
Photo by Neal Embry
Vestavia Superintendent Todd Freeman and members of the school board look at the map showing the new zoning for the city’s elementary schools.
In a unanimous decision July 10, the Vestavia Hills Board of Education approved Superintendent Todd Freeman’s plans to rezone the district’s elementary schools by August 2019 and make changes to the district’s two middle schools.
In a July 9 announcement, Freeman told the public he recommended the plan known as Option 2, which would put all elementary schools between 78 and 88 percent of their total student capacity except for Vestavia Hills Elementary East, which will be at 92.6 percent of capacity.
He made two revisions to the original version of the option, transferring some Liberty Park students to Cahaba Heights, while keeping some Cahaba Heights students zoned for VHECH as opposed to moving them to the new school located at the old Gresham Elementary campus.
The board upheld his recommendation with no debate, and no public comment was given in the allotted time at the meeting. The special called meeting lasted about 20 minutes.
Freeman told the board he believed the option gives the system the best chance to meet the needs of its students.
“I believe that this option gives us the best chance to do what we think is important, which is stay on mission to make sure we provide opportunities for all of our students to learn without limits,” Freeman said.
“We’ve all been engaged with the public and we appreciate everybody’s engagement,” board member Steve Bendall said before the vote.
In December 2017, the Board of Education voted to make all elementary school campuses K-5 and began reviewing options for the reconfiguration. In January, after meeting with stakeholders, a list of five options was reduced to three and the system paused in order to wait for a federal judge’s approval of the school’s purchase of the Gresham campus. After that purchase was approved, the process continued as school leaders held open forums and met with parents and other stakeholders, leading up to Freeman’s announcement July 9 and the subsequent approval.

Rendering courtesy of VHCS
The new zones for Vestavia Hills City Schools. Superintendent Todd Freeman made two revisions to the original version of Option 2, transferring some Liberty Park students to Cahaba Heights, while keeping some Cahaba Heights students zoned for VHECH as opposed to moving them to the new school located at the old Gresham Elementary campus.
The four parameters used to evaluate rezoning options were laid out in the plan developed by Cooperative Strategies and included proximity to school, neighborhood concept, utilization of school space and the growth of student population over time.
Freeman said while not every home in Vestavia Hills will have met those four parameters exactly in the rezoning, the decision was the best one available given the almost 20 percent growth in student population in recent years.
The move spreads elementary students more equitably across the district’s five schools: Cahaba Heights, Gresham (which will be renamed Vestavia Hills Elementary Dolly Ridge), Vestavia Hills Elementary East, Vestavia Hills Elementary West and Liberty Park Elementary, and it will take effect ahead of the 2019-20 school year.
Vestavia Hills Elementary Central will be shut down after this upcoming school year, with those students and staff members dispersed among the other schools. Students at East, West and Dolly Ridge will go to Pizitz Middle School, which will move to the old Berry High School campus, while students at Cahaba Heights and Liberty Park elementary schools will go to Liberty Park Middle School. Ninth-grade students will attend a freshman center that will be located at the current Pizitz facility. Students in 10th through 12th grade will attend Vestavia Hills High School.
Freeman said the administration is considering changing start times and end times at schools in order to accommodate parents with new driving routes, and is also working on long-range plans to prepare Vestavia schools for the future.
In addition to those considerations, the school is also working to make sure there is enough staff to accommodate the move. Whit McGhee, the school’s communications specialist, said the issue of staffing, including shifting around current teachers and hiring new teachers, is an ongoing process and will continue up until August 2019.
In a statement released after the meeting, Freeman thanked the Vestavia Hills community for their engagement.
“I want to express my appreciation to the many parents, community members, and all stakeholders of Vestavia Hills City Schools for the input you gave throughout this important process. It was a privilege to meet many of you and hear your passion and enthusiasm about the importance of an exceptional education for our future generation,” Freeman said.
Freeman also said at the meeting that while there was no public comment at the meeting, he felt the district did a good job engaging the community along the way with surveys, community forums and constant communication with stakeholders throughout the multiyear process.
More information on the rezoning process can be found at dejongrichter.com/vestaviahills/ and a map of the rezoning plan is available at vestavia.k12.al.us