Hoover schools to open new center for elementary behavior issues

Behavior problems in Hoover elementary schools have prompted the Hoover school board to start a new program to deal with discipline issues.

Beginning with the 2020-21 school year, elementary school principals will have the option to send students who demonstrate extreme non-compliance with school rules and the code of conduct to a new Early Learning Center on the Hoover High School campus.

The Early Learning Center will be based at Hoover Hall, which is a separate building from the rest of the high school that houses the Second Chance program of the Crossroads alternative school for students with discipline issues.

However, Hoover Hall is easily divided into two sections so that elementary students will not have contact with the older students, Superintendent Kathy Murphy said.

The program is needed because elementary school principals say their teachers need help dealing with students whose extreme conduct is getting in the way of their own education and the education of others.

“Some children either don’t know or have forgotten how to play nice with others, and they struggle with things such as anger and fighting,” she said.

The teachers and principals can talk with the students about the problems, have parent conferences and even send them home for a few days, but sometimes problems persist when the students return, she said.

“The problem has been increasing exponentially, and a solution must be found,” Murphy said. “If they don’t find solutions for these younger children in their elementary school years, the middle and high schools will face even greater challenges in the future, and more children will be at risk of dropping out.”

The Hoover school board does not allow corporal punishment.

In March, Murphy told the school board “we really can’t help children academically until we also help them behaviorally.”

Her proposal was to create the Early Learning Center, where students can get help with their social and emotional development while at the same time they continue moving the students forward academically.

Students would be placed there only temporarily until it appears they are ready to return to their base school.

“This isn’t a place where we’re going to send them and that’s where they’ll stay,” she said. “This isn’t ‘Send them over there and forget about them.’”

Hoover school board member Amy Tosney asked what happens if a parent says they don’t want their child assigned to the Early Learning Center.

Murphy said, at some point in time, the code of conduct comes into play. The code of conduct for Hoover City Schools allows elementary students to be expelled or placed in an alternative school, though Murphy said more than once that “the Early Learning Center is not an alternative school.”

However, Murphy said Hoover school officials would rather avoid using the harshest disciplinary measures in the code of conduct if they can address the problems with the Early Learning Center.

The expectation is that the Early Learning Center would not exceed 20 students and that students would be divided between K-2 and grades 3-5, with a teacher working with one group of students on academics while a therapeutic counselor works with the other group on behavior issues. They then would swap groups.

Murphy said transportation to the Early Learning Center would be provided. There is already a cafeteria there, but there will need to be modifications to the restrooms to accommodate elementary students, some fencing to create an enclosed playground, and other upgrades, with all facility improvements totaling about $41,000. Salaries and benefits for a teacher, therapeutic counselor, aide, bus driver and bus aide are expected to cost $293,000, and curriculum and instructional materials should cost about $21,000, with expenses totaling about $355,000, Murphy said.

She hopes to fill the staffing needs by reshuffling positions within the system and getting some funding from the state for mental health needs.

The school board has also approved moving a behavioral assessment class for students with special needs who have behavior issues from Shades Mountain Elementary School to the Early Learning Center. There were six students in that class before school was dismissed due to the COVID-19 crisis.

The Early Learning Center should take up seven of 11 available classrooms at Hoover Hall, including the K-2 classroom, grades 3-5 classroom, behavioral assessment class, indoor physical education area, sensory room, conference room and an office.