Hoover schools to offer in-person instruction 5 days a week starting Sept. 21

Students in Hoover City Schools whose parents enrolled them for in-person learning this school year will start going to school five days a week on Sept. 21, Superintendent Kathy Murphy said in a statement released late Monday afternoon.

This will end the four-week period where students are following a staggered schedule for in-person learning, with some students going to school on Mondays and Thursdays and others going on Tuesdays and Fridays, Murphy said.

Murphy did not give an explanation for the change in a written statement sent out to parents via email and shared on social media.

However, Murphy did say in the statement that school officials would continue to follow the COVID-19 numbers and allow science to inform their decisions.

Households that chose full-time virtual learning instead of in-person instruction will continue with that model of instruction, Murphy said.

Some parents welcomed the return of five days of in-person instruction with joy, but others expressed concerns.

Tonia Ballintine, the PTSO president at Spain Park High School, said that, speaking for herself as a parent, she thinks Hoover school officials have done a great job dealing with the epidemic thus far, and she was pleasantly surprised to hear about the return to five days of in-person instruction.

“I truly think they have our kids safety in mind and can get us back in the classroom. I think that’s what the kids, the parents and the teachers ultimately want,” Ballintine said. “The majority of parents I have talked with do feel this is the right decision.”

For those parents and students who are still concerned, there is still the option of online instruction, she said. “People still have a choice at the end of the day.”

However, Ballintine said some parents have wondered if parents who are having second thoughts about initially choosing in-person instruction will have an opportunity to switch to virtual learning now that students will be going back five days a week starting Sept. 21.

Efforts to reach school system spokesman Jason Gaston for comment about that were unsuccessful Monday night.

Rebecca Crossman, who has a ninth-grader at Hoover High and a sixth-grader at Simmons Middle School, said she has mixed emotions about the return to school for in-person instruction five days a week.

She and working parents are so glad to be able to send their children to school five days a week, “but we were just figuring this (virtual instruction) out and hoping to get in the groove,” Crossman said. “So were the teachers."

“I am so shocked and afraid that they called it too soon,” Crossman said. “There won’t be social distancing happening. There is no way.”