Emily Featherston
When the fall of 2019 rolls around, the Vestavia Hills school district will begin to look quite different.
At the regularly-scheduled April Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Sheila Phillips presented her recommendation on what changes and adjustments she thought the system should make to account for continued growth and facilities needs.
Before Phillips made her final recommendation, Greg Ellis of Hoar Program Management walked the board and the standing-room only audience through the process that has taken place over the last several months.
The process began back in September and October with parent surveys, community forums and discussions over what the stakeholders in the district determined were the important factors HPM and the board needed to keep in mind.
“It’s been several months since when we started this process,” he said, but also said, "I think the process has proven to be a very strong one.”
At all levels, Ellis said, the major concerns were overcrowding, class sizes, safety, condition of non-academic spaces, the quality of athletics and fine arts facilities, rezoning concerns and whether or not a second high school was on the table.
From these concerns, Ellis said the team was able to drill down to major goals for the project, namely sustainability, long-term planning, addressing growth and capacity and simplifying implementation, while also protecting current programs and maintaining the character of the district.
“One of the goals was not to lose the culture and personality of our schools,” he said.
After determining the major goals, Ellis went back through the information-gathering processes that were initiated, namely contracting with Cooperative Strategies to conduct detailed enrollment projections and subdivision yield analyses.
They also had to look at the financial reality of the situation, as the funds available from the bond the city took out are finite.
After multiple meetings and presentations, as well as continued re-evaluation as the demographic study results came in, HPM presented the board with a final set of four options on April 12.
On Wednesday, Phillips recommended the following nine points to the board:
- "Contract with Cooperative Strategies to monitor trends in demographics on an annual or bi-annual basis."
- "Contract with Cooperative Strategies to study the impact of rezoning on the community and to determine if common alignment of elementary schools is necessary to accommodate the anticipated growth over the next five years."
- "Begin renovation of the Berry campus, to accommodate grades 6-7 (middle school model) and grades 8-9 (junior high model)."
- "Fall 2019: Move VH Elementary Central to the Pizitz campus."
- "Fall 2019: Move Pizitz Middle School to the Berry campus."
- "Fall 2019: Move 9th grade students zoned for U.S. 31 corridor to the Berry campus."
- "Fall 2019: Move 9th grade students zoned for Liberty Park to Liberty Park Middle School."
- "Fall 2019: Realign LPMS to grades 6-7 (middle school model) and grades 8-9 (junior high model)."
- "Fall 2019: Change VHHS grade structure to 10-12."
Additionally, Phillips said she wants to continue to see development of the academy program as a curricular or academic opportunity, rather than one to solve a capacity problem.
She also recommended that the BOE office be moved to a different location to allow VH Elementary West to use space in the building and immediately alleviate some of its capacity issues.
Phillips also said she wants to give consideration to the BOE launching a "legacy campaign" and opening communications with the city about additional revenue streams.
Board member Jerry Dent asked if the plan gave any consideration to the building of an additional high school, potentially at Liberty Park, in the future.
Phillips said that because the plan utilizes existing space, her recommendation does leave that possibility on the table, and that maybe in five years the board could revisit the topic.
But for now, there is just no way to make it happen.
“I’m saying we can’t afford a second high school now,” Phillips said, and that the growth in that area, at least as far out as the demographic study can confidently project, doesn't fully meet the level it would need to justify the school.
In his presentation, Ellis revisited the cost of building a second high school at Liberty Park. Construction costs plus athletics and other costs would put the total initial cost at close to $70 million, a total that does not include any land-acquisition. Additionally, it would cost an added $8 million in operations expenses and $4 million in debt service.
Dent said he would be most in favor of contracting with Cooperative Strategies on an annual basis to make sure that if growth accelerates, and the need for an additional high school comes more into focus, that they could work more quickly toward the 2-3 year construction time it would take to build it.
Before opening the discussion up to the audience, Phillips said that she wanted to recognize some of the concerns that had been voiced in the days leading up to the meeting.
First, she addressed the concern of having sixth grade and ninth grade students in the same school building. She said that under the recommended plan, grades 6-7 would operate under the middle school paradigm, because they recognize the value that a middle school model has and the impact it has on students. Students in 8-9 would operate on a junior-high model, which focuses more on academic rigor. They would operate as separate entities, and with modifications to campus layouts and configurations, would not cross paths on a daily basis.
“The intent is not to mix and dump into one school sixth through ninth," she said.
City Councilor George Pierce said that overwhelmingly he has heard from parents and grandparents the concern over having students in the sixth grade in the same location as ninth, and the potential negative impact that could have, especially on younger students.
Phillips said she recognizes their concern and that it will be a major part of the discussion going forward.
“The proof has to be in the pudding for us as far as those issues are concerned,” she said.
For those concerned with the equity of programming for ninth graders on different campuses, and how it would impact non-academic participation such as band or athletics, Phillips said that in the coming months, she would continue to work closely with those coaches, teachers and leaders to figure out the logistics of transportation, scheduling and the other elements of making that work.
“I value that, and I trust that, and that’s where that decision has got to come from,” she said.
When audience members were given time to speak, much of the discussion centered around concerns about potential rezoning for elementary schools in the U.S. 31 corridor.
Casey O'Dell asked for clarification on whether the plans to be implemented in 2019 have the Pizitz campus being K-5, and how and when students currently zoned for VHEE or VHEW would be moved to that campus.
Phillips said that she doesn't currently have an answer, because she wants Cooperative Strategies to look more closely at how, when and to what extent rezoning of the U.S. 31 corridor would take place.
“We have to be sensitive to how people feel about their local school," Phillips said, but also added that eventually, decisions have to be made and students have to transition to the new alignment, or the change doesn't ever take effect.
Ellis and Phillips said Cooperative Strategies is ready to begin looking at the issue almost immediately, and they have some confidence that parts of that report could be presented at board meetings in the next few months.
In the meantime, Phillips said work on things like the Berry campus would commence as soon as HPM and Lathan Associates determine is reasonable.
The board voted 4-0 to approve Phillips' recommendation. Board member David Powell was absent.
A video of the meeting can be found on the BOE's website: http://www.vestavia.k12.al.us/Page/690
