Board approves school calendars, hears annual student incident report

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After Interim Superintendent Charles Mason finished up a week of community engagement meetings about the future restructuring plans, the Vestavia Hills Board of Education held its regular November meeting in the Pizitz Middle School library.

Mason gave an update on the restructuring progress, but the meeting mostly focused on hearing reports and approving a few agenda items.

One item, which Mason joked is usually quite contentious and difficult, was the approval of the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school calendars.

Vestavia Hills Elementary West Principal Kim Hauser, who led the calendar committee, assured Mason that this year's process went very smoothly. She said the group of about 25, with administrative, teacher and parent representatives from all eight schools, worked well together and the two in-person meetings and the email chain were constructive and civil.

Highlights of the calendars, which can be found online here for 2018-19 and here for 2019-20, Hauser said, were that the committee agreed it is preferable to start a week earlier than some schools in order to get days like Presidents Day and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off, and that going later into December but starting back later in January works best.

Hauser pointed out that the calendars also replace Columbus Day with a parent-teacher conference day, which teachers agreed works better as a dedicated day rather than trying to work it into a school day.

The 2018-19 fall semester will begin for students on Aug. 9, 2018 and end on Dec. 20, recommencing for the spring on Jan. 7, 2019 and ending for the summer on May 23, before Memorial Day.

The 2019-20 fall semester will begin for students on Aug. 8, 2019 and end on Dec. 19, recommencing for the spring on Jan. 6, 2020 and ending for the summer on May 21, again before Memorial Day.

Also at the meeting, the board heard a presentation from Director of Student Support Services Kandace VanWanderham on the Student Incident Report, or SIR, and the Pride Survey.

The SIR, VanWanderham explained, is a catalogue of the reported incidents at Vestavia's secondary schools, and looks an incidences of fights, harassment, unexcused absences, theft, alcohol possession and other violations of the student code.

Each year, she said, she and her team look at the data for trends, but that most of the time, they aren't surprised by what they see.

“Our numbers are not alarming in any of these areas,” she said.

There has been a slightly increasing trend in incidents of harassment, which VanWanderham explained, after prompting from BOE member Steve Bendall, can come in various forms and be related to bullying and is documented and investigated when reported by a student or for a student.

The highest number of incidents across all secondary schools were unexcused absences.

VanWanderham also gave a presentation on the Pride Survey, which students in sixth through 12th grade take each year and answer anonymously about their use of drugs and alcohol.

While a look into the minds of students, VanWanderham cautioned that the survey isn't a perfect science, but rather aims to identify any trends the school needs to take a look at or keep in mind.

Of those trends, she said she and her team see a dramatic increase, nearly double, in the number of kids who self-report using alcohol from the 10th to the 11th grade. That, she said, probably stems from teenagers feeling invincible or having easier access to the substance.

She said there has also been a slight increase in the self-reported use of marijuana, and that eighth graders are a group she wants to keep an eye on based on this year's data.

However, she said, "99.9 percent" of Vestavia students are "doing the right thing," and she hopes efforts like Help the Hills, which was represented at the meeting by VHHS students William Tapscott and Maggie Mince, will continue to show kids down the right path.

“Our kids know that these substances are harmful,” she said.

Other Board Business Included:

  • Approving change orders to close out construction contracts for the classroom and cafeteria addition at VHELP and Package C for VHEW.
  • Approving the addition of a career tech course in information technology at VHHS.
  • Approving an addendum to VHELP Principal Ty Arendall's contract, as he completed his doctoral work at Samford University.