School rezoning becomes reality

It’s finally happening.

The Hoover school rezoning effort that began four years ago with former Superintendent Andy Craig is taking effect with the first day of school on Aug. 8.

It has been a long and winding road filled with anxiety, protests, compromise and hard decisions.

After multiple versions of the plan, roadblocks and a lengthy approval process, final approval from U.S. District Judge Madeline Haikala came in December 2017. Hoover school officials have been working since that time to make implementation of the rezoning plan go as smoothly as possible.

School officials estimate that 1,900 to 2,200 of the nearly 14,000 students in the district were shifted to new schools because of the rezoning.

The whole purpose is to make better use of available classroom space, put students in schools closer to their homes and make room for future enrollment in high-growth areas, officials said.

In addition to redrawing school attendance zones, the rezoning plan also changed the grade configurations of several schools.

South Shades Crest Elementary is converting from a K-4 school to a K-2 school, and Brock’s Gap Intermediate School is changing from grades 5-6 to grades 3-5, but only for students in the new South Shades Crest Elementary zone.

School officials added fifth grades back to Trace Crossings and Deer Valley elementary schools. In the past, those students would have moved to Brock’s Gap for fifth grade.

Also, sixth-graders who would have been at Brock’s Gap this year are moving to Bumpus Middle School, making Bumpus a school for grades 6-8 again.

Enrollment changes

The changes mean far fewer kids at both Brock’s Gap Intermediate and South Shades Crest Elementary this year. School officials are trying to make room for more students who eventually will come from new subdivisions being built in western Hoover, such as Lake Wilborn and Blackridge.

But the short-term impact is a drastic reduction in numbers. Brock's Gap Intermediate Principal Scott Mitchell expects his school to be cut in half — from more than 800 kids last year to about 400 this year. “It’s mind-boggling,” he said.

The number of teachers and staff is dropping accordingly, from more than 70 last year to under 40 this year, he said. About half of those leaving are going to Bumpus to work with sixth-graders there, while others are going to Simmons and Berry middle schools and Gwin, Deer Valley and Trace Crossings elementary schools, he said.

It’s like a family breaking up. With grade configurations changing, half of his staff this year will be new to the building, Mitchell said.

“It’s been tough emotionally because half of your staff is leaving,” he said. But at the same time, “I’m excited about the new changes. It’s going to be refreshing to have the little ones.”

School officials have been busy this spring and summer making physical changes at Brock’s Gap to accommodate younger — and smaller — children. They spent $65,000 to replace the lunchroom serving lines to match the shorter students, Mitchell said. Brock’s Gap initially was home to Bumpus Middle School, with grades 6-8.

As such, the school also did not have a playground, so school officials are adding a $200,000 playground for the younger students, Mitchell said. They spent $50,000 to add an awning on the side of the school to give the elementary children a covering for carpool dropoff and pickup and a couple thousand dollars to convert lockers into covered lock-free cubbyholes, he said.

Because all the students are now elementary age, they no longer have need for the physical education lockers, so those are being moved to Simmons Middle School, Mitchell said. Band equipment and choir risers went to Bumpus.

The band room at Brock’s Gap is being converted for use as training space for the entire district, Mitchell said. Previously, that was done at the old Berry High School campus, which was sold to the Vestavia Hills Board of Education.

Only two of the three wings at Brock’s Gap will be used for regular classrooms this year, he said. The third one will house the YMCA after-school care program and be used for storage and auxiliary services, he said. The school district’s student services department already has been in the building the past two years, he said.

Mitchell’s new PTO leaders are gung-ho and excited for a fresh start, he said. All the schools held a transition night that included a school tour in early May, and Brock’s Gap had a kickball game between teachers and kids on July 12 to help them get acquainted.

South Shades Crest Elementary last year ended the year with 640 to 650 kids and expects to begin this year with 350 to 370 K-2 students, Principal Kara Scholl said. 

Second-grade teachers are moving up to the second floor to make room for younger students on the first floor, and there will be some extra space for a while until more families move into the new subdivisions being built, she said.

With grades 3-4 moving to Brock’s Gap, there won’t be a safety patrol, so adults will help oversee kids as they arrive and depart, Scholl said. There’s a possibility second-graders might be ready for safety patrol by the second semester, but she’s not sure yet, she said.

“This will be a learning year for us,” she said.

Her K-2 leadership team already has visited other K-2 and K-3 schools to observe how they handle things, she said. With a smaller school, scheduling for things such as lunch will be different, but the rezoning has no effect on instruction, she said.

