Birmingham News (AL)
APARTMENT ZONE PLAN CALLED UNFAIR
 
ADVOCATE: TREATS SOME AS 'ANOTHER CLASS'  
 
April 2, 2004  
Section: News  
Page: 1-C  
   JON ANDERSON News staff writer  
The head of the Alabama Apartment Association said Thursday the Hoover school system's proposal to rezone apartment students to schools outside their immediate communities is unfair.  
 
"This thing is very, very, very wrong to be treating apartment people as another class of people - that they can be treated differently from people that live across the street in a single-family home," said Kent Graeve, president of the association.
 
Graeve, also president of Arlington Properties, which manages 3,600 apartment units in four Southeastern states, said apartment owners will be organizing to fight Hoover's plan.
 
Hoover Superintendent Jack Farr this week said he would recommend the school board back off - at least temporarily - on a proposal to rezone students from single-family homes but proceed with plans to move students in 25 Hoover apartment complexes to different schools.
 
Farr said school officials want to reduce the number of transient students at certain schools, and apartment dwellers tend to be more transient than students from single-family homes.
 
Having high numbers of students moving in and out of classrooms and schools affects the learning environment because teachers are continually having to adjust to students' learning levels, Hoover school officials have said.
 
They have found that more children moving into Hoover schools in recent years are behind their Hoover peers educationally, they said.
 
Graeve said the rezoning proposal is "just another example of Hoover stepping out and saying we don't like these 'apartment people.'"
 
The city treats apartments as a second class in other ways, such as taxes, Graeve said.
 
The city charges apartment owners a 1-percent lease tax for every apartment they lease, said Hoover Revenue Director Frank Lopez. However, the city does not tax leases on commercial property, Lopez said.
 
 
"That's not right," Graeve said. "They treat apartments differently and more severely."
 
 
Lopez said it's hard to compare taxes on residential leases with taxes on other types of businesses. For example, retail businesses must pay sales taxes.
 
"It's just a completely different situation," Lopez said. "They're just apples and oranges."
 
Graeve said the bottom line is that apartment residents are good citizens and deserve to be treated right, but they're not.
 
Pierre Noel, an apartment resident with a child at Hoover's Gwin Elementary, told school officials at a public meeting this week that it appears people are saying apartment students de value the school system.
 
Gary McBay, Hoover's director of school services who drew the plan to shift apartment students, said that's not true.
 
"Every single student - whether they live in apartments, single-family homes, town homes or condominiums - they're a valuable student, and we're going to treat them as such," McBay said.
 
Some parents have accused school officials of rezoning apartment students as an attempt to spread out lowerperforming students so their standardized test scores don't make some schools look bad.
 
McBay said the reason for moving apartment students is to reduce the high volume of turnover in certain schools.
 
That should make it easier for teachers to help apartment students who may be behind their peers, he said. "The whole process is designed to address the students' needs," McBay said.
 
The Hoover school system's rezoning plan still must be presented to the school board for a vote.  

Birmingham News (AL)
HOOVER SCHOOL PLAN MISSES THE MARK, TWO OFFICIALS SAY  
 
March 31, 2004  
Section: News  
Page: 1-A  
   JON ANDERSON News staff writer  
Two Hoover school board members said Tuesday the school rezoning plan recommended Monday by Superintendent Jack Farr falls short of addressing critical issues facing the school system.  
 
Many homeowners breathed a sigh of relief this week when Farr scaled back a proposal to shift 1,500 students to different schools. But school board member Kay Witt said people seem to be under the wrong impression that Farr's plan is the one and only plan that could be adopted.
 
"Dr. Farr's plan at this point is a recommendation he will make to the school board," Witt said.
 
The school board can accept it, reject it or ask him to revise it, she and school board President Joe Dean emphasized.
 
Dean stressed to about 150 people attending a meeting at Hoover High on Tuesday night that the school board did not develop the original zoning plan unveiled by Director of Student Services Gary McBay last month nor the revised plan announced by Farr on Monday.
 
Dean and Witt said they were surprised by Farr's decision to scale back the rezoning plan in light of opposition by homeowners, and they have concerns.
 
Farr said Monday he would recommend students in singlefamily homes not be rezoned for the 2004-05 school year, except those attending Riverchase Elementary, set to open in August.
 
He said he would recommend rezoning children in 25 Hoover apartment complexes to different elementary schools to reduce the number of transient students at certain schools.
 
Farr said he backed off a plan to shift students in many singlefamily homes to give parents more ownership in whatever decision is made. He plans to ask the school board to appoint a task force to review other proposed rezoning and the potential overcrowding of certain schools.
 
