National champion cheerleaders, other teams recognized at BOE meeting

The future of Vestavia Hills High School cheerleading appears to be in good hands, following the junior varsity football and competition cheerleading team’s recent national championship.

The team was recognized for their excellence at the Feb. 27 Vestavia Hills Board of Education meeting. The team performed two routines on back-to-back days at the UCA Nationals competition in Orlando, receiving zero deductions from the judges and earning the school a national title in UCA’s Large JV division.

“It’s great to send a group that does so well and more importantly are just great ambassadors for their school and for their family,” Vestavia Hills City Schools Superintendent Todd Freeman said.

The board also recognized fifth-grade students from Vestavia Hills Elementary Dolly Ridge, who will be heading to Colorado to launch a rocket they designed into the atmosphere aboard a United Launch Alliance rocket, where the payload will provide weather data for rural towns that are prone to severe weather. It includes several 3D-printed structures designed by students that will encase weather sensors. This will provide data to weather survey teams on temperature, air pressure, altitude, gravitational force, and GPS location. The ULA rocket launch will take place this July.

The robotics team, which includes students from both Liberty Park Middle School and Pizitz Middle School, as well as high school students, was also honored for competing in five tournaments, winning multiple awards and sending two teams of students to the VEX Worlds competition in Dallas.

The board also heard an update on the system’s STEM offerings and how those would be impacted if the 1Rebel 1Future initiative is approved by voters in May.

Director of Curriculum and Instruction Antonio Cooper said the school system plans to transition from focusing on draft and design courses to a “full-out” engineering pathway as a result of local labor market data. The program would prepare students who join the pathway for a civil engineering career, he said.

In health sciences, Cooper said the system is adding a therapeutic services class this fall and wants to create a medical professionals pathway that includes foundation of health science, the therapeutic services course and an internship in patient care health science, allowing students to be certified in their senior year as a patient care technician. Cooper is working with Brookwood Baptist Medical Center to potentially create an internship for students at the hospital, beginning in 2024.

A partnership with Lawson State allows students to take EMT classes for a semester on campus for the last two periods of the school day, allowing them to gain a short certificate, which can become a full EMT license if they finish courses over the summer, Cooper said. 

Another outcome of the plan is to allow students to gain certification to be a certified nurses assistant immediately after high school, Cooper said.

Vestavia Hills Elementary Liberty Park principal Blair Inabinet said the STEM pilot class in the school is going very well and allowing students to learn how to solve problems and stay engaged in learning, even working through “productive struggles.”

The biggest need to turn these into reality is the personnel, which would be funded by the proposed 9.8-mill tax increase.

An analysis of the school system’s STEM offerings brought the following recommendations, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Aimee Rainey said: create a balanced approach to teaching math and science, develop STEM curriculum at all campuses and review workforce data. Rainey said the system wants to take the next step forward and gain an additional edge for college and career readiness.

“What a legacy we would leave if we were able to do this to prepare our students from elementary school all the way through high school in the area of STEM,” Rainey said.

In other business, the board approved a licensing agreement for the Vestavia Hills PTO Council to sell Vestavia merchandise. The board also approved two author appearances from Chris Barton and Charles Waters, both of whom will speak at Vestavia Hills Elementary Cahaba Heights. Barton will speak about writing what “you’d love to learn,” featuring his book, “Shark Vs. Train” and a second presentation featuring his book, “Whoosh!” Waters will speak about the life of an author and actor. Waters is the author of books aimed at helping young readers understand and care for one another, including “Dictionary for a Better World” and “Be a Bridge.”