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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — The Birmingham Board of Education will have a special called meeting at 3 p.m. today to discuss the superintendent evaluation.

The evaluation was supposed to begin in March and be completed by June, but has been delayed because board members couldn’t agree on how to grade Superintendent Craig Witherspoon, who has been on the job since March 2010.

Five board members – Emanuel Ford, Virginia Volker, Alana Edwards, Tyrone Belcher and Edward Maddox – want to use grading system of one to five, with one being well below expectations and five being well above expectations. The remaining four board members, however, said the evaluation tool the board is using was drafted under a one to three grading scale, with one being needs improvement and three being exceptional.

It would be unfair to change the grading scale so close to Witherspoon’s evaluation, the four board members say, when Witherspoon was told long ago he would be graded on a one to three scale.

The other board members, however, say neither the instrument nor the grading scale being used was ever voted on by the board, so can be changed.

After the special called board meeting, the board will meet in a work session to discuss, among other things, legal fees.

Witherspoon told board members in a memo recently that Birmingham pays more in hourly rates to its two law firms on retainer than many larger districts in the state. He wants the board to renegotiate the fees.

After the work session, the board will meet in a Capital and Technology Committee meeting at 5:30 p.m.

All three meetings will be held in the board room at Central Office, 2015 Park Place.

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