Hoover schools already dealing with capacity problems, adding portable classrooms

Hoover schools already are dealing with overcrowding issues and will be adding portable classrooms to get by until a federal judge approves a rezoning plan, school officials said today.

Two portable classrooms will be added at Deer Valley Elementary School for the 2017-18 school year, Assistant Superintendent Ron Dodson told the school board in a special-called meeting this morning.

Deer Valley Elementary is expected to be more than 99 percent full next year, and Bluff Park Elementary is expected to be 98 to 99 percent full, Dodson said. Deer Valley is getting the portables because more home building is occurring in that area, he said.

Hoover’s middle schools are a “little in the yellow zone” in terms of capacity, and Hoover High School is “insufficient right now to what’s going to happen in the next few years in that area,” Dodson said.

The concern at the middle school level is Berry Middle School on the eastern side of town, which is expected to be at 92 percent of its capacity next year and potentially higher in the years to come if additional home building occurs, Dodson said.

Schools function best with enrollment between 80 and 90 percent of maximum capacity, school officials say. When enrollment exceeds 90 percent of capacity, instruction begins to suffer due to the inability of classes to move freely between specialized learning spaces and overcrowding in general classrooms, they say.

Riverchase Elementary is expected to be at 92 percent capacity next year, and Hoover High is expected to be at 91 or 92 percent of capacity, Dodson said.

If rezoning occurs as submitted to the federal court, Deer Valley likely will fall to 81 percent capacity after rezoning, but the other schools above 90 percent likely will stay above 90 percent, and some of them could get more crowded, Dodson said.

After rezoning, expected capacity is 92 to 93 percent at Bluff Park Elementary and Berry Middle, 94 to 95 percent at Hoover High and 95 percent at Riverchase, Dodson said. Hoover High could gain 2 to 3.5 percentage points a year, depending on how fast new communities southwest of Hoover High School grow, he said.

“All that undeveloped land southwest of Hoover High is the wild card,” Dodson said. “That’s thousands of homes.”

Superintendent Kathy Murphy this morning said school officials were serious when they said they have capacity issues. “This is a challenge, and, going forward, it will continue to be a challenge until we get this rezoning situated and figure out where all of our children will be and how do we approach the capacity issues,” she said.

Murphy said she is not at a point where she is ready to recommend to build a third high school or an addition to Hoover High. However, school officials on Wednesday plan to begin meeting with an architect to discuss those and other solutions to capacity problems, she said.

School officials want to examine what the costs would be to build and sustain such facilities, she said.

The pressures of overcrowding and federal court desegregation goals also have prompted school officials to re-examine their policy of allowing Hoover teachers and faculty to let their children attend whatever Hoover school they desire.

This policy has been in place for both faculty who live within the school district but want their children to attend a school outside their assigned zone, as well as for faculty who live outside of Hoover entirely.

On Friday, school officials sent an email to employees informing them that employees’ children would no longer to be able to attend schools outside their assigned zone if the desired school was at more than 90 percent capacity, unless their child already was enrolled at that school.

Exceptions would be granted for special education students in self-contained classrooms with services unique to the desired school or for students in the International Baccalaureate program, which is only offered at Hoover High. Another exception would be if the student has a sibling at the desired school, but that exception will be in effect only for students entering the new school in the 2017-18 school year.

The transfer process change caused much angst among faculty and caused school officials on Monday to change the capacity percentage threshold to 95 percent capacity instead of 90 percent capacity.

“This should eliminate any barriers at the middle or high school level for about two years, assuming that rezoning is implemented in 2018-19,” Dodson wrote in an email to employees Monday. “We will still have some problems, and crowded schools will get a little more crowded, but at least we will have some time to figure out a better answer for the long term.”

Dodson told employees he was “sorry for the tears and stress that Friday’s message created for so many of you.

“The revised procedure will not eliminate all heartache, I’m sure, but I hope our efforts demonstrate that we are trying to help even if it means a little more pain for crowded schools in the short term,” he wrote.

Hoover school board member Earl Cooper expressed concern about some faculty members losing this perk because it’s a good tool to recruit and retain the best teachers.

“The very best teachers oftentimes come with kids,” he said.

Dodson said he certainly understands that. When he was a classroom teacher, he received offers to move to other school districts, but the perk of being able to have his three sons in whatever Hoover school he chose kept him from leaving, he said.

However, school officials have to do something to address capacity issues, and transfer policies for children of employees is something the federal court is going to require Hoover to address, Dodson said.

“The ultimate test of that is: Is the way that we’re doing that helping our hurting our desegregation efforts?” Dodson said. “We’re going to ultimately have to structure these things so that they’re helping us in terms of reaching our desegregation goals … My hope is that we can find a way to continue to operate in this way, in a way that makes sense, that is not presenting a further financial burden on the district, but serves our employees well.”