Dean said in an interview he was troubled that Farr failed to make his recommendation known to the school board and the public in advance of this week's public hearings.
 
Dean said Farr's plan doesn't do enough to address the significant difference in demographics among Hoover schools.
 
Farr said people have time to give input before the board votes.
 
Plan revised
 
The original rezoning plan drafted by McBay would have lowered the percentage of apartment students at Rocky Ridge from 66 percent to an estimated 41 percent. The revised plan by Farr would reduce the percentage to an estimated 55 percent.
 
Dean said McBay's original proposal more evenly distributed apartment students to lessen the impact of high numbers of students moving in and out of schools and classrooms.
 
Dean said Farr's decision to hold back on some of the rezoning doesn't help the school system spread all students most efficiently among its schools.
 
"That only prolongs and complicates the real resolution to what is best for Hoover school zoning," Dean said. "If we continue to make incremental adjustments, we will compromise the overall good of the system."
 
Witt said she hates to see the rezoning discussions start all over again with a task force. The school board has heard loud and clear the desires of residents, she said.
 
McBay revised his original plan to take into account those parental concerns, she said. "I thought it had a lot of good qualities in it," she said.
 
Farr, though he praised McBay's work on the plan, chose not to go with McBay's revisions. Farr said Tuesday night board members had not told him they had concerns with his plan. "If there's something they want changed, I'm sure they'll let me know," he said. "I'm certainly open to considering anything that would make things better."
 
A woman identifying herself as a manager of a Hoover apartment complex said Tuesday night she felt Farr's plan unfairly targets apartment children. "If you're going to rezone, you need to do it for everybody," the woman told school officials.
 
McBay said the rezoning of apartment children is designed to help those students.  
 
Superintendent Jack FarrWould put off rezoning single-family homes School Board President Joe Dean "That only prolongs and complicates the real resolution."
 

Birmingham News (AL)
SCHOOL REZONING PLAN DELAYED
 
HOOVER PARENTS MUST WAIT UNTIL FORUMS  
 
March 27, 2004  
Section: News  
Page: 11-A  
   JEREMY GRAY News staff writer  
Parents in Hoover were told they would get to see revisions to a school rezoning plan before a series of public forums next week, but as of Friday no changes had been made public.  
 
Superintendent Jack Farr said Friday the plan, including any revisions he may recommend, will be the subject of four informational meetings next week.
 
Some residents had hoped they would have time to study any changes Farr made to the proposed plan before the first meeting, which is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Monday at the Hoover Board of Education's central office.
 
Director of School Services Gary McBay, the architect of the controversial plan, said Monday that Farr was still reviewing the plan. Calls to McBay's office Tuesday were not immediately returned and much of the staff of the central office was on vacation for spring break week.
 
Contacted Friday, Farr said he was in the midst of a chemotherapy treatment and would present any proposed changes during the first public forum. Farr is undergoing treatment for a brain tumor that was diagnosed and partially removed in late 2002.
 
Some parents, already upset over the rezoning plan, were further aggravated by the latest delay.
 
"That's a little frustrating," said Stacey Stocks, president of Bluff Park Elementary's parentteacher organization.
 
"They led everybody to believe they wanted them to see it beforehand so they'd be able to ask questions more easily. The staff at the central office didn't work but two days last week, so I think there probably got to be a time crunch," she said.
 
Rhonda Chumbley, parent of a Greystone Elementary firstgrader who might be moved to Rocky Ridge if the rezoning is adopted, said she anticipated seeing the revisions before next week's hearings.
 
School Board President Joe Dean said during last week's school board meeting that the revised plan would be available before the public hearings, Chumbley said. She called the delay "just another thing they've told us that hasn't come true."
 
Dean said Friday that school board members also had not seen any revisions. "We anticipated, and the public anticipated, having the proposed revisions and recommendations in advance of the public meeting."
 
He apologized for the delay. "I'm sorry it didn't unfold as anticipated."
 
Farr had said in a previous meeting that he would make a recommendation regarding the plan in time for the school board act on it by early April.
 
Mayoral candidate Bob Lochamy called on the school board Friday to issue a moratorium on the rezoning, except as may be needed for the new Riverchase Elementary School slated to open in August.
 
Lochamy also recommended the board restart the process of redrawing school zones after next week's public hearings.  

