Spain Park parents applaud Hoover career tech plans but share concerns

Spain Park High School parents tonight applauded the Hoover school system’s proposal to turn Riverchase Middle School into a skilled trades center but expressed concerns about moving current career academies there.

About 60 people showed up at Spain Park for the second of two public input meetings designed to discuss potential future uses of the middle school Hoover is acquiring from Pelham. The first such meeting was held last week at Hoover High.

Numerous parents tonight said they agree with school officials that there is a need for instruction in skilled trades, but some said they are very concerned about the possibility of current career academies such as engineering and health sciences being moved to the Riverchase site.

They fear the loss of instruction time while kids move from one campus to another and fear their children may have an even harder time scheduling all the advanced classes they want and need to prepare for college, they said.

While some of the students entering skilled trades may not be interested in college, most of the students in academies are taking high-level courses specifically to prepare for college, parents said.

Hoover schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy said “there are no intentions of forcing academies to move.”

However, at the same time, she couldn’t rule out that possibility, she said. “We very well may ask some of our academies to move,” she said earlier in the meeting.

School officials are dealing with an overcrowding problem at the high school level, and “we have to have some relief, particularly at Hoover High School,” Murphy said. “We didn’t buy this campus not to meet the need to provide some relief to our schools, and it does not make sense in many cases to run two very independent programs when a program in one location can serve students.”

However, Murphy reiterated that “we’re not looking to force people to do things.”

Her main desire is to provide programs for students who currently are not involved in career academies or might be better served with skilled trades instruction than what is being offered now.

“We are not serving students well who want to have a career, who want to have a skill set to go immediately out of high school and begin in the workforce,” Murphy said. “It’s a piece that we just haven’t done very well, and I own that, and I admit that. It’s a piece that we need.”

Assistant Superintendent Ron Dodson said some of the potential trades for which instruction could be provided at the Riverchase campus include building construction, carpentry, electrical work, heating and air conditioning, welding, computer science, cosmetology, culinary arts, hospitality, emergency medical and fire services, industrial automotive systems, landscape management and junior ROTC programs.

People in those industries have indicated a strong need for people with training for those types of jobs, Dodson said.

Dustin Love, a leader with the Alabama Associated General Contractors, said the top issue his industry is facing is the retirement of people with building skills such as electricians, welders and pipe fitters and no one to replace them.

“There’s a gap in our industry right now, and there are a lot of opportunities for kids,” Love said.

Amy-Jean Hargrove, a recruiter for Altec Industries, said there is a huge need in the manufacturing sector for people with trade skills, especially welders and industrial automotive painters. There are entry-level jobs in skilled trades that pay much more than she made in her sixth year as a teacher, she said.

Kim Estill, a Spain Park parent who also teaches English at Shelby County’s Career Technical Education Center in Columbiana, said her own children are going the college route, but many others don’t want to go to college.

“We have kids who are on the verge of dropping out. They do not think academically. They want to work with their hands,” she said.

She had one student who didn’t like most of his schoolwork but was an excellent welder. He almost dropped out of school but was convinced to stay at the career center and finish, she said. He went on to win a national welding competition and when he got his first paycheck outside of school, it was more than she makes as a teacher, she said.

“I just can’t express to you how important this school could be,” Estill said. “It’s an incredible opportunity. I think we just need to patient.”

Parents may have logistical concerns about moving from one campus to another, but if Shelby County can make it work with students coming from seven high schools, surely Hoover can make it work with only two high schools, she said.

Dodson said if Hoover school officials proceed with plans for a career training center at Riverchase, they hope to start offering classes there in August of next year.

The next steps would be to further inform students and parents about opportunities there, survey students to figure out which kind of trades most interest them and find teachers to teach those programs.

The idea would be to start small and expand programs over time, he said. He would like to start off with about 200 students the first year, but that will depend on demand, he said.

Joshua Laney, the senior director for workforce development at the Alabama Department of Education, said there are 68 career tech centers like this in Alabama already. “It can be done. It does work,” he said.

He doesn’t expect there to be a problem finding students to fill the programs, he said. Enrollment at every similar facility in the state is on the increase, he said.

“There are so many career opportunities we’re not even touching,” Laney said. “You’ve got kids that are interested in doing stuff that you don’t have programs for right now.”