Hoover School Board Approves Rezoning Plan
The Hoover City Schools has been trying for more than two years to come up with a rezoning plan that addresses growth and changing demographics while also passing muster with federal authorities. The school board approved the plan Monday night and hopes it makes the grade.
Approval by the Hoover school board sends this proposal for rezoning on to the next level – the federal courts. School officials say the plan already has received nods from the Department of Justice and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Hoover schools have to clear these hurdles because they’re still under a desegregation court order.
During the Monday school board meeting, Hoover Superintendent Dr. Kathy Murphy explained: “I realize that this plan does not meet the satisfaction of all in our community, and I do regret that there is no perfect plan.”
About a dozen speakers took to the mic to oppose the plan, including Highland Crest neighborhood parent Trent Cowsert.
“I am concerned that the Simmons Middle School and those feeder elementary schools in the central part of town are being disparately impacted by the number of poverty students that are going into those schools,” Cowsert says.
He says he fears test scores will be negatively impacted by the large number of students in poverty assigned to his kids’ schools — Simmons Middle and Gwin Elementary.
Cowsert says most minority students are being pushed toward central Hoover while white students remain primarily in the wealthier east and west.
“It’s almost like segregation instead of desegregation,” says Cowsert. “It does not seem to flow with the spirit of the original desegregation case.”
Murphy, however, says all of those issues were taken into consideration.
“We studied demographics of this school district. We looked at free and reduced lunch students. We looked at special needs students,” Murphy says. “So this has been no simple task with lots of moving parts and pieces.”
The plan now goes to a federal judge for approval, School officials want to the rezoning in place for the start of the next school year.
A proposed Bessemer data center faces new hurdles: a ‘road to nowhere’ and the Birmingham darter
With the City Council in Bessemer scheduled to vote Tuesday on a “hyperscale” data center, challenges from an environmental group and the Alabama Department of Transportation present potential obstacles for the wildly unpopular project.
Birmingham Museum of Art’s silver exhibit tells a dazzling global story
Silver and Ceremony is made up of more than 150 suites of silver, sourced from India, and some of their designs.
Mentally ill people are stuck in jail because they can’t get treatment. Here’s what’s to know
Hundreds of people across Alabama await a spot in the state’s increasingly limited facilities, despite a consent decree requiring the state to address delays in providing care for people who are charged with crimes but deemed too mentally ill to stand trial. But seven years since the federal agreement, the problem has only worsened.
Ivey appoints Will Parker to Alabama Supreme Court
Parker fills the court seat vacated by Bill Lewis who was tapped by President Donald Trump for a federal judgeship. The U.S. Senate last month confirmed Lewis as a U.S. district judge.
How Alabama Power kept bills up and opposition out to become one of the most powerful utilities in the country
In one of the poorest states in America, the local utility earns massive profits producing dirty energy with almost no pushback from state regulators.
No more Elmo? APT could cut ties with PBS
The board that oversees Alabama Public Television is considering disaffiliating from PBS, ending a 55-year relationship.