Birmingham News (AL)
SCHOOL ZONE PLAN STIRS WORRIES
 
PARENTS 'CLAMORING' FOR INPUT, DEAN SAYS  
 
March 10, 2004  
Section: Neighborhoods  
Page: 1-H  
Illustration: Newscharts titled 'Test scores and teachers', and 'Assessing schools: percent apartment students; Achievement/ability grade; Percent eligible for free or reduced-price meals; Students per teacher' accompanied this article.
 
   JON ANDERSON News staff writer  
A proposal to redraw all attendance zones for Hoover City Schools has drawn angry response from many parents who claim it's unfair to property owners and possibly hurtful to their children.  
 
The school system's central office has been getting about 50 phone calls a day about zoning since the plan was unveiled three weeks ago, one employee said. About 20 people a day come by the office to look at zoning maps, and others are sending e-mails and letters.
 
Parents have organized community meetings to discuss the issue.
 
"People are truly clamoring for opportunities for input," school board President Joe Dean said. They're letting their opinions be known, and that's exactly what board members want to hear, he said.
 
Superintendent Jack Farr said there's been a tremendous amount of public input, which he is considering as he develops a recommendation to the school board.
 
That recommendation may not be ready by the board's March 18 meeting, as earlier predicted. School officials last week were still awaiting a review of the zoning proposal by university consultants.
 
Farr said Thursday he expects to have a plan to present to the board "in the next 30 days."
 
Before then, administrators plan to schedule at least one public meeting on the issue, Farr said.
 
Dean said most parents who have contacted him, as expected, are disturbed by the idea of their children being rezoned to a different school.
 
The proposed changes should send about 1,500 of Hoover's 11,160 students to a different school, said Gary McBay, director of school services and architect of the plan.
 
Some parents say they bought homes where they did specifically to be in their current school zone.
 
Jennifer Crawford said she bought a home in the Bluff Park school zone two years ago so her three daughters could go to school there. She could have bought the same house in Russet Woods for $30,000 less but bore the higher expense so her kids could go to Bluff Park, she said.
 
The proposed rezoning plan would move her daughters to Gwin Elementary, which, she noted, has lower standardized test scores. Her children are devastated at the idea of switching schools, she said.
 
Crawford also said she feels the school system is "just messing with people's financial obligations and dealings."
 
"I feel like I've just wasted $30,000."
 
Crawford said she and other parents also are upset because the school system gave so little notice about the proposed changes.  
 
Apartment students
 
The Bluff Park PTO Board sent a letter to Dean, saying the parents at Bluff Park are ready to welcome apartment students proposed to be rezoned to their school.
 
They don't, however, believe other students should be forced into another school zone to accommodate the new arrivals, the letter said. "We can handle the growth," the PTO board members said.
 
Bluff Park parent Kim Dees questioned in an e-mail to school officials whether the school board truly was looking out for the interests of children.
 
"If you can sleep at night knowing that you are making kids cry because they will no longer be able to see their friends at school, and having unhappy property-tax-paying families, then you are truly monsters," Dees wrote.
 
"This will not go away in a week," Dees wrote. "The community is listening, and we will spread our message until you come up with a reasonable solution."
 
Opposition to the rezoning plan isn't limited to Bluff Park.
 
Some parents in the Green Valley Elementary zone are upset about their older children being rezoned from Simmons Middle School to Berry Middle School and from Hoover High to Spain Park High.
 
Mark Carroll said Green Valley is where Hoover started, so students there should get to go to Hoover High, the city's namesake high school. It takes almost twice as long to get to Spain Park from Green Valley, too, Carroll said.
 
Russell Gray, a parent of cheerleaders at Simmons and Hoover, said school officials should go ahead with plans to rezone many apartment complexes but shouldn't disrupt more permanent, taxpaying residents who have spent a great deal of money to be in certain school districts.
 
"There's going to be an awful lot of opposition," Gray said.
 
The school board also needs to build another high school to keep people from having to drive so far, he said.  
 
Irked in Greystone
 
Hundreds of parents in north Shelby County are upset about plans to rezone their children from Greystone Elementary to Rocky Ridge Elementary.
 
Greystone has the highest Stanford Achievement Test scores among Hoover schools, while Rocky Ridge has the lowest.
 
Greystone parent Ken McLain said there's a synergy at Greystone Elementary that comes from high-performing students challenging each other. He said Rocky Ridge has a fine faculty and physical campus, but he's not convinced his daughter will get the same challenging atmosphere there.
 
Hoover school officials need to strongly consider delaying the rezoning until student-teacher ratios are lowered at schools with 30 percent or more transient students, McLain said.
 
The school board, even if it proceeds with the rezoning, needs to let existing students stay at Greystone so as not to disrupt their education, McLain said.
 