Some of her PTO officials had expressed concerns about being able to raise as much money with fewer parents, but Scholl pointed out that their expenses also should decrease with fewer students.

“I really feel like it’ll balance out pretty well,” she said.

Bumping up sixth grade

Bumpus Middle School, which has had only grades 7-8 since moving to its current location seven years ago, will gain students this year with the addition of a sixth grade. Last year, Bumpus had about 840 students, and this year there should be about 1,030, Principal Tamala Maddox said.

The Bumpus building, which originally was built as a freshman center for Hoover High, was built with the idea of converting it into a 6-8 middle school, so it has room for the sixth grade.

Maddox said the third floor, which in recent years has been used for in-school suspension and extra band practice areas, now will be used consistently for instructional programs.

Bumpus also will add a third lunch period and each grade will eat at different times. Sixth-graders will not be mixed with older students for physical education or academic courses, she said.

All the new sixth-grade teachers have moved in, and the school has added an assistant principal to oversee the sixth grade, Maddox said. Having grades 6-8 is now the more common model for middle schools including Berry and Simmons, she said, and that’s the way it was done at Bumpus prior to moving to its current location.

Two-thirds of the students at Bumpus this year will be new to the school, she said. 

Seven of the 12 sixth-grade teachers are coming from Brock’s Gap, and the fifth-grade counselor from Brock’s Gap has moved to be the sixth-grade counselor at Bumpus, she said. The choir director at Brock’s Gap also has moved to Bumpus.

Maddox said she has worked with eight of the sixth-grade teachers prior to this school year, and all the teachers have been meeting together to form relationships and plan for their new teams.

A parent night is planned for parents of sixth graders on Aug. 20 and parents of grades 7-8 on Aug. 21.

Guessing game

While school officials estimated that rezoning will directly impact 1,900 to 2,200 students, it’s almost impossible to know what the real impact will be, school system spokesman Jason Gaston said.

School officials rezoned addresses, and some families moved to avoid having their children switch schools, and new people who may or may not have school-age children are moving into the vacated homes, Gaston said.

Nathan and Beth Blanchard were among parents who moved their families to avoid changing schools. Their previous house on O’Neal Drive was rezoned from Bluff Park Elementary to Green Valley Elementary, and they moved where they did from Homewood specifically to go to Bluff Park Elementary School, Beth Blanchard said.

“We really felt passionately about Bluff Park Elementary,” she said. “We really didn’t like our choice taken away from us. All our friends from church go to Bluff Park Elementary.”

Fewer than 20 students were being rezoned from Bluff Park to Green Valley, and one of her two daughters had only one other person in her grade being rezoned, Blanchard said.

“It felt unfair period, but it felt really unfair when it’s so few of you being rezoned,” she said.

So they packed up their belongings and moved about two miles away to stay at Bluff Park.

J.T. and Peyton Newsome said rezoning also played a big part in their recent move. They had already considered looking for a bigger house, but when they found out their youngest daughter was being rezoned from Bumpus to Simmons, they accelerated their plans and in March moved from the Lakeview neighborhood across John Hawkins Parkway to Park Trace so their daughter could stay at Bumpus, J.T. Newsomesaid.

Most of their daughter’s friends with whom she had grown up were going to Bumpus, and they didn’t’ think losing connections with those friends in the tough middle school years would be good, he said.

‘Grandfathering’ and school bus service

Guessing how the actual enrollment will turn out also was complicated by certain students having the option to be “grandfathered” and remain in their previous school zone.

The “grandfather” rules, which apply only to students in Hoover City Schools last year, allow:

► Students entering grades 9-12 this year to remain in their previous school zone through graduation.

► Students entering fifth and eighth grades to remain in their current school for the last year of elementary or middle school before transferring to their newly zoned school.

► Students entering the second grade and being rezoned to South Shades Crest to remain at their current school for one year before moving to Brock’s Gap for third grade.

School bus transportation also was an important factor in the rezoning. School officials said any Hoover City Schools student who received bus service last year will be able to receive it again this year, regardless of how close they live to their newly zoned school.

The school district had to add 10 buses to accommodate the demands of rezoning, Gaston said. Instead of buying new buses for $800,000, the district refurbished 10 older buses, detailing the exterior, recovering all the seats and replacing all the necessary parts and decals as needed for about $22,500, he said.

School officials budgeted $370,000 for 10 bus drivers’ salaries and benefits, but now they think they may not need quite that many, he said.

Since school enrollment numbers fluctuate so much during the summer anyway, school officials may not know the full numerical impact of rezoning until October, Gaston said.