Members of the Selma City School Board called an emergency meeting Monday to determine what the next steps would be for the Selma Early College Program.

Selma City interim superintendent of education Gerald Shirley said there are no specific options right now.

According to board members Holland Powell, Frank Chestnut and Udo Ufomadu, Wallace Community College-Selma sent the board a letter last week, requesting it pay more than $150,000 for the program, leaving many members confused by the short notice.

“They were asking us to pay for the summer and for the fall semester of the Selma Early College,” Powell said. “As this board well knows, we had that discussion some time ago and after much discussion, the college said they did have funding for the program … they no longer have the funding to cover tuition costs for our students that are attending the early college classes … they were asking us to pay that.”

Powell said the city did not have the funding to pay for the students but discussed options of who would be affected by the possible cancellation of the program.

“We made no commitments for this board, we made it very clear that we could not commit for the board,” Powell said. “We would look and certainly consider all options …”

According to Selma Early College director Concetta Burton, Selma High students participating in the program are transported by bus  multiple times a day to Wallace. The staff, Burton said, consists of four teachers, a secretary, two instructional aides and a director. Funding for the program came from the board’s expense fund and a grant, for which the system has not yet received the remaining funds.

Powell, who believes the program is a solid one, said if the board decides to spend money it doesn’t have, there would be a deficit in the budget.

“We do incur costs for the early college program,” Powell said. “We have staff, transportation cost and significant cost involved in the early college program.

“We need to decide is it fair to everyone in the program to consider just the seniors, who you could say would be directly impacted by the college’s decision to discontinue this program,” Powell said. “Is that fair to continue it for them and not continue it for everybody else?”

Ufomadu believes the program is beneficial for students.

“I don’t want to see an end to this program because personally I’ve benefited from it as a parent,” Ufomadu said.

“If we really have to talk to somebody beyond Wallace officials … so they can enlighten us more because apparently someone is playing a game we don’t quite understand.”

Board president Henry Hicks said the school system cannot afford the program and believes that grants could be the solution.

“If we have grant writers here and they (Wallace) have some people over there … let’s sit down and see if we could find some funding to fund this program through other means,” Hicks said.

“I don’t know how we’re going to work it out … it’s not fair to these kids.”

The board voted to have Shirley and Burton meet with Wallace president James Mitchell this week to see what the school could do to ensure students who are enrolled this semester could finish. The board will discuss other funding options at Thursday’s meeting.