The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

A big problem is that you can't walk anywhere in Hoover.

http://www.cbs42.com/2013/07/16/hoover-c...-services/

Quote:“It came out of nowhere. Where was the warning?” questioned Kerry Leasure,

Um, with all due respect, ma'am, they're giving you over a year's warning.

Looks like a very big problem.
I don't see how you can cut out bus service for a public high school.
I thought Hoover had craploads of money in the system.

What I didn't see mentioned is the transportation funding that comes from the SETF - there is a specific allotment for helping to cover the costs of operating school buses for all school districts that have them. I would presume that if the district no longer provides school bus service, this funding will no longer come to them from Montgomery. How will that cut in state funding affect the quoted $2.5 million "savings" figure?

As jobs continue to be more and more scarce for many parents, it will be no small trick to get children to school on time while at the same time getting both parents to work on time. Something may have to give next year in many family's life style choices. (When my kids were in "day care", it costs $35 per week for two at Mrs. Leverette's Day Care Center at South Avondale Baptist Church. What is the current price for similar service?)

Daycare is now a car payment.

An expensive car.

Could it be that Hoover relied on Federal money (gone now w/ sequestration?) to fund it while using their own local/state revs for other stuff so looked like they had money when they really didn't?

Could it be a ploy to keep less wealthy people out of Hoover?

(07-18-2013 05:15 PM)blazerwkr Wrote:  Could it be that Hoover relied on Federal money (gone now w/ sequestration?) to fund it while using their own local/state revs for other stuff so looked like they had money when they really didn't?

As I understand it, the federal government , if it provides any transport funding at all, does so only for "Exceptional children" and that bus service is being continued by Hoover. They are cutting only the regular bus transport for "regular students" for which the state provides funding from the SETF .

Could this move be somehow connected to setting up the system to refuse transport help for students who might seek transfer into Hoover schools under the new Accountability Law?

(07-18-2013 09:44 PM)demiveeman Wrote:  Could it be a ploy to keep less wealthy people out of Hoover?

Kiss their football dominance goodbye.

Is that racist? I don't know, but it's true.

(07-19-2013 12:10 AM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  Could this move be somehow connected to setting up the system to refuse transport help for students who might seek transfer into Hoover schools under the new Accountability Law?

How so? Those kids weren't zoned for Hoover to begin with.

(07-19-2013 08:34 AM)Smaug Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 12:10 AM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  Could this move be somehow connected to setting up the system to refuse transport help for students who might seek transfer into Hoover schools under the new Accountability Law?

How so? Those kids weren't zoned for Hoover to begin with.

That's the whole point of that law. You can, at some point when they figure it out, transfer to a different system.

(07-19-2013 02:28 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 08:34 AM)Smaug Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 12:10 AM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  Could this move be somehow connected to setting up the system to refuse transport help for students who might seek transfer into Hoover schools under the new Accountability Law?

How so? Those kids weren't zoned for Hoover to begin with.

That's the whole point of that law. You can, at some point when they figure it out, transfer to a different system.

Under the current form of the state Accountability Law, a student at a "failing school" can apply to a "successful school" for transfer, but the law also provides the means for a successful school to deny that transfer. To have no transport system may be seen as a viable reason for such a refusal - if one wants it to be.

8/01/13 is the current deadline for such applications for the 2013-2014 school year. By this time in the summer of 2014, more parents may have figured out the process than this summer (the income tax credit may prompt more to try). If this strategy to prevent transfers works for Hoover, will we see more "successful" districts doing the same thing next year?

Is a school system obligated to provide transportation to out of system transfer kids as it is?

I'm not asking to be snarky. I'm asking because I don't know.

(07-19-2013 03:11 PM)Smaug Wrote:  Is a school system obligated to provide transportation to out of system transfer kids as it is?

I'm not asking to be snarky. I'm asking because I don't know.

A school system is only obligated to provide transportation to special needs kids. They're not even obligated to provide transportation to in-district kids.

(07-19-2013 03:11 PM)Smaug Wrote:  Is a school system obligated to provide transportation to out of system transfer kids as it is?

I'm not asking to be snarky. I'm asking because I don't know.

