Schools that built a city: Vestavia system lives up to founders' dreams

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Schools

The year was 1970. Sara Wuska was a self-described busybody — the kind of neighbor who organized the PTA, pushed bookmobiles into action and knew every kid on her street by name.

So when desegregation orders threatened to plunge Jefferson County schools into turmoil, she didn’t wait.

“I know you said you’d rather have a hole in your head than have a school system,” she remembered telling Robert Guillot, the mayor of Vestavia Hills. “But you see what’s going on.”

That call helped launch what became Vestavia Hills City Schools — a system built in a moment of federal scrutiny, yet shaped with uncommon resolve.

On April 28, 1970, Vestavia Hills residents approved the property tax increase that would launch their own system. The largest turnout in the city’s history at that time produced a close vote — 1,625 yes, 1,404 no — but the result was met with urgency.

Days later, Wuska was one of five people appointed to the first school board on May 4, 1970. She was the only woman, and the youngest by decades.

“I was the token female,” Wuska, now 94, recently told Vestavia Voice. “I was a busybody. I was in there behind the scenes. And I knew how to keep my mouth shut when I should. …

“And so the first meeting was on May the 5th, the night following the appointment of the school board. And between May the 5th and June the 10th, when a superintendent was named, there were 17 meetings of the school board.”

She would go on to chair the board, serve on the city council and become the first female mayor of Vestavia Hills.

But at that moment, she was just trying to help launch something new — something that mattered.

“We told the people we wanted to provide quality education and excellence,” she said.

At the heart of Vestavia Hills beats a school system born in a fraught moment of history — yet forged with a vision of academic excellence that has defined the city ever since.

Conceived during the early tremors of desegregation, launched with a maneuver to acquire school buildings without payment and placed under immediate federal scrutiny, the Vestavia Hills City Schools were controversial before the first class was seated.

But what followed was not defiance, but determination. Community leaders met oversight with strategy and structure, and ultimately went beyond what was required of them. In doing so, they held control — and kept federal intervention at bay.

Over more than five decades, they delivered what they promised: a system that is year in, year out, among Alabama’s very best. The school system became the city’s soul — anchoring civic life, driving smart annexation and giving residents a shared identity grounded in ambition, achievement and care.

“The school system is our golden goose,” said Jeff Downes, Vestavia Hills’ city manager. “It’s the number one reason people move here.”

In Vestavia Hills, the schools didn’t just shape the city. They built it.

The origins

“The Legislature in August of 1959 enacted a law called the Independent School District Act,” said Pat Boone, the longtime city attorney. “It says that if there’s a municipality, and if we have schools in our district, then if we form a school board, that board automatically takes title to the schools located in the city. No payment due. Period.”

Pleasant Grove in western Jefferson County struck first. Then neighboring Homewood. Wuska and other leaders in Vestavia were watching closely. So were the residents.

Not everyone agreed that splitting from Jefferson County was wise. In a letter to The Birmingham News ahead of the vote, W.P. Ayres, a Vestavia resident, warned of unanswered questions about funding, equity and long-term feasibility. “Can we lose more than we gain,” he wrote, “by surrendering our equity in the Jefferson County School Board’s financial resources, personnel pools and properties?”

Boone was a young lawyer then, working alongside then-lead city attorney Bob Vance.

Vance would later become one of the most respected federal judges in the South. In 1989, he was assassinated by a white supremacist in a mail bomb attack. But in 1970, he was the legal architect helping Vestavia navigate the formation of its own school system — and the pressures that would soon follow.

“Our forefathers had studied the idea of forming our own school system back in the ’60s, but decided it wasn’t financially feasible,” Boone said. “By 1970, we didn’t have a choice. We had to do it.”

From the start, the new school system was under the microscope.

“Our city council held hands with our Board of Education,” Boone said. “They said, ‘We’re in it with you. We’re going to help you.’ And they did.”

Federal oversight

Just one year after the system was formed, the all-white city found itself in court, facing a challenge that it was in violation of court orders by having no Black students. Pressure mounted that Vestavia Hills be forced to bus Black students in from the Oxmoor Valley area of Birmingham.

“Judge (Sam) Pointer said, ‘You’re going to bus them in the seventh grade,’” Boone recalled, referring to a key provision in the 1965 Linda Stout vs. Jefferson County desegregation case. “And Bob Vance said, ‘Don’t give them to us in seventh. Give them to us in first grade. We’ll teach them.’”

Vance’s line became a defining moment — not just for the case, but for Vestavia’s approach. The city didn’t resist desegregation in the courts. It complied early — and visibly — with legal guidance from a man whose own commitment to justice would later cost him his life.

That courtroom moment became a defining symbol of the city’s stance during desegregation. Behind the scenes, Boone said, the schools did more than the law required.

“Our male employees went down into the Wenonah-Oxmoor area,” Boone said. “Some of those houses didn’t even have running water. They said, ‘We’re here to help you. We’ll register you. We want you in our schools.’”

The system’s compliance was extensive — and exacting. But it also ensured that Vestavia, unlike other Southern districts, kept control of its schools without federal seizure or forced restructuring.

But it was under federal court supervision for more than three decades. And every year, Boone delivered compliance reports to the Department of Justice.

“For 34 years, I personally walked the reports into the Justice Department,” he said. “It was an emotional day when we got that ruling.”

