By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Pelham Board of Education members are working to hire a law firm to help begin the process of splitting from the Shelby County School System, and said several of the board’s immediate goals hinge on the hire.

During its Dec. 10 meeting, the Pelham School Board discussed several plans for the future, and said many of them hinge on finding a law firm to represent the upstart entity.

Over the next few weeks, Pelham School Board members said they plan to meet “informally” with representatives from at least three law firms interested in representing the School Board.

The law firm representatives then will have a chance to make formal presentations during an upcoming School Board meeting before the board decides which one it will hire, said School Board President Rick Rhoades.

“We’ve got to bring this legal entity on and decide as a group how we are going to move forward,” Rhoades said.

Pelham City Attorney Butch Ellis and his law firm likely are out of consideration from the School Board attorney position, as the firm represents the Shelby County School System on some matters.

Rhoades said he would like the Pelham School Board to approve a law firm by “mid-January at the latest.”

Once the School Board hires a law firm, it will work to lay out its criteria for finding and hiring a school superintendent and other central school office staff members, such as a chief school financial officer.

“In our next meeting, it needs to come together, and we need to get moving”,” Rhoades said, noting the School Board’s next meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. on Dec. 26 at Pelham City Hall.

During the meeting, Rhoades said the Pelham School Board has not yet finalized a date to split from the Shelby County School System, but said the board is tentatively targeting July 2014.

“Nobody wants to be held hostage to July 2014,” Rhoades said. “We all want to try to move forward in that regard and adjust as need-be.”