Many parents at Rocky Ridge disagree, saying they're eager to get more homeowners as parents at their school, which currently has 66 percent apartment students.
 
The transient nature of apartment students has a negative impact on education when many are in the same class and tends to lessen parental involvement and financial support, Rocky Ridge parents have said.
 
Beth Hines, who will have a kindergartner at Rocky Ridge in August, said she's tickled that school officials are looking to re duce the percentage of apartment students there by spreading apartment students among more schools.
 
She's also glad to see some of the Greystone children headed for Rocky Ridge. "We're excited to welcome those neighborhoods back into the Rocky Ridge family," she said.
 
Some parents of children in apartment complexes oppose the rezoning proposal, which would move students in 28 of Hoover's 40 apartment complexes.
 
Dean said some people seem to think the zoning proposal is set in stone. He emphasized that it's still "a work in progress."
 
The proposal presented to the board represented a logical distribution of students among present and projected schools, Dean said. It was thoughtfully developed using current and optimal enrollment numbers and building capacities, he said.
 
As hard as the plan seems, the school board and administrators have the responsibility to periodically reassess school zone lines as the city's geography, population and demographics change, Dean said.
 
"We would be irresponsible if we did not do that," he said. "It is something that is necessary. It's timely and long overdue."
 
Farr said change is hard. But most parents who have called him tend to agree that "once we get through it

CONTINUED from above:
 
Other proposed zoning changes: The Hoover school system's proposed comprehensive rezoning plan includes numerous changes other than those affecting apartment complexes. Here's a quick summary of other proposals: Students in the Bluff Park Elementary zone who live south of Sulphur Springs Road would be rezoned to Gwin Elementary in August. The community behind Goody's off U.S. 31 would be rezoned from Gwin to Green Valley Elementary in August. A new school zone for Riverchase Elementary would be carved out of the Trace Crossings Elementary zone, including the Riverchase, Arbor Hills, Quail Run and Valley Station subdivisions. It would take effect in August.
 
 
Students in the Greystone Elementary zone who live west of Spain Park High would be rezoned to Rocky Ridge Elementary in August. Students who live in the Greystone and Rocky Ridge elementary zones would be zoned for Spain Park Middle School when it opens in August 2005. Students who live in the Green Valley Elementary zone would be rezoned from Simmons Middle School to Berry Middle School and from Hoover High to Spain Park High in August 2005. Students who live in the Trace Crossings Elementary zone would be rezoned from Bumpus Middle School to Simmons in August 2005.

Birmingham News (AL)
PLAN REDRAWS ALL SCHOOL ZONE LINES
 
CHANGES MAY AFFECT 1,500 STUDENTS  
 
February 20, 2004  
Section: News  
Page: 1-C  
   JON ANDERSON News staff writer  
Attendance zones for every school in the Hoover school system could be redrawn during the next two years under a plan unveiled Thursday night.  
 
Proposed changes would mean that about 1,500 of Hoover's 11,160 students would have to go to a school different from the one to which they're currently zoned, said Gary McBay, director of school services and architect of the plan.
 
The comprehensive overhaul is designed to bring students closer to their schools and accommodate population shifts, growth and changes in Hoover's geography during the past 15 years, school board President Joe Dean said.
 
The plan also would redistribute students from Hoover's closely grouped apartment complexes more evenly among schools, putting children from apartments in every school, McBay said.
 
McBay recommended making the changes for elementary schools in August this year and for middle and high schools in August 2005 when Spain Park Middle School opens.
 
Superintendent Jack Farr said he likes McBay's plan but has not made an official recommendation to the school board yet. He still plans to have the U.S. Justice Department and university educators review the plan.
 
Farr said he expects to have a recommendation for the school board by its March 18 meeting.
 
Farr said no decision has been made as to whether any students would be allowed to stay at their existing school. He earlier said he favored that option for students in north Shelby County set to be rezoned from Greystone Elementary to Rocky Ridge Elementary. Hundreds of parents in that area protested the potential rezoning and asked that students already at Greystone be allowed to stay there.
 
Dean said he doesn't favor the idea of letting those Greystone students stay.
 
"When you're dealing with a comprehensive realignment of zone lines in a system, it is best to make sure that the logic is not compromised by making incremental changes," Dean said. "The overarching concern of the board must be for the system as a whole and what is best for students in the system as a whole."
 
Ken McLain, the parent of a Greystone third-grader set to be rezoned, said Thursday night he's not sure his daughter will have the same educational opportunities at Rocky Ridge as she has at Greystone. Greystone has much higher test scores, and the students feed off each other's success, McLain said.
 
