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Hoover parents, community eager to be part of school superintendent advisory council

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Photo by Jon Anderson

Photo by Jon Anderson

Photo by Jon Anderson

Finding volunteers for committees sometimes can be like pulling teeth, but Hoover schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy had no trouble bringing in a crowd tonight to start updating the school district’s strategic plan.

More than 300 people signed up for the Superintendent’s Advisory Council that will help school leaders find direction for the future, and about 130 people showed up at Metropolitan Church of God tonight for the first meeting.

Jennifer Maye, a parent of students at Hoover High and Deer Valley Elementary, was among them.

Maye said she came tonight because she cares a lot about the school district and is excited to have an opportunity to be a part of planning for its future. She believes it’s very important to have all stakeholders in the community involved and is hopeful this process will help make sure that school leaders don’t make decisions in isolation.

She also hopes it will help everyone better understand what’s going on in the school district, how and why decisions are made and how those decisions affect students as a whole, she said.

Murphy spent about an hour giving an overview of the purpose of her advisory council and how it will be divided up into committees to explore different topics, including: strategic planning; student growth, development and achievement; personnel; finances and budget; parent and community engagement; technology; and efforts to show compliance with federal desegregation efforts and get released from federal oversight.

Maye, the director of professional development for the Jefferson County Board of Education, said she is most interested in serving on the strategic planning or student achievement committees.

Another parent who showed up to volunteer tonight was Dunia Ritchey, who already has had six children go all the way through Hoover City Schools and still has two children at Spain Park High, one at Berry Middle and one at Shades Mountain Elementary.

All of her six older children went to college on scholarships and did remarkably well, and she thanks God and the Hoover school system, she said.

“I think it’s a fantastic school system, and I want to see it made even better,” Ritchey said when asked why she came. “I think Dr. Murphy is leading us in that direction, and I want to do whatever I can to move it forward.”

Ritchey said she formerly taught at Rocky Ridge and Gwin elementary schools and told her husband two weeks into her education career that they needed to move to Hoover to make sure their children could go to Hoover schools. She now works in professional development at Children’s of Alabama hospital and does medical editing in pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham but believes her experience in education will be beneficial as the advisory council discusses ways to challenge students in the classroom, she said.

She wants to serve on either the student achievement or community engagement committee, she said. “A school that is well supported by the community is a much more successful school,” she said.

Corey Bray, a dad at Deer Valley Elementary, also came tonight. He said he has coached youth sports and volunteered with Cub Scouts before but never been involved with an education council like this.

The school rezoning effort over the past few years sparked a greater interest in the school system, he said. His family thought they were going to be rezoned to a different school this year, but now they’re happy to remain at Deer Valley another year, he said.

He has a first-grader and third-grader, and “I want to be actively involved in their education,” he said.

He’s interested in the finance and budget committee. “I think it’s important to make financially sound decisions,” he said. “My wife and I focus on that with our personal finances.”

He’s an associate athletic director for compliance at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and he also hopes his involvement with the finance and budget committee will help give him a better understanding of financial administration, he said.

Murphy said the appeal for community involvement is sincere. “This is not something that we are just saying we want you to be a part of. This is an absolutely heartfelt desire,” she said.

Everyone has the same objective, and that is to move the school system forward, Murphy said.

Murphy said the advisory council will be charged with offering counsel, opinions and recommendations. Input received will be used to draft an updated strategic plan, but the plan will not be static, Murphy said. It will need to be updated regularly, she said.

The plan should contain measurable goals, not just nebulous ideas, and progress toward those goals should be tracked with deadlines, she said. She plans to start updating the school board about the strategic plan in some fashion at every board meeting, she said.

Tentative meeting dates have been established for the various committees:

All meetings will be at 6 p.m. at locations yet to be determined.

Hoover school officials plan to set up a system Wednesday where people can send a text to sign up for a committee if they have not already signed up for one, or if they have changed their mind about which committee they want to join, Murphy said. Check the school system’s website for details about that. 

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