Great City Schools report also asserted that JPS' academic achievement has improved, based on rankings by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools' Council on Accreditation and School Improvement. SACS designated JPS as a "Quality System," the report noted. That designation is the basic mark of accreditation by SACS, however, and does not denote any more specific level of success.

The report blamed a "fractured school board and testy superintendent-school board interactions played out in public" for overshadowing the districts' successes with a negative public image. Only one member of the current JPS board, Ivory Phillips, was also on the board when the CGCS released the report in 2009.

When Danks mentioned the CGCS report Monday to Monica Gilmore-Love, another board member who voted against renewal, she pointed out that Edwards also serves as a board member of the Council of the Great City Schools.

Danks offered further evidence of Edwards' community support in the form of a Feb. 11, 2011, letter in support of Edwards sent by 100 Concerned Clergy for a Better Jackson. Signed by Bishop Ronnie Crudup and The Rev. Hosea Hines, the letter expressed the group's "disappointment and dismay" at the board's vote, Danks said.

"Since Dr. Edwards became superintendent of the system in 2008, he articulated a vision for the education of our children that went far beyond what we expect in a superintendent," Danks read from the letter.

"Over the past two years, Dr. Edwards has started implementing that vision. And we have noticed marked improvement
in the manner in which our children are educated. Changing leadership of a school system at this time is both too premature and not worthy of someone of Dr. Edwards' accomplishments."

Gilmore-Love told Danks that while she remained open to reconsidering her Dec. 7 vote against renewing Edwards' contract.

"I don't believe that we have a comprehensive approach, a strategic approach, to improving our students' performance," Gilmore-Love said.

Gilmore-Love was one of three members to vote against renewing Edwards' contract at the Dec. 7 meeting. The other two members, Schimmel and Board President Kisiah Nolan, gave similar testimony March 25, the first day of Edwards' hearing.