Former Hoover school board member calls for new performing arts center
Former Hoover school board member Stephen Presley tonight called on the board to build a new performing arts center for the school system.
Presley, who served five years on the board before ending his term in May of last year, told the current school board members that it’s past time for the Hoover arts programs to have a sufficient place to perform.
Hoover High School, with nearly 3,000 students, has an auditorium that seats only 270 people, Presley said. Spain Park High School, with more than 1,600 students, can seat 450 people in its auditorium, choir director Jim Schaeffer has said.
This past Friday night, all of the show choirs from Hoover’s intermediate, middle and high schools performed a showcase at Spain Park, and there wasn’t enough room for the audience, Presley said. Some had to watch via a livestream feed in the cafeteria, he said.
Then later in the weekend, he attended a show choir competition at the Opelika Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Opelika High School, he said. That facility, which seats 1,100 people, is spectacular, he said.
The Hoover school system has a lot of big construction projects that are going to be needed in the near future, and “it’s going to take some drastic steps I know to do that,” Presley said. “We just need to throw this one in there with it.”
Unless somebody has $20 million to donate to build a new performing arts center, he strongly urges the school board to look into doing it, he said.
“The students deserve it. Our faculty deserve it. Our city deserves it,” Presley said. “These kids deserve the absolute best, and I would appreciate your attention at looking into that.”
Amy Tosney, who took Presley’s seat on the school board last year, said after the meeting she was thrilled that Presley brought this issue up. Her daughters are in the choir programs at Hoover High and Simmons, and she also was at the show choir showcase Friday night and at the competition in Opelika on Saturday, she said.
“For a school system and city as large as ours, it was frustrating to see so many people sitting on the floor or standing against the wall at Spain Park Friday night,” Tosney said. “Fine arts is so important, and it’s time for a state-of-the-art facility.”
Hoover school board President Earl Cooper said he, speaking for himself only, thinks it’s unfortunate the 155,000-square-foot Finley Center, built by the city of Hoover at the Hoover Metropolitan Complex, is not currently capable of being used as a performing arts or music venue. He questioned whether modifications to the Finley Center could be made at a lower cost than a stand-alone multi-million-dollar concept being floated by city leaders.
City leaders keep suggesting the need for an expensive performing arts center but are not having meaningful discussions with school officials, Cooper said.
“Given the enhancements being done to the facilities in Birmingham, the Alys Stephens Center and the Wright Center at Samford, I am not sure another large venue can adequately compete and be profitably sustained in Hoover without the engagement of the schools,” Cooper said.
In other business tonight, the school system’s chief financial officer, Tina Hancock, presented the school board with a proposed revision of the school system’s supplemental salary schedule, which is used to pay athletic and academic coaches and employees who work with fine arts programs.
It would be a major change in the way those positions are funded, with more clarity and transparency about what those jobs entail and how much each person is paid for their work, Hancock said.
Superintendent Kathy Murphy asked the school board to review the proposal for possible adoption at the March 13 school board meeting. Check back with the Hoover Sun website in the coming days for more information about the supplemental pay scale changes.
The school board also tonight:
- Agreed to hire Axon Industries as the new landscaping maintenance company to serve Hoover schools. The school system was unsatisfied with the performance of the previous company, Owens Landscape Group, and wanted a new provider, Hancock said. Axon Industries’ contract goes into effect Wednesday, she said. Axon will be paid $319,000 a year, compared to $324,000 a year for Owens Landscape, she said. However, landscape pruning and chemical applications now will be handled by school system employees, Hancock said.
- Agreed to buy new software to track employees’ attendance and time on the job. The current time clocks and software being used, provided by Kronos, cost $285,000 in fiscal 2017, and replacing one time clock costs $7,000, Hancock said. The new software, provided by Frontline, will cost $244,000 the first year and $62,000 in succeeding years, and replacing a time clock will cost $2,000, Hancock said.
This article was updated at 10:56 p.m. with additional business handled by the school board Tuesday night and at 10:14 a.m. with comments from school board President Earl Cooper.