Cooper signs off after 10 years on school board

Only a few people have been asked to serve more than one five-year term on the Hoover school board, and Green Valley resident Earl Cooper is one of them.

Cooper just finished serving 10 years and said he’s grateful city leaders had enough confidence in him to let him to do that.

The Hoover school board has dealt with several controversial issues over the past decade, drawing much attention for an effort to get rid of school buses in 2013 and dealing with community worries over multiple school rezoning plans in the past four years.

But Cooper said his background in the military, corporate world and volunteer realm prepared him well for the school board.

He worked 35 years for Alabama Power and retired at the end of 2013 as director of major accounts, and he spent 25 years with the U.S. Army, including five years of active duty and 20 in the reserves before retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1998. He also worked as a volunteer and member of the board of directors for several organizations, including the Hoover City Schools Foundation, and served on the Community Planning Team that studied school rezoning scenarios in 2004 and 2005.

Those roles allowed Cooper to see a lot of issues from many perspectives, he said.

School bus votes

The school bus issue drew statewide and even national attention, as some people claimed it was an effort to get rid of poor black students who relied on bus service. Cooper said that was never the intent. Former Superintendent Andy Craig and the school board were simply looking for ways to cut costs, he said.

Cooper was one of four board members who voted to eliminate buses for most students in July 2013, but now he says he didn’t fully comprehend the ramifications of such a move.

“I didn’t understand the extent of the impact on students and families,” Cooper said. “There are a number of people who don’t have the wherewithal to transport children.”

School officials thought they could save $2.5 million a year by eliminating bus service for everyone but special education students, but “sometimes the juice is not worth the squeeze,” Cooper said.

The NAACP and U.S. Department of Justice intervened, and the Hoover school board rescinded its vote to eliminate buses in December 2013. Four months later, the board voted to charge fees to ride buses, pending approval by the U.S. District Court.

But that approval never came. Craig left Hoover for a position with the state and the school board, under the recommendation of new Superintendent Kathy Murphy, rescinded the vote to charge fees in August 2015.

It was too inconvenient and unfair to people, Cooper said. “You learn and move on.”

Rezoning

Redrawing school zones was disruptive as well, but necessary to give students schools closer to where they live and better align students with available space, Cooper said.

Craig put together several versions of a rezoning plan in 2014 and submitted one to the U.S. Department of Justice for review, but Murphy took a fresh look at rezoning when she arrived and crafted a new plan that eventually was approved in December for this coming school year.

“It was masterful work,” Cooper said of Murphy’s plan and process for developing one. “She was determined to make sure it was open and transparent.”

Cooper said he doesn’t anticipate having to rezone again for quite a while because a lot of forward thinking went into the plan. 

City funding

The city’s funding of the school system also has been a hot topic and played a big part in the 2016 election, Cooper said. While the new mayor and City Council increased funding for Hoover schools, it’s still a “huge uncertainty,” Cooper said.

“What’s really missing from the entire equation is the relationship between the school district and the city is not what it needs to be in order for both entities to benefit,” he said.

There still are trust issues between the two entities, he said.

While Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato has proposed to increase the city’s annual contribution to the school system from $5 million to $9 million a year, Cooper said there’s nothing to keep the city from reducing that amount if times get tough for the city. The school system needs an explicit commitment that a certain amount of money will be there regardless of what happens, he said.

Brocato said the city has done everything it can to support the school system and he believes his recommendation to increase funding to $9 million a year is an incredible commitment. But there is no way for him or the current council to bind a future council’s decisions, he said.

Brocato said he is willing to push for a property tax increase for Hoover schools, but the school system is the one that needs to ask for that and has never done so.

As for trust issues, Brocato said he doesn’t believe there is a problem. He meets and talks with Murphy regularly and described their relationship as wonderful and open.

It’s unfortunate that Cooper feels that way, Brocato said. “He is a holdover from the old regime. The timing may be right that he has moved on, and we are able to start fresh with a new board. I look forward to working with each and every one of them.”

Parents, discipline, academics

Cooper said some of the overarching challenges he and other school board members have faced are parental involvement, student discipline and academic performance.

Hoover has incredible overall parental involvement, but still not enough parents are plugged into their children’s education, he said. 

“My wife used to tell me, as a lifelong educator, if she could find out how students learn, she could teach them, but she can’t teach parents how to be parents,” Cooper said.

Student discipline also is becoming more challenging in today’s society, Cooper said, as students have a lot more personal freedom and access to a lot more things.

Hoover has a high transiency rate, which impacts efforts to improve academic performance, Cooper said. Students come and go more frequently and don’t have a Hoover education all the way from kindergarten to 12th grade. Hoover’s academics are rigorous, and some of those children moving into the system may come in below grade level and require more help, he said.

Some of Hoover’s test scores and rankings have dropped, but while those are important indicators, they don’t tell the whole story of what’s happening in a school, Cooper said.

 “What we do with any child at any academic level when they come to us is phenomenal,” he said. “The resources we have, the caring we have for those children — all children — is exceptional.”

Cooper’s leadership

Former Hoover school board member Donna Frazier, who served seven years with Cooper on the board, said he did an excellent job.

She described him as likely one of the most intelligent school board members with whom she served and “one of those people you just always felt like had your back.” He was always available when she needed to discuss a school issue with him and, as the husband of a former Hoover teacher and principal in Vestavia Hills, “Earl just always brought a different perspective to the school board,” Frazier said.

He is a no-nonsense type of person, passionate about whatever he does and always thought it was important for everyone in the community to have a voice, Frazier said. He also showed tremendous poise and dedication to the school system while helping his son recover from burn injuries at a hospital in Georgia, she said.

New school board President Craig Kelley said he learned a lot working with Cooper over the past four years. His knowledge and articulate manner can’t be replaced, he said.

Cooper said he’s glad he had the chance to give back to a community and school system that has given so much to him and his family. 

“We’ve got a good thing going. It can continue to go, but the challenges are real,” he said. “The real challenge becomes keeping your eye on the ball, looking at societal changes and how they manifest themselves in students and families and continuingto adjust.”

This story was updated at 4:11 p.m. on June 29 to correct the date on which the Hoover school board rescinded its vote to eliminate most school buses. The vote to rescind was in December 2013.