
Photo by Sam Chandler
The Mountain Brook Board of Education met Oct. 14 at Mountain Brook Junior High School.
The Mountain Brook Board of Education held its monthly meeting on Oct. 14 at Mountain Brook Junior High School.
It began with Brookwood Forest Elementary Principal Nathan Pitner relaying his school’s receipt of a recent accolade. The American Society of Landscape Architects recognized Brookwood Forest’s Ranger Park with its Honor Award. The park 15,000-square-foot park opened before the 2018-19 school year and features two basketball courts, an outdoor pavilion and large rubber play surface.
It also offers amenities accessible for all children and interactive musical equipment to foster a multi-sensory learning environment. Mountain Brook Schools Facilities Director Tommy Prewitt and Blackjack Horticulture President Bryan Word, who helped oversee the project, joined Pitner in addressing the school board.
“We really enjoyed the space and have because the kids enjoyed it,” Pitner said, “but I didn’t want to miss a chance just to say thank you publicly to both you for helping us do the project in the early stages and to Tommy and Bryan for all the work that they did throughout, because it’s really been a testament to the work we do here, and so we appreciate that.”
Next, Mountain Brook High School Principal Philip Holley acknowledged students who were recently recognized by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Twenty-one MBHS seniors were named National Merit semifinalists, and 12 were named National Merit Commended students.
“Congratulations,” MBS Superintendent Dicky Barlow told the students. “That’s quite an accomplishment.”
Following the recognitions, MBS Director of Instruction and Special Education Missy Brooks provided reports about professional learning from this past summer and student achievement from the 2018-19 school year.
Brooks said district staff logged more than 3,500 contact hours of professional learning over the summer by participating in various training. She also said staff logged more than 4,300 contact hours through summer professional learning small groups.
In regard to student achievement, Brooks reported a host of statistics indicating that Mountain Brook students perform far above the national average on standardized tests. Notably, MBHS juniors averaged 26.3 on the ACT college entrance exam, which is scored from 1-36. The state average was 18, while the national average was 21.
MBS Director of Student Services Amanda Hood provided the final reports of the meeting, on school incidence, seclusion and restraint and attendance. MBS reported 33 incidents across its six schools during the 2018-19 academic year, along with 26 instances of restraint.
“In a school district of a little over 4,000 students, we have very few issues,” Hood said. “...We never seclude students. We only restrain when a child is a danger to themselves or someone else, so that is done by trained staff and there’s an entire procedure that we use to work with parents and communicate that so that we can help support that child’s behavior.”
Hood also reported that district wide school attendance was 96.3%.
In other business, the school board:
- Approved personnel recommendations
- Approved the sale or disposal of surplus items
- Approved the minutes from its Sept. 9 meeting
The school board will hold its next meeting Nov. 18 at 3:30 p.m. at Mountain Brook Elementary. Also on Nov. 18, Mountain Brook and Vestavia will host a legislative forum in Mountain Brook’s Professional Learning Center. Start time is 8:30 a.m.