Photo by Jon Anderson
Vestavia HIlls Elementary School East
Vestavia Hills Elementary School East is exceeding expectations in terms of enrollment growth, so much so that school officials this summer are having to add more classrooms.
A consultant a year ago predicted most schools in Vestavia Hills would begin to see drops in enrollment due to an aging population and other demographic trends, but the Vestavia Hills Elementary East attendance zone has proven to be an exception.
At the beginning of this school year, the consultant’s predictions were on track. Last year’s official enrollment at East was 741, and that number was expected to drop to 732 for the 2024-25 school year. The official enrollment for 2025-25, calculated this past fall, turned out to be 724, Superintendent Todd Freeman said.
But instead of continuing the expected enrollment decline, the enrollment at East actually has grown to 808 as of Monday, Freeman said.
The average grade level for grades 2-5 at East has 126 children in it, but this year’s group of kindergartners is numbered at 164, Freeman said. There already are 144 kindergartners registered for next year, and that number is expected to continue to grow, he said.
“The reality is we have no more classroom space for that number of kindergartners,” he said.
“We’re having to think more aggressively about how to manage that situation.”
Freeman on Monday asked the school board to approve a letter of intent with a contractor to renovate the old cafeteria at East to create some additional classrooms.
Currently, the space is being used as a multipurpose space with a temporary wall to create a space for special science, technology, engineering and math instruction, Principal Cindy Echols said.
But the school board is hiring CT General Contractors to turn that into three permanent classroom areas and three office spaces, Echols said. One of those classroom spaces will continue to house the STEM class, and the other two will be for general education, she said. She’s not entirely sure which grade level will be in those classrooms because that likely will depend on how registration numbers turn out, she said.
“They’re going to be a little bit smaller than our traditional classrooms, but enough space to function in,” she said. “We’re excited about the project. It’s going to be brand new. New cabinets, new sinks, everything got approved that we were hoping for.”
The low construction bid — from CT General Contractors — came in at just under $700,000, which is less than the $900,000 that had been budgeted for the job, Freeman said. The other bid received — from Kyser Construction — was more than $1 million.
“We hope to begin construction as soon as possible,” Echols said. “We’re getting it emptied out as we speak. We’re hoping for it to be ready in August. That’s our goal, but if it’s not, we’ll have plans to serve the kids one way or the other.”
Freeman said the school board may need to have some conversations in the coming months about potential realignment of school zones to provide some relief at East and best make use of available space across the district.
If school attendance zones were redrawn, it would not be for this next school year, but perhaps for a future school year, he said.
He’s not talking about trying to put an equal number of children at each school, but right now, East is almost twice the size of Vestavia Hills Elementary Cahaba Heights, he said.
