View source for Wilmer Cody

[[Image:Wilmer Cody.jpg|right|thumb|Wilmer Cody]]
'''Wilmer St Clair Cody''' (born c. [[1937]] in Mobile, Mobile County) was superintendent of [[Birmingham City Schools]] from [[1973]] to [[1983]].

Cody attended Mobile public schools and graduated from Murphy High School. He earned his bachelor of arts in social relations and master's in education at Harvard University in [[1959]] and [[1960]]. He returned to Mobile and taught for two years before being made principal of Forest Hill Elementary School. He married the former [[Caroline Cody|Caroline Burns]], daughter of Mobile County school superintendent Cranford Burns and had two children, David and Alison.

He also taught educational psychology at the University of South Alabama. In [[1964]] Cody returned to Harvard to complete his doctoral degree in school administration. After graduating he was appointed Director of Teacher Education of Atlanta Public Schools. While there he also taught at Emory University and Atlanta University.

A year later, in [[1967]], Cody accepted the position of Superintendent of Schools for Chapel Hill, North Carolina. While there he served on the President's Cabinet Committee on Education and helped draft what became the Emergency School Aid Act. In [[1971]] he was hired as a senior officer of the National Institute of Education.

Cody came to Birmingham in [[1973]]. He helped lead successful efforts to pass a [[1975 Birmingham school tax referendum]], providing an additional $3 million per year for city schools, mostly earmarked for securing accreditation for the system's 78 elementary schools.

Cody served a one-year term as president of the [[Alabama Association of School Administrators]] in [[1981]]-[[1982]]. In [[1983]] he applied for vacancies at the Baltimore City and Montgomery County, Maryland school systems. He accepted the Montgomery County superintendent position, where evaluators praised his expertise in desegregation and his reputation for fairness.

He later served as Commissioner of Education of Louisiana and Commissioner of Education for Kentucky from [[1995]] to [[1999]].

{{Start box}}
{{Succession box | title = Superintendent of [[Birmingham City Schools]] |
years = [[1973]]–[[1983]] | before = [[Henry Sparks]] (acting) | after = [[John Cantelow II ]] (interim) }}
{{End box}}
==Publications==
* Cody, Wilmer S. (1976) "School Tax Increase During Hard Times--The Birmingham Story." Paper presented to the Annual Conference of the American Association of School Librarians. Chicago, Illinois.

==References==
* Muscatine, Alison (April 9, 1993) "Montgomery Decides to Hire Birmingham Superintendent." ''The Washington Post''
* Hoff, David J. (November 3, 1999) "Ky.'s Commissioner of Education To Step Down at End of Year." ''Education Week''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cody, Wilmer}}
[[Category:1937 births]]
[[Category:2010 deaths]]
[[Category:Educators]]
[[Category:Birmingham schools administrators]]
[[Category:Federal officials]]