Until the Accountability Act of 2013, the answer might well have been a simple "NO", but the state's legal suggestion of a student being able (entitled?) to transfer from a "failing school" to a "successful school" may have changed the rules as "unanticipated variables" for which our legislature is so famous (infamous?) for blundering into.

This new law may turn out to be a lawyer's gold mine as these issues may arise and have to be adjudicated. I can almost see the new lawyer ads on TV now.

(07-19-2013 03:48 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 03:11 PM)Smaug Wrote:  Is a school system obligated to provide transportation to out of system transfer kids as it is?

I'm not asking to be snarky. I'm asking because I don't know.

Until the Accountability Act of 2013, the answer might well have been a simple "NO", but the state's legal suggestion of a student being able (entitled?) to transfer from a "failing school" to a "successful school" may have changed the rules as "unanticipated variables" for which our legislature is so famous (infamous?) for blundering into.

This new law may turn out to be a lawyer's gold mine as these issues may arise and have to be adjudicated. I can almost see the new lawyer ads on TV now.

School systems don't have to provide transportation to anyone, except special needs students. It's not something that could be sued into existence.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/hoove...s-service/

(07-19-2013 09:33 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 03:48 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  

(07-19-2013 03:11 PM)Smaug Wrote:  Is a school system obligated to provide transportation to out of system transfer kids as it is?

I'm not asking to be snarky. I'm asking because I don't know.

Until the Accountability Act of 2013, the answer might well have been a simple "NO", but the state's legal suggestion of a student being able (entitled?) to transfer from a "failing school" to a "successful school" may have changed the rules as "unanticipated variables" for which our legislature is so famous (infamous?) for blundering into.

This new law may turn out to be a lawyer's gold mine as these issues may arise and have to be adjudicated. I can almost see the new lawyer ads on TV now.

School systems don't have to provide transportation to anyone, except special needs students. It's not something that could be sued into existence.

Want to bet some lawyer isn't going to try? It is the STATE law that set up this situation and it would be a STATE court judge that decides how it will be applied / settled. State judges are elected and making unpopular decisions is not a well known tendency for them in the past.

Actually, it is my belief that the "yes, you can ask for a transfer" and the "Yes, you don't have to accept one" was the whole point of APPEARING to do something for students in "failing schools" (that won't cost any additional tax revenue) while not upsetting their suburban constituents who don't want the "riff-raff" in THEIR kid's schools. Some spokespersons for private schools have expressed reluctance to get involved as well because they don't want the state having a chance to "look over the shoulder" of their school's administration by allowing transfers.

(07-19-2013 08:33 AM)Smaug Wrote:  

(07-18-2013 09:44 PM)demiveeman Wrote:  Could it be a ploy to keep less wealthy people out of Hoover?

Kiss their football dominance goodbye.

Is that racist? I don't know, but it's true.

You act as though some of these players weren't somehow given housing in the district to be eligible students. They'll find a way.

When Mailon Kent rented two of his realty company's apts to the families of the two transfers from JCA so they could play on his son's team at MBHS, nothing was said by the state AHSAA questioning the move as they did when Cousins later moved to Center Point HS.

In the recent state HS BB playoffs, MBHS had 3 "Black" players (of whom only one was a starter) and nothing was said about "transfers". Since being Black does not automatically equate to athletic prowess, it is a good chance their families simply bought homes in MB like the other kids. As with Chad Jackson at Hoover, it just means that other than "white" families moved into the suburbs as well.

As Per the Sunday (7/21/13) NEWS article on the Hoover School System, they apparently had not, as I had supposed, enacted a local property tax to augment the local support of their schools as Mountain Brook had done years ago. Instead they have relied upon a Jeffco sales tax that is ending soon.

If they now want to do as MB did, they must get the state legislature to pass such a bill (spring 2014 at the earliest) and then set up a statewide constitutional amendment vote at some point in the future (probably 11/14 at the earliest) after that and get an affirmative state vote. THEN they get to pass a property tax the citizens will tolerate for future funding. In Alabama, it's never as simple to do as it is to say.

The only alternative to that process is to enact a new higher sales tax for ONLY the city of Hoover. That or cut back on the Hoover school expenses by more than just the buses. The "fun component" of running the Hoover schools is about at an end.