Project managers announce timeline, public forums for school growth planning

Representatives from Cooperative Strategies and Hoar Program Management (HPM) met with the board of education's strategic planning committee tonight to discuss the first steps in creating a plan to accommodate the school system's growth.

Cooperative Strategies has been hired to perform a demographics study of Homewood City Schools. Partner Scott Leopold said the firm will be able to provide enrollment projections, by school and by grade, for 10 years, and that those projections should be ready by Aug. 1. They have already begun collecting data and making requests with state agencies who collect some of the information they need.

The firm will analyze the schools' enrollment history and birth rates in the city, as well as housing analysis across Homewood to see the student density in different neighborhoods. Due to Homewood's unique situation as a mostly built-up and landlocked city, Leopold said the demographers would take the effect of home renovation and rebuilding into account, more so than purely new home construction.

Cooperative Strategies will also be able to provide a site comparison of the current high school and candidate sites, including transportation for students to walk or drive to school.

"[We can] model scientifically, without the politics, what site would serve students the best,” Leopold said.

While demographics work is underway, HPM Director of Pre-construction Greg Ellis said the HPM team will be working on its own analysis of the existing school facilities and the wants and needs of parents, teachers, administrators and faculty members.

This begins with a web portal on the Homewood City Schools website, which will be home to progress updates and videos of meetings where updates are given. HCS spokesperson Merrick Wilson said the portal is supposed to go live on Friday, May 19.

The portal will also host a pair of surveys that Ellis said will factor into their planning and creation of a list of growth options. One survey is for parents and community members, while the other is for school staff and administrators, and Ellis said they will be a chance for respondents to express wants, needs and concerns. Strategic planning committee members also had the chance to contribute questions to the surveys.

Ellis said he hopes to have the survey available by the time school lets out.

“What are the things that we value? What are the things that we do not want to let go of Homewood City Schools?” Ellis asked.

The public can also contribute their thoughts at a set of three public forums: June 13 at 6 p.m. at Hall-Kent Elementary, June 15 at 6 p.m. at Edgewood Elementary and June 27 at 6 p.m. at Shades Cahaba Elementary.

The facilities and community assessments will wrap up sometime in July. After the demographics results are published in August, Ellis said they will present the initial data and a first draft of options later that month. They intend to follow this with a refined set of options in September and final options, as well as HPM's recommendations, in October.

Ellis said that HPM would be transparent with their data and processes through community meetings and the web portal “so you guys have access to every step, every report,” but he cautioned that the process does take time. Transparency has been a key concern for residents throughout the process of funding and planning the schools expansion, as well as the parks and public safety projects funded from the same $110 million bond issue.

“Every meeting we come to, we’ll answer questions until the sun comes up if we have to,” Ellis said.  

Superintendent Bill Cleveland said all funds for the schools' growth must be committed by November 2019 as part of the bond agreement, but he expects for a significant amount of pre-construction to be done by spring 2018, with some construction in motion by that 2019 deadline.

Visit the Homewood City Schools website for access to the web portal.