Assistant superintendent finds new role in career center

Ron Dodson has been an assistant superintendent for Hoover City Schools for eight years, but starting Oct. 1, he’s moving into a new role that puts him closer to students.

Dodson has been named director of the new Riverchase Career Connection Center, which will help prepare students for skilled trades. The center will be located in the former Riverchase Middle School site and is scheduled to start serving students in August 2019.

Dodson helped with the acquisition of the building from Pelham City Schools and has been heavily involved in plans for renovation and the career programs that will be there.

School officials began looking for a director for the center in December and had interviewed people for the job but had not quite found the right fit, Dodson said. “I eventually realized I was looking for myself,” he said.

He had been thinking about the next step for his career and whether to move out of state or perhaps get back into teaching, but the more he thought about it, directing the skilled trades center is the ultimate opportunity for him, he said.

There’s a strong demand for people in skilled trades, and many students are looking for opportunities to learn those skills whether they’re going to college or not, Dodson said.

Hoover hasn’t had a skilled trades program, and “I’m going to make sure this idea works before I hang it up,” he said in reference to future retirement.

He talked with Superintendent Kathy Murphy about the job change, and she sent it to the Hoover school board for approval in July. Now, he’s got less than a year to get the facility and its programs up and running. “We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Dodson said.

School officials plan to start with six programs: building and construction trades (carpentry, electrical and heating and air conditioning), welding, fire service, information technology, health sciences and culinary arts.

Some demolition work has been done inside the building, and school officials hope to begin renovation soon after getting final engineering plans approved by the Alabama Building Commission. Most of the work is internal renovation, but part of an exterior wall will be torn down to build doors for a simulated fire station bay, Dodson said.

The gym will be used for building and construction trades, and the kitchen will be used for culinary training, he said. One academic wing of the school will be converted into a simulated hospital.

Students will come to the career center for half of their school day, but their time at the career center will be different, Dodson said. Instead of 45-minute periods with bells telling them to switch classes, students will clock in and out like they would at a real job, he said.

They’ll still spend half of their day at Hoover or Spain Park high schools so they can maintain connections with sports teams, arts programs and other electives.

Dodson said he will continue helping with some central office duties for a while. Murphy said she doesn’t plan to replace him immediately but likely will wait until the following school year to recommend a replacement.

“I’ve just been blessed to have him serve as a right-hand person to me,” she said. “He is going to be sorely missed, and the work he has done in this building is going to be sorely missed.”

As assistant superintendent, Dodson has specialized in curriculum and instruction and was instrumental in working to develop and implement the school system’s rezoning plan.

Before being named assistant superintendent in 2010, he served six years as director of curriculum and instruction. Before that, he worked as an assistant principal at Hoover and Spain Park high schools and taught chemistry, astronomy and theory of knowledge at W.A. Berry High School.