Photos by Jon Anderson and Hoover City Schools
The Hoover Board of Education on March 11, 2025, approved $3.7 million worth of construction projects at five schools. The schools are, from top left, Berry Middle School, Green Valley Elementary and Trace Crossings Elementary, and, bottom from left, Hoover High and Spain Park High.
The Hoover Board of Education on Tuesday approved $3.7 million in capital projects at five schools, including construction and renovation of restrooms, locker rooms, an athletic storage building and a cafeteria serving line.
The school board agreed to:
- Pay the J.E. Stevens Construction Group $1,393,000 to renovate restrooms at Hoover High School and build casework at Green Valley Elementary. Casework general refers to pre-built cabinets, shelves and storage units.
- Pay Blalock Building Co. $1,090,000 to build athletic restrooms and a storage building at Berry Middle School. This will be very similar to the athletic restrooms and storage building built a year ago at Bumpus Middle School, said Matt Wilson, the school system’s director of operations.
- Pay Blalock Building Co. $1,084,500 to renovate locker rooms at Spain Park High School. That project involves locker rooms that serve about 600 students, including the football teams, boys and girls basketball teams, soccer teams, flag football teams, cheerleaders and dance teams, Principal Amanda Esslinger said.
- Pay Singer Equipment Co. $144,865 to replace the cafeteria serving line at Trace Crossings Elementary School.
Combined, the four contracts were about $2.3 million under budget, Wilson said. In particular, the contract for the work at Hoover High and Green Valley was $1,575,000 under budget, he said.
Wilson said he’s not absolutely certain why the bids came in so far under budget. There was a wide swing in the Hoover High/Green Valley project, with bids ranging from $1,393,000 to $2,747,000, he said.
“All I can assume is the contractors got aggressive” and really wanted the job, Wilson said.
Board members questioned a representative of J.E. Stevens Construction Group about whether he felt his numbers were accurate. Board President Kermit Kendrick said it would be hard to get the school board to approve a change order if costs ended up being higher, and the representative said he felt good about their bid numbers and their ability to meet the school system’s timeline.
Wilson said most of the projects will be done this summer while school is out, but the Spain Park locker project might bleed over into the next school year some. It will not, however, impact school operations, he said.
The Berry Middle School project will take longer and likely won’t be complete until the spring of 2026, Wilson said.
In other business Tuesday, the school board approved a 25-cent increase in the cost of school meals for the 2025-26 school year due to rising food prices. That would put the cost of breakfast at $2 for elementary students and $2.25 for middle and high school students and the cost of lunch at $2.75 for elementary students and $3.25 for middle and high school students. Adults would pay $3.25 for breakfast and $4.25 for lunch.
The price increases would not apply to students in the free or reduced-price lunch program, Superintendent Kevin Maddox said.
