Hoover Schools plan more than $35 million in capital projects

The year 2019 could hold several big capital projects for Hoover City Schools.

This includes a $5.4 million, 34,000-square-foot band suite at Hoover High and the $18 million Riverchase Career Connection Center, a skilled trades center for high school students scheduled to open in August at the site of what was Pelham’s Riverchase Middle School.

And, the school board is eyeing $14.1 million worth of classroom additions at Berry Middle School and Bluff Park Elementary to handle growing enrollment.

RIVERCHASE CAREER CONNECTION CENTER

The new skilled trades center at the former Riverchase Middle School represents a change in mindset about the mission of Hoover schools, said  Superintendent Kathy Murphy.

There is a misconception that all high school students are going to go to college and come back with a degree in their hands, the superintendent told the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce in November.

But, “regardless of what your mom said, I don’t think all students have to go to college,” she said. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that only 69 percent of the nation’s high school graduates go to college, Murphy said. Hoover’s percentage is higher than that, but the question is still whether those students not going to college are prepared for the workforce, she said.

The new Riverchase Career Connection Center will offer instruction in five areas: building sciences (carpentry, electrical, welding and heating and air conditioning); culinary arts and hospitality (cooking, serving and event planning); cyber innovation (computer programming, networking, coding and cyber security); health sciences (nursing, pharmacy and home health care) and fire and emergency services.

The Cyber Innovation Academy will be a re-creation of the information technology academies that were shut down at the high schools this year, Murphy said, because they weren’t preparing students well enough and needed to be retooled with a different focus.

The Culinary Arts and Hospitality Academy will be an expansion of the family and consumer science program, shifting the curriculum to equip students for commercial cooking, she said.

The Health Sciences Academy will include a simulated emergency room, operating room and the back half of an ambulance built into a learning space to give students hands-on training. The Fire and Emergency Services Academy, with help from Hoover Fire Department and Shelton State Community College, will include a fire engine bay with a real fire truck. 

Currently, Hoover students can earn career certifications for Microsoft office, engineering, accounting and financial services, CPR, patient care technician, food service and building sciences.

The building sciences certifications are offered through a partnership with the Academy of Craft Training in Birmingham, but Murphy said the Riverchase facility will meet demand that exceeds the Academy’s capacity.

The Riverchase Career Connection Center will allow Hoover to offer certifications in carpentry, electrical work, welding, cooking, food service management, information technology, home health care, pharmacy and fire and emergency medical services, Murphy said.

CLASSROOM ADDITIONS

Murphy also is soon hoping to begin an 18-classroom addition at Berry Middle School that is expected to cost $7.5 million, an eight-classroom addition at Bluff Park Elementary School that is expected to cost $5.7 million and the demolition of certain older buildings on the Bluff Park campus and renovation of others, which is expected to cost about $920,000 combined.

The Berry Middle School classroom addition, which would include six classrooms on three levels, is the most critical one, Murphy said. 

This story is part of our Year in Preview. See more here.