Hoover superintendent plans community meetings on school safety

Hoover schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy today announced the district will hold two community meetings in early March to discuss school safety in light of last week’s deadly school shooting in Florida.

The meetings will give school officials a chance to relay what they’re doing to protect students and give parents a chance to share suggestions and concerns as well, Murphy said.

The first meeting will be March 6 at 6 p.m. in the auditorium at Spain Park High School, and the second will be March 8 at 6 p.m. in the auditorium at Hoover High. Information shared by school officials at each meeting will be the same, and each meeting is expected to last 1 to 1 ½ hours, Murphy said.

Murphy said she has invited Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato, police Chief Nick Derzis, fire Chief Clay Bentley, Councilman Derrick Murphy (chairman of the council's Education Committee) and Mac Hardy with the National Association of School Resource Officers to attend the meetings as well.

She met with principals from Hoover schools Monday to discuss some areas where the school district wants to focus its time and resources and wants to have similar conversations with parents, she said.

The Hoover City Council on Monday night agreed to hire two additional part-time school resource officers, giving the city a total of 11 full-time school resource officers, 15 part-time reserve officers and 2 full-time sergeants to oversee and work with the school resource officers in Hoover schools. Each of Hoover’s 16 schools now will have a police officer in it, City Administrator Allan Rice.

City officials had planned to expand the school resource officer program to provide full coverage in fiscal 2019 but went ahead with the move early in light of the shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school that left 17 students and teachers dead on Feb. 14.