Dean said all Hoover schools are of high quality. "No student should ever miss an educational opportunity regardless of the school they attend," he said.
 
The idea behind redistributing students from apartment complexes is to reduce the impact of more transient types of housing so that certain schools don't have a much higher percentage of students moving in and out, McBay said.
 
For example, 66 percent of the students at Rocky Ridge Elementary come from apartments, while three Hoover schools have no students from apartments. Under the proposal, about 41 percent of Rocky Ridge students would come from apartments, and each Hoover school would have students from at least one apartment complex.
 
Specific zone line changes proposed can be seen at the Hoover school board office.  
 
Gary McBay Architect of school zoning plan Jack Farr Superintendent likes plan, but hasn't officially recommended it to the school board

Birmingham News (AL)
SCHOOLS WANT TO EVEN RATIO OF PUPILS FROM APARTMENTS  
 
January 21, 2004  
Section: Neighborhoods  
Page: 1-H  
Illustration: A Newschart titled 'Apartment shuffle' accompanied this article.
 
   JON ANDERSON News staff writer  
Hoover school leaders are formulating a plan to redraw school zone lines to more evenly distribute apartment complexes among schools.  
 
Some schools have a heavy concentration of apartment students, while others have none.
 
Rocky Ridge Elementary is "way out of balance," Superintendent Jack Farr said. As of May, 67 percent of the students there - or 350 of 522 - lived in apartments, school system records show.
 
Other schools with higher than desired percentages of apartment students included Green Valley at 42.9 percent, Trace Crossings at 39 percent and Shades Mountain at 37.1 percent, Farr said.
 
On the other end of the spectrum, Greystone Elementary has only one apartment complex - Lake Heather Reserve - in its zone. That meant only 30 of Greystone's 709 students last spring, or 4.2 percent, came from apartments.
 
Three Hoover schools - Bluff Park, Deer Valley and South Shades Crest elementaries - have no apartment complexes in their zones.
 
Hoover school officials say the problem isn't the apartment students themselves; it's the tendency of apartment students to be more transient than students from houses.
 
Having a large percentage of students coming and going from a particular classroom or school throughout the year presents a problem, Farr said.
 
Teachers have to adjust curriculum for children coming into the classroom in the middle of the year, he said. Some students are behind, while others are ahead.
 
Rocky Ridge Principal Sonia Carrington said it's a challenge, but her teachers are up to the task. They're well-trained in how to teach students at various skill levels anyway, she said.
 
In August, Rocky Ridge started a program to speed the evaluation of new students to see where they are in regard to curriculum, Carrington said.
 
The program has been successful, she said, but the transition for new students still can be difficult for the children, especially if they're behind in the curriculum.
 
Debbie Pitts, a third-grade teacher at Rocky Ridge, said it's particularly difficult when children arrive in the spring. Teachers don't have much time to integrate the child's prior instruction with their own, she said.
 
Last year, Pitts had three students arrive in March. They took the Stanford Achievement Test in April. She and Rocky Ridge will be judged partly on those students' performance, even though the test is more reflective of what they learned at another school, she said.
 
"The public doesn't see that," Pitts said.
 
What the public sees is the cumulative test scores for a grade at a school. Rocky Ridge has the lowest average SAT scores of any school in the Hoover system.
 
Pitts, however, doesn't like people to make generalizations that apartment students are weak academically because that's not true, she said.
 
Adjusting to a new school in the middle of the year is hard for most children, whether they live in an apartment or a house, Pitts said. It's just that apartment students are more likely to move in the middle of the year, she said.  
 
Building community
 
Having a large concentration of apartment students at one school also affects parental involvement, Pitts said.
 
Rocky Ridge has a strong Parent Teacher Organization, but getting volunteers is tougher with a transient school population, Pitts said. It sometimes takes time for parents to learn how to get involved, she said.
 
Fund-raising, which is essen tial in Alabama schools, also is affected, Pitts said. Parents who are not part of a community for a long period of time don't feel the same connection to the school and the need to support its fund-raisers, she said.
 
Pitts and Carrington would like to see apartment residents redistributed more equitably among schools.
 
Fifth-grade teacher Holly Sutherland said Rocky Ridge teachers will do whatever it takes to help students achieve goals and high expectations.
 
"We take whatever children come through our door. It doesn't matter to us," Sutherland said. "I'm just here to educate kids."
 
Farr said the rezoning of apartment complexes will help apartment students, too.
 
Gary McBay, Hoover's director of school services, said an elementary school made up entirely of apartment students could put those students at a disadvantage because of the higher turnover rate.
 
