Hoover school rezoning meetings get started again after year hiatus

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Hoover school rezoning talks with the public officially restarted tonight after a yearlong hiatus.

New Hoover schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy led a public discussion at Brock’s Gap Intermediate School, explaining to parents, teachers and others why the Hoover school district needs to redraw attendance zones.

About 80 people showed up for the meeting in the school cafeteria – the first of five community meetings to be held over the next two months.

Parents well remember the turmoil associated with former Superintendent Andy Craig’s rezoning plan, which sent many communities into an uproar in the summer and fall of 2014. Craig’s plan, after numerous revisions, went to the U.S. Justice Department for review and was shelved when Craig left the system to take a job with the Alabama Department of Education in January.

But the school district still needs to redraw school zones, Murphy said tonight.

First, the school system needs to redistribute children to better utilize its school buildings, she said. Trace Crossings Elementary School is only at 52 percent capacity, while Deer Valley Elementary is at 108 percent capacity, she said.

“There are more children there than there need to be,” she said.

Plus, Hoover High School, with roughly 2,900 students this year, is basically filled to capacity, even after a recent classroom addition, Murphy said. Most of the growth in the city is occurring on the western side of the city, she said.

Second, the Justice Department wants to make sure no group of students – particularly black children -- are being treated differently than other students and segregated by race, Murphy said.

The Justice Department does not want there to be a preponderance of minority students at any given school and wants to make sure that all groups of students receive the same type of educational opportunities, regardless of race, she said.

Federal officials are examining the quality of each school building, transportation opportunities, the availability of extracurricular activities to each group of students and the racial breakdown of faculty at each school and the system in general, Murphy said.

“We realize we are underrepresented with minority teachers in our district,” Murphy said.

Murphy said her philosophy is to hire the best possible teacher, regardless of race. However, when teachers are similar in quality and experience, she might consider race as a factor in an effort to have better minority representation among Hoover teachers and faculty, she said.

While the Justice Department would like to see students spread out somewhat equally among schools, it also doesn’t want to see school districts yank minority children from the community in which they live and make them travel all the way across town to another school just so they can have more minority children in another school, Murphy said.

All that said, “the Department of Justice is not in the business of telling us what we have to do,” Murphy said. “The Department of Justice is working with us, and they’re collaborating with us.”

Murphy opened up the floor for questions and comments, and numerous people came forward to speak.

One single mom with children at Brock’s Gap Intermediate and South Shades Crest Elementary said she was concerned about the potential of sending her children to a different school that might have a lower quality of teaching. There are differences in test scores among schools, and she wanted to know how the school district assigns teachers.

Murphy said as children move with rezoning, teaching units will have to move with them. School administrators will first seek volunteers to move but will move teachers involuntarily if they must, she said.

Toni Ellis, a parent of children at Brock’s Gap Intermediate and Trace Crossings Elementary, said she moved to Hoover because of the wonderful quality of the schools and wants to make sure her children continue to get a great education.

Murphy said she is passionate about making sure every child in every school gets a great education and she expects every teacher to come to their classroom with passion and commitment, focusing on each’s child’s abilities and weaknesses.

Parents should not worry about any Hoover school not having great teachers, she said.

“We have some awesome teachers in Hoover City Schools,” Murphy said. But “if there are teachers who are not helping us make progress, I have no trouble having a courageous conversation.”

Amber Jones, a parent with children at Brock’s Gap Intermediate and Deer Valley Elementary, asked if leaders with the city of Hoover were going to be part of the conversation about rezoning.

Murphy said it will take all facets of the community to make Hoover City Schools what they need to be. She said she has talked with Mayor Gary Ivey and he committed to work collaboratively with school officials to keep the district moving along the right track.

She’s grateful to the city for its recent decision to give $346,000 of BP oil spill settlement money to the Hoover school system. “I hope there’s more to come,” she said.

Heather Steele, another parent, asked about city leaders continuing to allow new homes to be built in Hoover when schools are overcrowded. She wanted to know what the city would do to help educate the children that will come with those new houses.

Murphy said city officials are thoughtful enough to contact her to let her know when a new subdivision may be coming. She also has had conversations with some builders about their plans, she said.

“I’ve rained on a couple of their parades,” she said. However, she may not be able to stop them from building, she said.

Nancy Densmore, a grandmother of students at Deer Valley Elementary, Brock’s Gap Intermediate and Bumpus Middle School, said after the meeting that the city needs to stop the building. “They’ve been putting subdivisions on every piece of land they could,” she said.

Lisa Caldwell, a parent of students at Brock’s Gap Intermediate and Bumpus Middle School, asked how Murphy felt about making students go past other schools to get to their own school.

Murphy said both she and the Justice Department frown at pulling students out of their community and sending them far away to another school. However, there could be some situations where students have to travel past another school to get their school, she said.

Another parent asked whether any students would be “grandfathered” and allowed to stay at their current schools.

Murphy said she understands the concern that parents have about moving their children, especially in the high school grades. However, particularly at elementary schools, it’s too early to say whether “grandfathering” will be a part of the plan, she said.

Lauren Ward, a longtime resident of Hoover, said she had always felt good about living in the Hoover community  but was upset by comments made during the rezoning process last year and concerned that Lake Cyrus residents were not represented on the school board.

Bill Swopes, another Lake Cyrus resident, said after the meeting he was very concerned with the previous rezoning plan.

“There was a lot of politicking going on,” he said. “I don’t know if that plan was going to address the long term.”

The previous rezoning plan seemed to be only a short-term fix for Deer Valley Elementary, he said. He’s glad to see that Murphy seems to be looking for a long-term solution, he said.

Murphy has four more community meetings planned and will take feedback from all the meetings, talk with school system staff and the Justice Department and try to come up with a rezoning plan to present to the public in January.

There will be more community meetings at that point to seek additional input, and then she hopes to have a plan ready for the school board to review by February or March, with a school board vote in March or April, she said.

“At the end of the day, it’s probably not going to be a perfect plan for everybody,” Murphy said. But “we have to look at the big picture even though we’re taking into account consideration each community.”

See the schedule for the next four community meetings about school rezoning. School officials would prefer people come to meetings designed for their school community (due to space concerns), but Murphy said anyone is welcome at any of the meetings.