Plan of action

By the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year, Homewood City Schools Superintendent Bill Cleveland wants to know exactly what steps to take to make room for the growing number of students at all five Homewood schools. Getting there, however, will take a lot of help from the city’s parents and development experts.

In late September, Cleveland and Parks and Recreation Director Berkley Squires presented the results of a comprehensive land use and facilities study by B.L. Harbert International. The study was prompted by classrooms and ballfields across Homewood that are currently at maximum use, with the child population only expected to increase.

The study also included potential options to accommodate the growth in use across schools and parks.

Though the study was a months-long process, Cleveland said it is not even the final step in gathering information, let alone making a decision and acting upon it.

“A lot of people think that [the study] is it. That’s really just the first thing,” Cleveland said.

New classrooms, new high school

Homewood City Schools enrollment has been on the rise since the 2005-2006 school year, some years even seeing triple-digit growth. Kindergarten enrollment broke 300 students in 2009-2010 and has kept climbing, which is causing ripple effects as the years go on and will eventually impact the high school as well.

Cleveland said every classroom in the three elementary schools is being used and the middle and high schools are also seeing constraints in their class and extracurricular offerings.

“Every classroom is being used. So this is not a zoning issue,” Cleveland said.

At Shades Cahaba Elementary, Principal John Lowry said he sees this growth as a good problem, since it means people want to be part of the Homewood school system. However, he also knows that realistically he’s on the verge of running out of room.

“We’ve got a little bit of wiggle room, but it’s not enough to sustain the growth we’re projected to see,” Lowry said.

Homewood Middle’s lack of space is affecting extracurriculars such as band. Band Director Chris Cooper said the 500-member band uses not only its band room, but the neighboring wrestling practice room, storage rooms and sometimes even a hallway for practices.

“We get real creative on how we manage to have that many,” Cooper said.

At Homewood High School, chemistry teacher Kelly Reaves remembers that during her first year teaching, in 1999, there were dedicated laboratories for chemistry, biology and physics. Now, the biology and physics labs have been converted into full-time classrooms, so science teachers have to share the remaining lab for any hands-on teaching. Reaves said it can be difficult to meet science standards when the teachers have limited lab access, and sometimes the classes are larger than lab capacity.

“Our chemistry lab is pretty well booked almost every day, and it’s often not chemistry,” Reaves said. 

Harbert’s study suggests two possible options for addressing the elementary and middle school issues. The first is to build additions on all three elementary schools for classrooms and offices, along with a smaller addition at HMS. The second is to build a fifth-grade wing, along with extra classrooms, at HMS and free up room at the elementary schools by making them K-4.

The proposed fifth-grade wing would be on the northeast side of the middle school. Cooper said he would like to see a fifth-grade wing because it would give those students a chance to witness not only the band, but also athletics and other clubs at HMS. He thinks it would create increased participation in extracurricular groups as those students move into sixth grade.

The elementary additions, if that option is chosen instead, range from a simple add-on of 16 classrooms and cafeteria reconfiguration at Hall-Kent to a more advanced renovation at Shades Cahaba, which would include expanding the cafeteria and adding 18 classrooms in the building by relocating the gym and theater stage to a new building connected by an enclosed walkway.

A large part of deciding which path to take will be determining the life of the elementary buildings, Cleveland said. If Shades Cahaba, for instance, has only a decade or so left before it will need to be replaced, then the school system will likely choose not to fund significant additions to it. This will be included in the school system’s upcoming strategic planning process.

“It could be difficult to justify putting millions of dollars into additions there when it might only last 15 years, but we don’t know that right now,” Cleveland said.

Lowry said he felt either option would help Shades Cahaba make room for its students, and he did not have a preference. Though he said he likes a fifth-grade wing, Cooper said he felt confident that the school system would make sure everyone’s needs are met no matter which option they choose.

“I trust our school system more than anything that we’re going to be given what we need,” Cooper said.

The high school is expected to surpass 1,300 students by the 2022-2023 school year at the latest, and its expansion is hemmed in by a steep hill on one side and flood plains on the other. It’s possible to create a small addition on the property and a parking deck, but these are temporary solutions. Harbert’s proposal is to relocate the high school onto a property adjoining West Homewood Park on West Oxmoor Road, which the city purchased earlier this year.

So far, the proposal does not include a layout for the relocated high school other than general concept renderings. Since the plans were released, Cleveland said he’s heard plenty of excitement but also concerns from parents about traffic on West Oxmoor and Lakeshore Drive, as well as the move to a less central location. He said traffic issues would have to be resolved at the city level but noted that traffic projects are already underway for the Lakeshore/I-65 interchange and the West Oxmoor “turkey foot” intersection.

Some parents have suggested using the property next to Homewood Middle on Valley Avenue, which the school system owns, to build the high school. Cleveland said the property is hilly, but he’s not sure exactly what could go there. The school system has employed a team to study the property and create a concept drawing of a potential development. Cleveland said he expected the rendering to be complete after The Homewood Star’s press date, and it would be published on the Homewood City Schools growth website.