"We want our students that come from apartments to have the same advantages as any other students in Hoover," McBay said.  
 
More research
 
McBay has started a more indepth review of apartment students and their turnover rates.
 
"We strongly suspect that most kids in apartments don't stay at the same school for a lengthy period of time," he said.
 
School officials now know how many new students enter a school and how many students leave each year, but they want to better quantify what happens with individual students, he said.
 
"We're going to take every single apartment student, and we're going to track those students and see when they came in the system and when they left," McBay said.
 
The study will cover the past four years because that's as far back as current computer software will allow, he said.
 
Farr already is recommending the Hoover school board rezone six apartment complexes from Trace Crossings to the new Riverchase Elementary.
 
But McBay said he doesn't expect the percentage of apartment students at Trace Crossings to drop much because students from houses also would move to Riverchase.
 
Plus, planning consultant Bob House is projecting that Ridge Crossings Apartments could add 240 units in 2004, bringing more students to Trace Crossings, McBay said.
 
Riverchase likely would be about 35 percent apartment students, McBay estimated.
 
Some apartment complexes now zoned for Rocky Ridge for the 2004-05 school year may be shifted, but it could be the following year before more comprehensive changes involving other schools are made, Farr said.
 
There's the potential for all Hoover city schools to have some apartment students, even if no new apartments are built, McBay said.  
 
Students from the Colonial Grand at the Galleria apartment complex off Lorna Road load onto a bus headed for Rocky Ridge Elementary.

Birmingham News (AL)
GREYSTONE PARENTS OPPOSE REZONING  
 
CHANGE COULD SEND STUDENTS TO ROCKY RIDGE  
 
December 16, 2003  
Section: News  
Page: 1-B  
   JON ANDERSON News staff writer  
Parents from several Hoover neighborhoods in Shelby County are objecting to the potential rezoning of their children from Greystone Elementary School to Rocky Ridge Elementary.
 
They plan to voice their objections this afternoon to the Hoover Board of Education and deliver a petition with about 180 names.
 
Pat Chumbley, a Greystone parent who lives in The High lands subdivision near Valleydale Road and Interstate 65, said neighborhoods such as The Highlands, Sandpiper Trail, River Highlands, Oak Glen and Audubon Forest are in jeopardy of being rezoned.
 
"We are opposed to that," Chumbley said. "Rocky Ridge is an inferior school, based on test scores."
 
Stanford Achievement Test scores released this year show Greystone with an average score of 81, the highest among Hoover's nine elementary schools and among the highest in the Birmingham-Hoover metro area.
 
Comparatively, students at Rocky Ridge had an average score of 59, the lowest among Hoover elementary schools.
 
Hoover school system administrators stressed that no rezoning decisions - or even recommendations - have been made, but they are studying various options.
 
Elementary school zone lines are being reviewed because of plans to open two new Hoover schools, Riverchase Elementary in August 2004 and Spain Park Middle School in August 2005, said Gary McBay, Hoover's director of school services.
 
Greystone Elementary's zone lines also are being studied because of expected growth and the potential for crowding, McBay said.
 
A $1.2 million classroom addition in 2002 increased the school's capacity to 850 students, but growth already has pushed enrollment to more than 700.
 
Growth in the Greystone subdivision is expected to continue, so officials do expect zone line changes, McBay said. The logical place to start is the farthest point from the school, he said.
 
However, McBay said he's not yet ready to release details of what is being considered. "We have no proposal, no plan at this point," he said. "It's a work in progress."
 
McBay said he hopes to have a recommendation for the school board by late January or early February. He will share it with parents as well.
 
Chumbley said some parents are concerned that officials will have made up their minds by that time, but McBay said that's not the case.
 
Some of the Greystone parents already have toured Rocky Ridge. Sonia Carrington, the principal there, defended the quality of her school.
 
"We are definitely not an inferior school," Carrington said. "The teachers are extremely dynamic - the most dynamic I have ever been associated with as a group, and I have been in education over 20 years and worked in several school systems."
 
Carrington worked two years as a teacher at Greystone when it opened in 1995.
 
"We have opportunities for children just like every other school in Hoover city schools," she said. "The lessons are engaging. They challenge the children, and they motivate the children."
 
The school board meets today at 4 p.m.

Birmingham News (AL)
MIDDLE SCHOOL PLAN OK'D AS INVERNESS NEIGHBORS OBJECT  
 
December 17, 2003  
Section: Neighborhoods  
Page: 1-H  
Illustration: A Newsgraphic titled 'New middle school' accompanied this article.
 
