Photo courtesy of Shelby County Schools
Shelby County Schools Superintendent Lewis Brooks was recently named Superintendent of the Year For District Five of the State Superintendents Association. He is one of nine district recipients up for the award for State Superintendent of the Year.
Brooks spoke at a luncheon presented by the Shelby Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 30, along with superintendents from Hoover, Alabaster and Pelham.
“I think it is a blessing to work with the other leaders [in attendance] who are all tremendous leaders for their districts,” Brooks said.
Brooks has spent 32 years in education and served as deputy superintendent and assistant superintendent before being elected as the SCS superintendent in 2018 and is now in his second term.
He shared that he has a sticky note on his desk that he reads everyday that says “Today is an opportunity.”
“Every day is an opportunity for us to do something exceptional for our students,” he said.
He spoke about becoming compliant with the new Literacy Act that makes sure students are on reading grade level by third grade, adding “our teachers have worked extremely hard in the last year training consistently to make sure that we're delivering the correct instruction in the classroom to make sure our kids meet that goal.”
Over the past several years, the district has spent about $41 million on facility upgrades. Brooks said it’s extremely important to make sure the schools have an engaging classroom environment.
“We've invested a lot of resources in how our classrooms look,” he said. “Kids today are quite different from the way we grew up, so we want to make sure that the learning environment matches the level of engagement.”
He said the biggest challenge at schools in Shelby County is making sure that the health needs of the students are met, both physically and mentally.
“I think one of the greatest challenges that we face is mental health, and we have a program called Shelby Cares in our district, and we work with parents and students to make sure we can meet those mental health needs,” he said. “I think it's important as we continue to talk about the impact of mental health, to continue to have the dialogue and we can.”
Brooks said another challenge is the rapid growth throughout Shelby County and keeping pace with that growth. Shelby County Schools is the largest employer in Shelby County with over 2,899 employees. It is also the top performing county school district in the state on recent state assessment data.
Some of the statistics Brooks shared included:
21,000 students
31 schools in 7 school zones
15 elementary, 13 secondary, 3 centralized schools/programs
72% of graduating class planned to attend post secondary institutions
$47 million in scholarship money offered to the graduating class of 2023
Several new career tech programs have been or will be put in place, including a diagnostic services healthcare program at Calera High School, an aviation technology program at Shelby County High School in partnership with the Shelby County Airport, and an IT Pathway Program at Helena High School.
More Pre-AP classes were rolled out this year for ninth and tenth graders, along with anEMS program in partnership with Jefferson State Community College and a health concepts course with the University of Montevallo.
The middle schools also provide quality career program classes and the latest is the launch of virtual reality goggles. At the elementary level, SCS was recognized as the spotlight reading school district.
“We're just thrilled that we're delivering quality reading instruction to make sure that our kids are on pace to be on reading level. I'm just really blessed by that commitment by our teachers,” Brooks said.
