Hoover school board opposes effort to mandate longer summer breaks

The Hoover Board of Education on Tuesday night took a stand against an effort in the state Legislature to lengthen the summer break, not allowing school to start before Labor Day or end after Memorial Day.

Three Hoover school board members passed a resolution opposing any effort to create limitations on school start and end dates, instead encouraging state legislators to allow each local school board to set its own dates.

Hoover school board Vice President Deanna Bamman said it’s important that school calendars be decided at the local level.

Tera Simmons, the assistant superintendent for Hoover City Schools, said requiring 180 days’ worth of instruction in between Labor Day and Memorial Day could create numerous challenges for the school system.

In Hoover, it likely would mean students starting school on Sept. 8 and ending on May 28, no spring break, just two days off for Thanksgiving, a shorter winter break and no professional development or teacher workdays during the school year, Simmons said.

Students likely would have no weekdays off from February until Memorial Day at the end of May, she said.

School officials also expect such a calendar to lead to an increase in student discipline problems (due to a lack of breaks) and attendance problems with both students and teachers, particularly around holidays, Simmons said.

Hoover schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy said Hoover officials have tried to give at least one weekday out of school each month to give students and teachers a “mental break.”

Some people pushing for longer summers have argued that longer summer breaks from school would boost tourism dollars and help businesses that don’t want to hire students for just two months, but Murphy said academic calendars should be based on educational priorities.

“I do not see this being in the best interests of children,” she said.

Hoover school board President Craig Kelley said “the Legislature gets involved in some things they don’t need to get involved in. This is one of them.” He said he has respect for the job that legislators do, but “some people get off the reservation sometimes, and this is an example of that.”

Murphy also informed the school board that state legislators are considering a 3% pay raise for school employees for fiscal 2021.

The school system’s chief financial officer, Michele McCay, estimated that would cost Hoover schools at least $3.4 million from local revenues because Hoover would have to cover the extra pay for the 297 school employees not funded by the state and any extra costs due to Hoover’s pay scale being higher than what the state covers.

Past pay raises mandated by the state Legislature over the past four years have cost Hoover schools $5.4 million from local money, including a 4% raise in fiscal 2017 that cost $1.8 million, 2.5% raise in 2019 that cost $1.2 million and 4% raise in 2020 that cost $2.4 million, McCay said.

Murphy said school officials certainly appreciate the work done by teachers and other school employees, but mandated raises do have a significant financial impact and make it more difficult for school systems such as Hoover to keep student-teacher ratios lower than the average. McCay said she does not think Hoover can sustain another mandated raise such as the one being proposed.

On yet another statewide issue, Murphy and Kelley both voiced opposition to the Amendment 1 that will be on ballots statewide on March 3.

That amendment to the Alabama Constitution, if passed, would rename the Alabama Board of Education as the Alabama Commission on Elementary and Secondary Education and require members to be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate rather than being elected across the state in eight school board districts, as they currently are.

Kelley said he doesn’t want to give control of the state school board to the state Senate. There are too many senators in Montgomery who want to get their hands on what will be the $7.5 billion Education Trust Fund when there are too many unfunded mandates by the Legislature, he said.

Murphy urged people to be aware of the Amendment and to vote their convictions on it, not to skip over it on the ballot.