   TROY GOODMAN News staff writer  
When the Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission last week gave the city schools administration a key approval on building a fourth middle school, it represented the culmination of more than three years worth of school planning, budgeting and engineering work.  
 
 
 
The approval dealt a blow, though, to Inverness homeowners near the proposed school site who now claim Hoover City Schools have pushed the proposed middle school too close to their property lines, potentially ruining the wooded charm of their neighborhood.
 
 
Planning commission members disagreed and voted unanimously to approve the school system's conditional-use request to build Spain Park Middle School on a 30-acre site just north of Spain Park High School.
 
 
Both schools are designed to better serve families living in the Inverness and Greystone neighborhoods off U.S. 280.
 
 
The Spain Park school complex is near the northeast corner of Caldwell Mill and Valleydale roads.
 
 
"We took the very preliminary plans and we shared that with them," Director of School Services Gary McBay said of the negotiations with homeowners.
 
 
The dispute boiled down to the residents wanting McBay and other officials to widen a 150-foot tree and hill buffer now planned between the school and the homes.
 
 
Wider buffer wanted
 
 
The residents have insisted for months the buffer should be widened to 270 feet or more to leave a natural tree-covered hill that now shields the homes from the building site.
 
 
The proposed three-story 150,000-square-foot middle school is positioned on the eastern section of the 30 acres, closest to the back yards of homes on Berkeley Drive.
 
 
"We are just perplexed by the fact that they've got 30 acres of land and they have chosen to put a middle school right next to these homes," said Noel Chambless, president of the Inverness Master Homeowners Association.
 
 
After last week's Planning and Zoning Commission approval of the school location, Chambless and a half dozen other residents along Berkeley Drive said they were shocked at the decision.
 
 
"This is people's lives and neighborhoods and they don't seem to get it," Chambless said of the unanimous vote.
 
 
A public hearing on the middle school site will be held before the Hoover City Council on Monday, Jan. 5. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at the Municipal Center.
 
 
Plans call for the school construction to begin next year; Spain Park Middle School could be open by mid-2005, McBay said.
 
 
Hoover schools Superintendent Jack Farr has recommended that the new middle school start with just sixth and seventh grades so that eighthgraders won't have to be pulled from other schools.
 
 
Farr said more meetings with school administrators and parents would be needed to make a final decision.
 
 
As Hoover has expanded its city limits eastward through Inverness and Greystone, Farr said the school system has shown its commitment to serve still-growing areas. Greystone Elementary opened in 1995 and now has more than 700 students. Spain Park High School opened in 2001 and now has more than 1,300 students.
 
 
Positioning suggested
 
 
Chambless said he understands Hoover's need to build new schools and said most Inverness residents have no problem with putting a middle school at the proposed 30-acre site. They just want McBay to look at other alternatives for positioning the building on the parcel so the impact to homes is minimized.
 
 
Residents suggested shoving the school building closer to the center of the land and reorganizing the parking and sports fields to accommodate the changes. In response, school of ficials have said moving the building is not workable since the Spain Park Middle School land slopes off into a huge pit on the western side, making it necessary to grade and pour foundation on the eastern portion.
 
 
Tennis courts, more parking and a stadium are planned for the western half of the land, but those will have to wait for future construction budgets, perhaps in 2007 or beyond, school officials said.
 
 
McBay insisted he sympathizes with the homeowners who oppose his plan since he would probably want to fight a similar development near his home. Yet schools improve the overall living conditions in cities and so concessions must be made in the name of progress, he said.
 
 
Another bone of contention: the majority of homes that back up to the middle school site are in unincorporated Shelby County, not Hoover city limits.
 
 
School administrators insist they have already taken all the residents' concerns to heart by widening the tree and hill buffer from an initial plan of 80 feet to the current 150 feet. Hoover's building and zoning rules only require a 35-foot buffer between a school and a residential community.
 
 
In another concession, McBay agreed to replace 30-foot light poles with 20-foot poles on the eastern side of the school and limit the use of lights on the sports fields to 10:30 p.m. at the latest. Chambless said a threestory school building is so huge, installing shorter light poles and widening the buffer from 80 feet to 150 feet will do little to mitigate the negative impact the school will have on back yards and view lines from homes.
 
 
"They could do a 35-foot buffer, but they came in with an 80-foot buffer and now they've made it a 150-foot buffer that is still not enough," Chambless said. "It sort of like saying we'll give you a glove to go on the hand that the lion has bit off."  

