Gardendale school board members set schedule for first official days in office

Published 2:18 pm Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Members of the Gardendale Board of Education continued to prepare for the official opening of the new school system, as they held their second organizational meeting Tuesday night at City Hall.

The meeting came after members went to see two metro-area school boards in action over the previous week. Some went to the Hoover City Schools meeting, while others attended the Trussville Board of Education session.

“They [the Trussville board] were very welcoming and helpful,” board member Chris Segroves said. “They spent a long time answering our questions.”

Like Gardendale is doing now, Trussville schools broke away from the Jefferson County system a few years ago, so they have already been through many of the steps Gardendale is about to take.

The members were encouraged to attend the meetings by attorney Donald Sweeney, who is assisting Gardendale in getting their system up and running.

The board also heard from Dr. Jodi Newton, the associate dean of the Beeson School of Education at Samford University. Denton is a former superintendent, having served 10½ years with the Homewood City Schools.

Newton gave the board extensive advice about personnel matters. “There’s one question to always ask about how someone is doing their job: ‘How are they contributing to our excellence?’,” she said.

The board heard from City Councilman Alvin Currington about the new annexation committee created by the council at their meeting Monday night. Currington told the board that one of the members of the new committee will be the president of the board, once that person is selected when they officially take office on April 1.

The committee was created to approve applications to annex properties into the city, and is intended to make sure that such properties can be given essential city services – including education – without an undue financial burden on the city. Already the council has said that they will currently not accept applications outside of those on streets on a list issued Wednesday, and the committee will establish a policy setting forth how applications outside those areas will be handled in the future.

Board member Dr. Michael Hogue asked Currington if the council would be amenable to changing their resolution to allow the board president to designate a member to serve on the committee instead. “It would give us more flexibility,” Hogue said.

Board member Chris Lucas also suggested that the new superintendent might be a better person to serve, given that he or she will have better day-to-day knowledge of whether the new school system could adequately handle students associated with the annexation of a property. Lucas added that the designated committee member might be included to allow for a school board member or the superintendent.

Currington said he would take the suggestions back to the council for consideration.

He also told the board that city personnel have already reserved domain names for the system’s future website and email addresses, and have also created a Facebook page for the system’s use.

The members scheduled a work session for April 1 – their first official day in office – at City Hall, plus another work session for April 7. They also set their first official meeting for April 8, with a location to be determined.