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Photos by Jon Anderson.
Stephen Presley said his five years on the Hoover school board were eye-opening and helped him appreciate the passion that Hoover parents have for their schools.
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Photos by Jon Anderson.
Stephen Presley, center, reviews materials at a Hoover school board meeting in November 2015. Joining him are fellow board members Derrick Murphy, left, who is now a Hoover councilman, and Earl Cooper, who is now the school board president.
Stephen Presley had no shortage of hot-button issues to address in his five years on the Hoover school board, including the potential elimination of school buses, charging school bus fees and redrawing school zones.
But for him, the hardest issue was the 10 to 15 student disciplinary hearings during his term, he said. When a disciplinary issue reaches the Hoover school board, it has already been through multiple layers of review.
“It falls on us to be the final say, and a lot of times, that can affect the future of that particular student,” Presley said. Having that responsibility can be sobering.
But Presley, who just finished his five-year term on the school board at the end of May, said the job has been rewarding.
“It has been an incredible learning experience for sure,” he said. “The amount of moving parts and pieces — everything that goes into running a school system — is not something you can completely understand overnight.”
Presley said he wanted to serve on the school board because his three children received such a quality education in Hoover schools. “I wanted to be sure that those children coming after mine were able to receive that same great, quality education,” he said.
He was surprised at how political the position can be. So many people look at school board issues through a one-sided lens that focuses on the impact to them or their particular group, Presley said.
“You have to be able to sit back and remove yourself from being a dad or a parent and look at the entire picture of how it affects everything … the whole system, and not just today, but going forward,” Presley said. “Sometimes, that’s not very popular.”
Presley said his best school board memory was hiring Kathy Murphy to replace Andy Craig as superintendent.
Presley felt that Craig, who left Hoover at the end of 2014 to become the Alabama Department of Education’s deputy superintendent for administration and financial services, did an outstanding job and brought the system through a difficult time of shrinking revenues.
A decrease in state funding levels per student and funding cuts from the city of Hoover after the school system received $86 million from a Jefferson County bond issue left Craig with challenging budget issues, Presley said.
“Had we not had somebody with the abilities Mr. Craig had and a knowledge of accounting and numbers, I think our system would have been in a world of hurt,” he said. “I think he did a masterful job in being able to keep our system providing the level of education that had been provided.”
However, Craig was superintendent for eight years, and the average superintendent tenure in Alabama is three to five years. Murphy “brought a breath of fresh air,” Presley said. “It was great for her to bring a different perspective.”
The level of communication and cooperation between the city and school system has changed dramatically with a new superintendent and new mayor and City Council, Presley said.
“It’s a night-and-day difference,” Presley said. “There’s open lines of communication. There’s monthly meetings between our superintendent and our mayor. It’s just absolutely incredible the amount of communication going on between this facility and City Hall.”
The school bus issue in 2013 and 2014 brought to light the communication problems and helped lead to a change in elected officials, Presley said. “I think the public spoke loud and clear and demanded that those two entities work together.”
Presley explained why he, in December 2013, joined other board members in reversing their decision earlier that year to eliminate most school buses. Presley said the initial decision made very logical sense financially with the information board members were given. However, as a fairly new board member, he didn’t understand that Hoover schools were subject to a decades-old federal court ruling that included transportation issues. Learning about that changed his mind about bus service, he said.
As for regrets, Presley said he hates that the school board didn’t complete their rezoning effort during his tenure. He respects the court’s role in rezoning but had hoped it could have been accomplished by now.
Crafting a rezoning plan was difficult, but Presley said Murphy and her staff did a fine job of getting community input to make it a community decision. While not everyone is happy with it, the end result submitted to the court was a good plan that should help alleviate overcrowding, he said.
The biggest issues the school system is facing now are overcrowding and financially being able to handle capital needs and debt payments that soon will increase. Murphy’s success at trimming operational costs and the postponement of capital expenditures and early payoff of a loan all should help the school system as it battles those issues, he said.
In regard to capital expenditures, a third high school has to be considered, Presley said.
He loves the vast amount of opportunities a large high school provides, and if a typical third high school is part of the mix in the future, he hopes that students in each high school will continue to have the same opportunities.
However, a third high school potentially could be a smaller magnet school that focuses on skilled trades or technology and draws from the entire city, Presley said. That would help free up space in the other two high schools but not require a new geographic-based high school zone.
Whatever solution is chosen, the top priority needs to be continuing to provide the level of education that Hoover parents have grown to expect, Presley said.
The passion Hoover parents have for schools is unbelievable, he said.
“I could not imagine being a school board member in a system where their parents didn’t care,” Presley said. “That to me is one of the things that makes our system and our city great is the involvement of parents … in demanding that their children have a quality education.”
Murphy said Presley has profoundly impacted her as a person and a superintendent. Presley, who works for Wayne’s Environmental Services, is a very busy man but this past year as president of the school board took time to meet her every Friday at 7 a.m. to discuss school system issues.
“That’s a huge commitment,” she said.
He was willing to challenge her at times, and she appreciated that, she said.
Presley said it has been an honor to serve on the school board, but he believes in term limits and is glad there are a lot of bright people in Hoover to take the baton and move the school system forward.
