Hoover Board of Education expected to rescind school bus fee proposal

During tonight's meeting at 6 p.m., the Hoover Board of Education is expected to rescind a proposal that would have charged students a fee for riding buses to and from school.

New Hoover City Schools Superintendent Dr. Kathy Murphy has a recommendation on the agenda to remove the fee-based transportation program that would have charged students up to $40.75 a month to ride the buses. Students living in poverty would have been charged less. The bus fee was never implemented as it required approval from a federal judge overseeing a longstanding desegregation case involving Hoover City Schools.

Hoover Board of Education President Derrick Murphy, who opposes the school fee proposal and became leader of the panel in June, said in an interview he agrees with the superintendent’s recommendation to rescind the bus fee plan.

  “I don’t think a fee-based system is the way to go,” Derrick Murphy said. “Passing on the costs for kids to ride the bus to and from school is not the right option.”

 Jill Ganus Veitch, who joined the school board in Hoover, said many Hoover city schools students have dual working parents and depend on the bus transportation.

“Rescinding this will remove an unknown for parents’ minds as it remains out there,” Veitch said.

 Parents with children in Hoover City Schools commended Dr. Kathy Murphy for taking action to rescind the bus fee proposal. Catrena Norris Carter, who spoke out against both the bus fee plan and a proposal by former superintendent Andy Craig to eliminate school bus transportation applauded the new superintendent for “doing the right thing.”

 “It’s wonderful to have a superintendent who speaks up for our children,” said Carter, who has two children in the eighth and twelfth grades in Hoover and a third who graduated last year.

Curt Posey says he walks his two children to school at Bluff Park Elementary, but felt it was unfair for the Hoover school board to even consider charging those whose children ride the school buses.

 “There are better ways to generate revenue,” Posey said. “There are a lot of parents who can’t afford that bus fee.”

Pam MacDougall, who helped create a “Save The Buses” Facebook page last year after the controversial plans to eliminate buses and then charge a fee were proposed, said the rescinding action on the agenda tonight gives her even more reason to be excited about the future of Hoover City Schools under the school system’s new leadership. She said Superintendent Dr. Kathy Murphy and Board of Education President Derrick Murphy “are doing a phenomenal job so far.”

“It was appalling to me as a parent when the former superintendent and the board even considered the option of ending bus transportation and when they proposed a fee plan last year it was another slap in the face,” MacDougall said. “Every child deserves the opportunity to get a good education in Hoover. Any proposal that hinders that fundamental right should be removed. This is a step in the right direction.”

Check the 280 Living website, 280living.com, for updates on the proposal to rescind the bus fee plan and other developments from the Aug. 3 school board meeting.