Birmingham News (AL)
SCHOOLS GAIN 450 PUPILS OVER 2002  
 
September 10, 2003  
Section: Neighborhoods  
Page: 1-H  
Illustration: Newscharts titled 'Hoover schools enrollment', 'They come by the hundreds', and 'A decade of growth' accompanied this article.
 
   JON ANDERSON News staff writer  
Hoover city schools have gained nearly 450 more students than at this time last year, pushing enrollment to almost 11,150.  
 
 
 
The official count on the day after Labor Day - Hoover's primary benchmark from year to year - was 11,141 students, a 4 percent increase from 10,699 students a year ago.
 
 
That's just above school officials' projection for this year, which was 11,119 students.
 
 
"We were real pleased with the projections this year, about as good as you can hope," Assistant Superintendent Connie Williams said.
 
 
The day after Labor Day is used as a benchmark because some students don't show up until then. Hoover schools have gained 260 students since the first day of school on Aug. 13, records show.
 
 
Over the past 10 years, the school system has added more than 4,000 students, nearly a 60 percent increase since 1993.
 
 
Growth is not expected to stop, but school officials predict it will slow down. They project Hoover schools will gain 878 students over the next four years, pushing enrollment to just more than 12,000 by 2007.
 
 
That's only about 220 students per year, compared to an average of 435 more students a year over the past four years.
 
 
The biggest gains this year are at Spain Park High School, which added its first senior class. Spain Park's enrollment grew 33 percent from 971 students to 1,293. Hoover below 2,000
 
 
Conversely, Hoover High School had the biggest drop in students, from 2,144 to 1,972. That was welcome news to those who thought Hoover would never drop below 2,000 students.
 
 
"I was betting it was not going to get there," said Williams, a former principal at Hoover High. "I'm glad to be wrong on that one."
 
 
Current Hoover High Principal Gene Godwin said they're enjoying the drop in students while they can.
 
 
"This is supposed to be our smallest year, and then we gradually start climbing back up," Godwin said.
 
 
Many homes are being built in subdivisions such as Trace Crossings and the Preserve. "That's a lot of families that are going to be in there and they're all going to be zoned for Hoover," Godwin said.
 
 
The school with the second largest increase in students was Berry Middle School, which gained 67 students from 1,011 to 1,078.
 
 
Williams said the ideal size for a middle school probably would be 700 to 750 students. The opening of a fourth middle school at Spain Park, set for 2005, should improve the situation at Berry, she said.
 
 
Bumpus Middle School gained only 12 students this year, pushing enrollment to 770, while Simmons Middle added 11 students for a total of 824. Green Valley growth
 
 
The elementary school with the biggest increase this year is Green Valley, where enrollment grew by 59 students from 479 to 538. That's 38 more students than were expected, the largest increase over projections for any Hoover school.
 
 
"It's hard for us to predict schools with a relatively high percentage of apartments," Williams said.
 
 
To accommodate the extra students, Green Valley created a sixth kindergarten class eight days after school started to lower student-teacher ratios, Principal Linda Campanotta said. There now is one teacher for every 16 kindergartners, records show.
 
 
"The biggest thing is just running out of space," she said.
 
 
Campanotta had to turn a science lab into a regular classroom and have teachers check out science materials without getting the benefit of the lab, she said. "Other than that, it's gone real well," she said. Trace over 1,000
 
 
Williams said Trace Crossings Elementary has a challenge with space. Trace Crossings added 50 students this year, boosting its enrollment to 1,005, and also had to add a kindergarten teacher after school started, Williams said.
 
 
That problem, however, should be solved next year with the opening of Riverchase Elementary, which should take about half of Trace Crossings' students, Williams said.
 
 
That should make Greystone Hoover's largest elementary school. Greystone gained 43 students this year for a total of 699, but has some room to grow because of a 15,590-square-foot addition last year.
 
 
Deer Valley Elementary added 33 students this year, increasing enrollment to 529, while Rocky Ridge Elementary gained 30 for a total of 523.
 
 
Shades Mountain Elementary added four students, keeping it Hoover's smallest elementary school with 321 students.
 
 
Three elementary schools lost students. Gwin's enrollment dropped by 18 to 477, while South Shades Crest's enrollment fell by 13 to 499 and Bluff Park lost nine students, for a total of 529.
 
 
The Crossroads alternative school, which draws students from middle and high schools, had 84 students the day after Labor Day, compared to 61 a year ago.  
 
 
RIGHT: Green Valley Elementary School kindergarten teacher Rena Roper and other teachers keep students in line while they wait in the gym to be picked up after school. Green Valley gained 59 students this year, 38 more than projected and more than any other elementary school in Hoover.