School board hears update on reconfiguration

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With less than a year remaining before the addition of a new elementary school, the removal of an elementary school, a new freshmen center and the relocation of a middle school, Vestavia City School officials have been busy preparing for the transition.

At the Oct. 29 board of education meeting, assistant superintendents Patrick Martin and Jane-Marie Marlin spoke about transition efforts. Martin said the school district is trying to address every possible issue that comes up with reconfiguration.

Start and end times for the 2019-20 school year have been finalized for each school, and are as follows:

  • All elementary schools will start at 7:45 a.m. and end at 2:35 p.m.
  • Both Pizitz and Liberty Park Middle Schools will start at 8 a.m. and end at 3 p.m.
  • The freshmen campus, located at the former Pizitz Middle School, will start at 8:25 a.m. and end at 3:30 p.m.
  • Vestavia Hills High School will start at 8:10 a.m. and end at 3:20 p.m.

Martin said school leaders are assessing technological and safety needs, planning budgets, planning student life experiences and planning new faculty meetings. Leaders have also visited ninth-grade campuses in other districts to learn their approach to such a campus. Martin said leaders want to ensure that freshmen still feel like they are a part of the high school.

The school will send out three different letters of intent to current teachers for the 2019-20 school year: one for elementary schools affected by the reconfiguration — East, West and Central — one for the high school and one for everyone else. All teachers at Central, which will go offline at the end of the current school year, will be re-assigned, but not all will be able to teach fourth and fifth grade. Teachers will be given the chance to teach a different grade at their current school or to teach the same grade at a different school, Marlin said.

For the physical move that will be required, Martin said school officials are talking with move management firms, and will recommend a company to the board at the February 2019 meeting.

The board also approved two change orders related to ongoing construction, both at Pizitz Middle School. The first change order was an increase of about $236,000 for engineering and construction work at the former Berry High School campus, the new home of Pizitz. The second was an increase of about $63,000 for site and demolition work. Both amounts were covered by contingency funds in the original bid package approved by the board.

Council member Rusty Weaver spoke to the board about a group of private citizens in Vestavia who have formed a committee to raise private funds for a new strength and conditioning center for all Vestavia athletes. The committee has not started raising funds yet, but, before that begins, the committee had asked the board to name the future building after longtime assistant coach Peter Braasch. The request was approved by the board.

Revisiting a policy regarding student searches, the board voted to leave the policy as it is written after previously tabling a motion to change the policy in September.

At the September meeting, concerns were raised about the ability of school leaders to act on evidence found in student searches, as it seemed the proposed revised policy allowed them to use and act on evidence only if that evidence was related to the reason for the original search.

Superintendent Todd Freeman said the policy is good as it stands, and didn’t want to “hamstring” officials from using evidence in an appropriate way.

In other business, the board:

  • Approved personnel actions.
  • Approved an increase to the annual salary of Alicia Hunsberger, principal at Vestavia Hills Elementary Cahaba Heights, who recently completed her doctoral work.
  • Approved a two-hour early release on April 18 to allow new school staffs to meet.
  • Appointed David Powell and Steve Bendall as delegates to the Alabama Association of School Boards.
  • Heard a report on student services from Aimee Rainey.
  • Recognized October as National Principals Month.
  • Recognized Liberty Park Middle School for being named a National Blue Ribbon School.

The board also approved the following consent items:

VHHS:

  • Rebelette dance camp
  • Debate competition
  • Swim and dive team state meet
  • Wrestling tournaments
  • Boys’ soccer competition
  • Boys’ and girls’ tennis tournaments

LPMS:

  • 7th and 8th grade advanced art workshop
  • 7th and 8th grade symphonic band festival
  • 6th grade band festival
  • The disposal of technological equipment across various schools.