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Photo by Jon Anderson
Members of the Vestavia Hills City Schools Foundation present the school system with a $150,000 check for science, technology, engineering and math programs on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. From left are Superintendent Todd Freeman, foundation President Beth Moody, Treasurer Chip Hoover, President-elect Tiffany Davis, grant committee member Brooke Walker and Executive Director Tait Stoddard.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
State Rep. Mike Shaw on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, presents a $42,500 check from the state's Education Trust Fund to support arts education in Vestavia Hills City Schools. Receiving the check were, from left, Superintendent Todd Freeman, Vestavia Hills High School theater teacher Jamie Stephenson and Vestavia Hills City Schools Director of Arts Education Faith Lenhart.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Vestavia Hills schools Superintendent Todd Freeman on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, congratulates Vestavia Hills High School theater teacher Jamie Stephenson for being inducted into the national Educational Theatre Association Hall of Fame.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
The Vestavia Hills Board of Education meets on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Vestavia Hills schools Superintendent Todd Freeman, at right, talks during a Vestavia Hills Board of Education meeting on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, as board President Scott Brown listens.
The Vestavia Hills Board of Education on Monday received nearly $200,000 in donations and grant money to support science, technology, engineering, math and arts education.
The Vestavia Hills City Schools Foundation came bearing a $150,000 check to support the school district’s STEM education efforts, and state Rep. Mike Shaw presented a $42,500 check to support arts education in Vestavia Hills.
Foundation President Beth Moody said the foundation is very excited to provide resources for the new STEM programs in all of Vestavia’s elementary schools and the engineering program at Vestavia Hills High School.
Superintendent Todd Freeman said the foundation has been around for many years and continues to find ways to make the school experience for students much better.
“This is just tremendous,” Freeman said. “It’s already being put to good use. We’ve got plans for all of this to be spent in ways that will continue to benefit our STEM programs.”
The school district started new STEM programs in all its elementary schools in September, with a dedicated STEM teacher at each school, and the engineering program at the high school is still in initial stages but growing, Freeman said.
“It is a great investment,” he said. “It’s going to benefit thousands of children.”
School board President Scott Brown noted that school system officials a couple of years ago made a big push about the importance of STEM education.
“While we didn’t get the funds we were trying to get [with a proposed tax increase], it’s been really encouraging to see our community come together in ways we weren’t even thinking about two to three years ago,” Brown said.
Shaw said the $42,500 check for arts education is coming from the state’s Education Trust Fund, and he can’t think of a better way to use tax dollars than for kids. He himself was a product of the arts programs in Vestavia Hills City Schools, participating in a fifth grade musical, middle school and high school choirs and the Vestavia Hills High School drumline in the band his senior year, he said.
“I was never good enough to make a living from it, but it’s certainly been an important part to me,” Shaw said. “The work you’re doing is going to impact these kids for years and years and years until they’re not kids anymore and way past being kids.”
Freeman said state Rep. Jim Carns also is providing some state money for arts education in Vestavia Hills schools.
The money from Shaw and Carns will be used for a variety of things, including adjunct instructors for the middle and high school band programs and dance and theater programs at the middle schools, professional development, materials for visual arts, transportation and smaller facility needs in the arts programs, said Faith Lenhart, the district’s fine arts director.
In other business Monday, the school board:
- Hired Lathan Associates Architects as the design firm for a project to retrofit the theater rigging system at Vestavia Hills High School for an estimated $24,885.
- Hired Lathan Associates Architects to do architectural designs for repair work on the external cafeteria wall at Pizitz Middle School after a vehicle crashed into the wall. The estimated cost of repair is $125,000, and the architectural fee will be $5,000, records show.
- Hired Lathan Associates Architects as the design firm for cafeteria renovations to provide some additional small classroom space at Vestavia Hills Elementary School East for an estimated $83,250.
- Hired Lathan Associates Architects as the design firm for canopy projects at Vestavia Hills Elementary East and Vestavia Hills Elementary Dolly Ridge for an estimated $13,500.
- Agreed to pay $415,200 for emergency communications equipment that will allow school employees to communicate quickly with one another in emergency situations.
- Agreed to pay Transportation South $307,828 for two new 72-passenger school buses to replace older buses.
- Approved a new policy forbidding the distribution of sexually explicit or pornographic images, including images created using artificial intelligence, in accordance with a new state law. The district already has measures in its code of conduct to address such violations but needed to adopt a particular policy to comply with state law, Freeman said.
- Approved licensing agreements with Tana Bernal and Birmingham Business Forms that will allow them to use the school district’s trademarks on items for sale.
- Approved an amendment to a contract with Littleton Electric Service to cover $7,209 in additional costs for a new fire alarm system at the former Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce building.
- Selected new school board member Amber Terakedis as the board’s representative at the next Alabama Association of School Boards conference.
- Congratulated Vestavia Hills High School theater teacher Jamie Stephenson for being inducted into the national Educational Theatre Association Hall of Fame.
