Photos by Jon Anderson
Josh Donaldson, at left, is the new athletic director for Spain Park High School. At right, Hoover High Principal John Montgomery is retiring.
The Hoover Board of Education on Tuesday night approved the hiring of a new athletic director for Spain Park High School and the retirement of the principal at Hoover High School.
The school board approved Josh Donaldson as the new athletic director at Spain Park, replacing Patrick Kellogg.
Donaldson has worked 11 years in Homewood City Schools, spending the last six as Homewood’s head cross-country coach and last four years as head track and field coach as well.
He was the 2020-21 Homewood City Schools Secondary Teacher of the Year and grew Homewood’s Advanced Placement biology program from four students to 80 students while maintaining a 71% pass rate for the AP biology exam, Spain Park Principal Amanda Esslinger said.
This is quite remarkable because the state’s pass rate for the AP biology exam is 54%, she said.
Donaldson graduated from Homewood High School in 2008, obtained his bachelor’s degree in math and biology from the University of Alabama and a master’s degree in education from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
As an athlete and coach, he has been a part of 33 state championship teams and 17 state runner-up teams, Esslinger said. As a head coach, he had led Homewood’s cross country and track and field teams to six state titles, including this past outdoor track season that ended in May, she said.
He also has served in various event planning and leadership capacities at the Knight Eady and Show Choir Nationals event groups, she said.
“In addition to his obvious athletic and academic accolades, Coach Donaldson is a true servant leader with strong leadership, organizational skills and character,” Esslinger said. “We are happy to welcome him to Spain Park to help our student-athletes, teachers, coaches and athletic programs grow and succeed.”
Donaldson said he’s excited to take on this new role.
“I’m excited for this opportunity and for this privilege to join Hoover City Schools and Spain Park in order to help them continue their excellence on that foundation that is already there and work with the coaches along with the administration and the school in order to continue that excellence that we all know Spain Park and Hoover City Schools strives for,” he said.
Hoover High principal retires
The Hoover school board also approved the retirement of Hoover High School Principal John Montgomery, who has been principal at Hoover for 4 ½ years.
Montgomery said he has been in education for 39 years and is ready to retire. He has had some other job offers but decided he wants to step away for a while after a couple of hard years personally.
Montgomery was appointed principal at Hoover after the retirement of Don Hulin at the end of 2018. He had been an assistant principal under Hulin for 7 ½ years, giving him a total of 12 years at the school.
Montgomery got his start as a teacher and coach in private schools. He spent eight years at Chambers Academy, Sumter Academy and Morgan Academy. Then he spent 11 years as an assistant principal and head football coach at Pickens County High School, four years as an assistant head football coach and teacher at Tuscaloosa County High School and four years as an athletic director and head football coach at Northside High School before coming to Hoover as an assistant principal.
“I’ve been in schools from the Georgia line to the Mississippi line,” Montgomery told the Hoover school board Tuesday night. “The best school system I’ve ever been in, the best place I’ve ever worked my whole life was right here.”
The job has been hard at time, but it has been a pleasure to do it, Montgomery said. He thanked former Superintendent Kathy Murphy for hiring him as principal and current Superintendent Dee Fowler and the school board for being there to support him.
Even though he is retiring, people still might see him around from time to time, he said. “Once you become a Buc, you’re a Buc for life,” he said.
Fowler said he’s going to miss working with Montgomery, whom he talks to on an almost daily basis.
“Mr. Montgomery has worked tirelessly in what I consider to be probably the hardest job in the state of Alabama in public education, and he has done so magnificently,” Fowler said. “John, I don’t know anybody that could have done your job better than you have.
Being a high school principal is a very demanding job, Fowler said.
“John is unflappable,” he said. “To his credit, I’ve never seen him angry. I’ve never seen him raise his voice, and I’ve seen him in situations where either one would have been appropriate, but that has not occurred.”
Fowler said school officials already are working to find Montgomery’s replacements. The job has been posted for more than 10 days already, and interviews should begin by the end of this week, he said. Fowler said he would like to have a new principal in place by July 1 if possible.
