State Superintendent Eric Mackey speaking to reporters on March 13, 2025, at the board’s March meeting in Montgomery, Alabama. The board unanimously approved state intervention in the Dallas County School System. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector)
The Alabama State Department of Education Thursday voted to approve state intervention in Dallas County Schools.
State Schools Superintendent Eric Mackey said in an interview Thursday the school system has significant financial deficiencies. Mackey said the district did not follow proper procurement processes in dealing with more than $12.1 million in federal funds.
“That doesn’t mean somebody has stolen the money or anything like that. It just means they’ve not gone through the proper procurement processes,” Mackey said.
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Messages seeking comment were left with Dallas County Schools on Thursday. William Minor, vice president of the Dallas County Board of Education, said in a phone interview that the board is in favor of the takeover.
“If there’s any irregularity we want to know about it, and I don’t know of any better way of knowing than to have state intervention,” he said.
Dallas County Schools has about 1,700 students, according to Mackey.
The intervention means that the state, not the Dallas County Board of Education, will make decisions about personnel, finance and operations in the district. Mackey also said the state and not the board will appoint a superintendent for the system to replace Anthony Sampson, the current superintendent, who plans to leave over the summer. The Selma Times-Journal reported that Sampson last November asked the board to not renew his contract, saying he was not getting “top support” from board members in doing his job.
Mackey said the intervention will last at least two years.
This is the third state intervention in a year under Mackey. The state has also taken over Bessemer City Schools in Jefferson County and Sumter County Schools.
Alabama State Board of Education Vice President Tonya Chestnut, whose district includes Dallas County, said the intervention is bittersweet.
“We have an obligation to respond when school districts request support and help,” she said in an interview. “Dallas County recognized that they needed some assistance, and so today we opened the door for them to get that assistance.”
Several Black Belt school systems, including Sumter County, have seen enrollment declines amid ongoing population loss. Dallas County lost about 5,000 residents between 2010 and 2020, a decline of about 12%. Mackey said the enrollment in both Dallas County Schools and Selma City Schools, a separate school district from Dallas County, have dropped by about 50% in the last 20 years. He said it is a possibility that the two systems would consolidate, but enrollment is not his primary concern.
“This intervention is not about that. I’m not saying that that couldn’t happen if that’s what the community came to terms with and felt like would be better,” Mackey said.
A February letter sent to Dallas County Schools by the state department said that an audit released on June 28 found that the board had no controls in place regarding procurement, making it noncompliant with federal law. A follow-up in July found that the system did not have internal controls for all of its federal programs.
State officials said Dallas County Schools’ failure to follow procurement procedures, the school system owes $12.2 million to the federal government. Auditors with the state Department of Education said that the system has not fully disclosed its financial records since 2020.
The school board must respond to Mackey’s letter within three weeks.
“This is a very serious matter and one I do not take lightly,” Mackey wrote. “Inaction and mismanagement put our students, teachers and school administrators at risk of continuously falling behind the ALSDE’s expectations and as the State Superintendent, I find that utterly unacceptable.”
Mackey said that for every school system the state intervenes in, there are 10 systems the state is working with behind the scenes to prevent intervention. He did not identify the systems.
“We are always working with districts to try to help them keep their heads above water and do what they need to do locally, training with board board members, working with the Alabama association of school boards,” he said. “So we’re always working to help school districts become better, higher functioning, but sometimes they just need a little more help than that, a little more oversight.”
Chestnut said the board’s priority is always to make sure that students get a quality education, even if that means the state intervenes.
“You always hate to have to intervene, but it’s always good to be able to go in and provide that support,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s about making sure that the children are receiving the quality education that they deserve.”
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