58 Hoover school employees to be reassigned due to rezoning

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The Hoover school board on Wednesday reassigned 58 school system employees in conjunction with the redrawing of school attendance zones approved by a federal judge in December and the rezoning of an estimated 1,900 to 2,200 students to new schools this August.

Forty-seven of those employees are teachers with teaching certificates, and the others include three special education employees, three English language learning instructors, two enrichment teachers, two child nutrition workers and one custodian, Superintendent Kathy Murphy said.

Of the 47 teachers with teaching certificates being moved, 31 are from Brock’s Gap Intermediate School, while 14 are from South Shades Crest Elementary, one is from Deer Valley Elementary and one is from Shades Mountain Elementary, according to a list provided to the school board. There was no list provided of the other employees.

Murphy commended the employees who are being reassigned, calling them “troopers.” Most were enthusiastic about the change, and others, while maybe not eager, were willing to embrace change, she said.

“We do believe we have come up with the best plan we could,” Murphy said.

School officials needed to shift personnel to make sure they have enough at each school to work with students and had to keep in mind the racial makeup of faculty members at each school in conjunction with the federal desegregation mandate, Murphy said. The school district wants to follow the letter of the law and the spirit of the law to get it right, and the faculty reassignment plan was done in concert with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, she said.

On a related note, U.S. District Judge Madeline Haikala on Tuesday approved a new student transfer policy in accordance with desegregation goals. The policy was put together in coordination with the school system, U.S. Department of Justice and NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Murphy said.

It allows for the school system to approve transfer requests from parents who want their students to attend a school outside their assigned school zone, if space is available, for three reasons:

  1. The transfer will help the racial demographics of schools where the percentage of African-American students is 5 percentage points higher or 5 percentage points lower than the districtwide racial composition for African-American students (which is about 29 percent).
  2. The transfer request is due to a documented substantial hardship, such as the incarceration of a parent, terminal illness of a parent, natural disaster, or health problems that make it necessary for a student to attend a specific school.
  3. The student’s parent is employed by the school district.

If space is not available at a particular school to accommodate all transfer requests, the school district must choose a lottery system to identify students who may transfer and establish a waiting list for any future transfers requests. Priority will be given to substantial hardship requests.

The school district will provide transportation for students seeking a racial desegregation transfer.

Murphy said none of Haikala's orders have specifically addressed the school system's plan for "grandfathering" certain students to keep them from being moved to a new school, such as students entering grades 9-12 this year or students who otherwise would be zoned to a new school for one year only (students entering the fifth or eighth grades),

However, the school system plans to proceed with that "grandfathering" plan as presented to the court, she said.

There were 743 students offered the "grandfathering" option, and so far, 361 have said yes to that offer, and 156 have declined it, Murphy said. School officials are waiting to hear from other students' families, she said.

Another note related to rezoning: Murphy told the Hoover City Council on Monday that the Hoover school district is having to buy 10 additional buses due to rezoning and will, of course, have to pay for fuel, maintenance and drivers for those buses as well.

In other business Wednesday, the school board:

  • Approved a contract extension and $20,000 raise for Murphy, boosting her salary to $218,900.
  • Received a proposed new drug testing policy that would allow the school district to drug test any school employee due to reasonable suspicion, not just employees in safety-sensitive positions. The board is scheduled to consider that policy at its June 5 meeting.
  • Honored 19 retiring employees who together have 544 years of service in education, including Hoover High School Assistant Principal Rita Barksdale.