Hoover school board to meet Thursday about potential superintendent search

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The Hoover school board plans to meet Thursday to begin early discussions about a potential future superintendent search and review the school system’s proposed new strategic plan, board President Amy Tosney said Wednesday night.

Superintendent Dee Fowler, who was hired in the summer of 2021 to replace Kathy Murphy, has a little more than a year left on his three-year contract, but the board believes it could be facing a superintendent search before then, perhaps by the end of the 2023 calendar year, Tosney said.

She said Fowler has not told the board he is leaving, and the board isn’t planning to ask him to leave. However, the board wants to be prepared if Fowler decides to leave and may prefer to avoid having an interim superintendent, Tosney said.

The board on Tuesday called a special “board retreat” for 8 a.m. Thursday at the offices of its law firm, Bishop Colvin, at 1910 First Ave. N. in Birmingham. Tosney on Wednesday night said two items on the agenda include discussion of a new strategic plan that was presented in March and talking with their attorney about the process they could undertake to find a new superintendent.

The last time the board had a superintendent search in late 2020 and early 2021, it hired the Alabama Association of School Boards to assist with the search, narrowing down applicants to a list of five finalists. However, after interviewing the finalists, the board in April 2021 eliminated all five finalists from consideration and opened the door to consider other candidates. Fowler was hired about three weeks later.

Board Vice President Amy Mudano, whose five-year term expires at the end of May and who is applying for reappointment, said one of the reasons she wants to continue to serve is because she believes her experience would be valuable if the board needed to find a new superintendent.

Fowler, when asked last week if he was planning to retire again (he came out of retirement for the Hoover superintendent job), said he had made no decision about that and noted he still had a year left on his contract.

Fowler said he loves living in Hoover but also noted he has a house in Fairhope and noted the birth of a new grandchild sometimes makes people think differently about life.

“Hoover has been so kind to my family and me,” Fowler said. “We love our neighbors. We love our neighborhood. … I don’t have to suck up to the board. The board has been so gracious and kind to me.”

STRATEGIC PLAN

The board also wants to discuss a draft strategic plan that was put together by a consultant with the Alabama Association of School Boards and presented to the board in March, Tosney said.

That draft plans identifies a list of strengths, challenges, opportunities and areas for improvement, as well as a revised mission statement, slogan, list of core beliefs, 14 goals and 66 strategies for achieving those goals.

The strengths identified in the draft plan included adequate financial resources, large student enrollment, a diverse student and community population, support from the community and local government, and great facilities.

Challenges identified were diversity issues, rising costs, transiency (frequent moving by families), growing personnel shortages, shifting populations and changing demographics.

Opportunities noted included opportunities for cultural and workplace explorations and experiences, a community that is attractive to families and prospective employers, and the willingness of district leaders to invest in ongoing and high-quality professional development and training for employees.

Suggested areas for improvement included academic proficiency in core subjects at all grade levels, closing achievement gaps between different groups of students, increasing college and career readiness and continued strengthening of positive adult-student relationships.

Marcia Burke, the consultant who put the plan together, noted in her report to the Hoover school board last month that while all Hoover schools and the school district received an A on their state report card that such an accomplishment was not as lofty as it might sound.

Test scores from 2022 showed that 30% of Hoover students in grades 3-11 still were not proficient in English, 40% were not proficient in science and 44% were not proficient in math.

While Hoover students are doing well in comparison to state averages, they were in the middle to bottom of the rankings among school districts with which Hoover likes to compare itself, Burke said. The Hoover community wants its district to be the best, not just one of the best, she said.

The Hoover school district’s graduation rate — 94.2% — is good but falls behind Mountain Brook (100%), Trussville (98%), Alabaster (97%), Auburn (96.4%), Vestavia Hills (96%) and Homewood (95%).

Also, Hoover’s percentage of graduates who are deemed ready for college or a career — 87.5% — falls behind Mountain Brook (97%), Alabaster (96.6%), Trussville (92%) and Vestavia Hills (88.9%).

The percentage of Hoover third graders on or above grade level in reading is 90.2%, but the law says school districts should have 100% of third graders at or above grade level. Similarly, the percentage of third graders proficient in reading from other districts was 96.7% in Mountain Brook, 95.6% in Trussville, 95.2% in Vestavia Hills, 93.3% in Homewood, 92.3% in Madison, 91.6% in Auburn and 88.3% in Alabaster, records show.

There also are achievement gaps between different groups of Hoover students that school officials want to shrink, Burke said.

In fourth grade, 83.5% of white Hoover students were deemed at or above grade level in English, while only 55.6% of Black Hoover students and 52.9% of Hoover students from low-income families met that standard, records show. In math, 74.3 of fourth-grade white students were at or above grade level, compared to 32% of Black students and 69.2% of students from low-income families.

At the high school level, 59.3% of white students were at or above grade level in English, compared to 29.3% of Black students and 23.9% of students from low-income families. In math, 60.7% of white high school students were at or above grade level, compared to 25.2% of Black students and 19.1% of students from low-income families.

While Hoover is making progress in shrinking those gaps, there still is work to be done, school officials have said.

The draft strategic plan identified five core beliefs:

  • High expectations for students and adults are necessary to achieve goals and to expand opportunities for all.
  • Diversity and individual needs are to be valued and respected; inclusive practices promote equity and fairness for students and employees.
  • Safe, welcoming, well-equipped school environments support student success.
  • A highly successful school system is creative, visionary, innovative and accountable.
  • High-quality education requires collective effort and shared responsibility among students, families, educators and the community.