Hoover schools shut down education, IT academies

The Hoover school system is shutting down its information technology and education academies for high school students due to declining interest, school officials say.

Both programs began about three or four years ago, but students aren’t sticking with them, Assistant Superintendent Ron Dodson said.

The education academy, designed for students interested in teaching, started at Hoover High School with about 30 students and this coming year was going to be down to about 10 or 15, Dodson said.

Superintendent Kathy Murphy said students, instead of enrolling in the education academy, were choosing involvement with the peer helping program, which allowed them to assist younger students with conflict resolution and work with elementary school teachers. 

But colleges also are seeing fewer students interested in entering the education field, Murphy said. 

The IT academies were offered at both Hoover and Spain Park high schools, and both were down to about 10 or 15 students, Dodson said. The IT program at Hoover High had about 60 students when it began, he said.

Murphy and Dodson plan to take a one-year hiatus with the IT academies and restart in August 2019, with a new program at the Riverchase Career Connection Center that has a stronger focus on coding, computer network administration and cybersecurity.

“These are the things our businesses and industry are telling us they need our students to come out of IT with,” Murphy said.

Murphy said she knows that dropping the academies has caused some angst, particularly among rising seniors, but school leaders will work with them to make sure they get the credentials they need.

“We want to offer children what they want and what they need to get ready for college or a job, but we simply can’t sustain programs that our students aren’t signing up for,” she said.

Both Hoover and Spain Park still offer academies in engineering, law, finance and health services, Dodson said.