“We know the topography is interesting so to better answer questions that deal with this property, we have asked our engineers that have worked with us on that property … to literally kind of conceptually put on that property what could go there — rather than just me trying to explain to someone — to have something in writing,” Cleveland said.

However, he noted that if the West Homewood property is not approved for HHS, there aren’t a lot of options for other ways to relocate.

More firm details about the future of the high school will also be hammered out as part of the strategic planning process.

New fields for every sport

The parks and recreation department has seen about 1,000 kids join its youth league teams over the last seven years. That means Squires and the rest of his department have to find a way to make sure every kid can play ball.

Harbert’s proposal for parks and recreation was a major redesign of West Homewood Park, making room not only for the high school track and football stadium, but also new multipurpose fields and baseball and softball fields in different sizes for teams of different ages. The proposal, which Squires said includes everything they’d like to have, also includes tennis courts, batting buildings and a band practice field.

Squires said this would enable parks and recreation leagues to decrease use of elementary school playing fields and upgrade facilities.

“For us, that adds about five fields of baseball and softball along with three multipurpose fields,” he said at the initial presentation.

Since traffic is an issue, Squires said he wants the designers of the project to look at adding more entry points on Snow Drive and West Oxmoor Road. He also said since youth league teams start practice at 5:30 p.m. or later, they wouldn’t have as much overlap with high school traffic or athletics.

The department has a good working relationship with the schools, Squires said, to address traffic or field-sharing problems. Like Cleveland, he said now is the time to act.

“I don’t want to come back in three years and be in a desperate situation … we’re both getting to a critical point,” Squires said.

Since the redevelopment of West Homewood Park would remove its pool, Harbert proposed adding an aquatic center with lap pool and splash area to Patriot Park. Two tennis courts and extra parking also would be added around the senior center and the mostly vacant area between the center and the walking track.

Squires said he would like to bring the pool to Patriot Park not only as a chance to update Homewood swimming facilities, but also to make it more central to a lot of Homewood residents.

“We feel like this kind of gets it in an area there in West Homewood that gives everybody the ability to walk to it … it’s an exciting thing,” Squires said.

The price tag

For the parks and recreation department, creating these changes would cost about $25 million to $27 million for the West Homewood Park redevelopment and $5 million to $6 million for the Patriot Park pool and tennis courts. Squires emphasized those figures were based on building every single part of the proposal, and some of these projects could be removed to lower cost while still meeting the parks and recreation needs.

The school additions are more complicated. Harbert estimated the cost of adding on to the elementary schools at about $29.4 million, or the school system could choose instead to build a fifth-grade wing for $13.7 million. This does not factor in the extra classrooms and renovations needed for HMS regardless of whether the fifth-grade wing is built.

The plans for HHS are still at such an early stage that Cleveland said he did not have a cost estimate for the relocation. He said a ballpark figure to fund the entire school system project would be in the range of $55-70 million.

Funding for expansion and relocation would have to come from the city. On Oct. 17, the finance committee discussed taking out a $110 million bond for the projects, to be paid off over 30 years with $6.2 million in annual debt service. The committee discussed a one-cent increase in the sales tax, which would bring about $7.6 million each year in additional revenue. The city can also refinance bonds it took out in 2007 for a gross savings of $8 million.

The full council set a public hearing on the proposed bond on Oct. 24, after The Homewood Star’s press date. If approved, they hoped to take out the $110 million bond before Thanksgiving.

Shades Cahaba PTO President Daley King said she is excited about the possibilities.

“I grew up in Hollywood and attended Shades Cahaba, so the idea of the school changing is hard. That being said, I have been a part of Homewood through every change thus far, and I have yet to see a change that didn’t improve the community,” King said. 

Timeline and next steps

As with funding, the timeline and process for redesigning West Homewood and Patriot parks is much simpler than for the school system. Squires said once the city council chooses to move forward with the parks plan, he anticipates about 10 months of construction for the Patriot Park courts and pool.

The West Homewood fields would be completed in stages over two years. The work would be scheduled between teams’ seasons so that construction would not interfere with practices or games. Squires said the department would likely start with six acres on the southeastern end of the property to build a new maintenance facility, then divide the new fields into two segments to be completed between baseball and softball seasons.

“That’s the only way we can because we can’t afford to miss a season,” Squires said.

At the school system, strategic planning is the next step. Cleveland said in early 2017, Homewood community members will be invited to volunteer on the action teams that study and put together the plan, which affects the entirety of Homewood City Schools. 

Those action teams, including the facilities team that will study the proposed changes, will finish up their work by the end of the 2016-2017 school year. At that point, Cleveland said he expects the data they find will make the decision on their next step easy.

“I don’t think there’d be a lot of mystery in the decision to be made because it would be based on the facts,” Cleveland said.

The full presentation of the proposed projects is available on the Homewood City Schools website, homewood.k12.al.us. Questions or concerns about the plans can be sent to hbe@homewood.k12.al.us.

Visit thehomewoodstar.com for updates on the city’s decision on funding these projects.