That ruling came in December 2007, when the federal government declared that Vestavia Hills City Schools had achieved unitary status — legal shorthand for the end of oversight. The case went to federal judge Virginia Emerson Hopkins. Public hearings gave voice to both supporters of granting that status, as well as opponents who argued Vestavia Hills had not done enough to warrant removal of federal supervision.

In its petition for dismissal in 2006, Vestavia Hills proposed to continue to hire Black teachers. And it made a promise to Black students from the Wenonah-Oxmoor area who had been bussed into Vestavia for school.

“What we wanted to do was, Wenonah-Oxmoor people, if you have students that are attending our school system now, they can finish,” Boone said. “No matter if they’re in the first grade, they can come all the way through the 12th grade. And if they’ve got a day-old sibling, that sibling is eligible for 18 years. That’s what our plan was.”

After a year of review, the final decision came in.

“We had never had a single complaint,” Boone recalled. “We sent 22,000 pages of documentation. The NAACP’s lawyer read every one. He said, ‘You’ve done it right. We agree to your plan.’”

The DOJ echoed that assessment in court filings: “It is the opinion of the United States that the Vestavia Hills School District has complied with its desegregation obligations and federal law.”

Twenty-two thousand pages — reviewed, vetted and approved.

Case dismissed.

“That was one of the happiest days I’ve had in this work,” Boone said.

The Golden Goose

City leaders say the impact of the school system is hard to overstate.

The city’s residential growth, economic development and civic identity are all intertwined with the schools, said Downes, the city manager. Athletic fields, parks, sidewalks and road improvements have followed population shifts — and school zones.

“Most people have families and children that have made their way through the school system,” he said. “So just following and matriculating through the school system places you in all parts of the city.”

Mayor Ashley Curry agreed. Vestavians are united in their Rebel pride.

“The number one response [on our annual citizen surveys] is because of the excellence in the schools.”

That quality has roots. From the very beginning planning stages before the very first vote, it was about establishing great schools.

“They wanted to create a culture of excellence,” Curry said.

For decades, that spirit coexisted with a set of symbols that were not seen as unifying by all. The high school mascot was a Rebel Man, an Old South plantation owner. The fight song was “Dixie.”

As the country’s conversation on race evolved, Vestavia’s mascot became a flashpoint — locally and nationally. In 2015, HBO’s John Oliver skewered Vestavia on “Last Week Tonight” for defending the Confederate imagery: “Your logo is a plantation owner,” Oliver said, before mocking the position that the image wasn’t racist.

The following year, Vestavia retired both Rebel Man and the fight song. Armed with a rebrand and a statement that it is a “core belief” to “condemn the scourge of racism and bigotry,” the school redefined being a Rebel as “defying cultural norms and expectations,” and “pursuing excellence not only in the classroom or ball field, but in the community and throughout the world.”

Vestavia Hills City Schools have consistently ranked among Alabama’s elite. Its graduation rate hovers near 99%. Test scores routinely exceed both state and national averages — ACT scores, reading and math proficiency, and college placement rates all among the best in the South. The district maintains a student-to-teacher ratio of just 14-to-1, and about 20% of its students today are minorities — a far cry from the all-white classrooms that prompted federal oversight decades ago. On average, 18 to 25 students are recognized as National Merit Semi-Finalists each year. Graduating seniors in 2025 were offered more than $46 million in scholarships.

“It’s most humbling to be recognized for something, but it’s also a reminder of how truly excellent our school system is – and has been for a long time,” Superintendent Todd Freeman told the school board on June 23 after being named the state’s Superintendent of the Year. “I really am just a beneficiary of it. I’m a parent in this school system. I get to benefit from it like we all do, a school system that has, since April 1970, been an outstanding school system.”

For today’s students, that legacy of excellence shows up in different ways.

For Sarah White, a member of the Class of 2025, it meant qualifying for the robotics world championship — and realizing just how far a Vestavia education could take her. “It was just a moment when we felt like we’d accomplished so much,” she said. “And it was really cool to go to Dallas and see teams from all over the world.”

For Audrey Martin, it was the sense of belonging she saw in her classmates. “I feel like everyone has some sort of representation in this class,” she said. “Not just within people groups, but in every personality. Everyone here feels like they belong somewhere.”

From future governors, to future Major Leaguers to even the reigning Miss America, Vestavia Hills has produced big dreamers and big achievers.

“It worked because we cared,” Boone said. “It worked because we worked at it. It worked because the people wouldn’t let it fail. This isn’t just a place where people live. It’s a place where people show up, where they put their heart into it.”

Wuska was one of those people. Boone credits her determination from the start. Things could have turned out differently, he said, if not for the leadership of the “smartest, most talented, most popular young lady on this mountain.”

At a Vestavia Hills Historical Society event earlier this year, Boone was nearly moved to tears as Wuska, vibrant still as she greeted him, reached out a hand.

“Sara, this is the hardest job,” he told her. “I salute you. I can’t brag on you enough. You did the lifting — you and your other former members.”

Wuska, her voice firm even 55 years later, saw it simply: “We wanted a good education for these children,” she said, “and I think we got it.”

Correspondent Emily Reed and Starnes Media Creator Collective student journalist Cora Maddox of Vestavia Hills High School contributed to this report.