Wanted info on University Place School

[hey teach]

Originally Posted by padmaster

I've noticed they are dressing up the front entrance to UP with some nice stone walls. That's a lot of money if they are going to replace the school. Or are they going to rebuild on the same site?

I think the stone work is actually being done by UAH not HCS.

[lindy112]

Originally Posted by hey teach

I think the stone work is actually being done by UAH not HCS.

That's right ... once UP moves out of that building, I think UAH is tearing it down and building something else there. University Place Elementary is being replaced by Sonnie Hereford Elementary.

[bornanddiedonWestside]

Originally Posted by Doc's Wife

Thank you for the responses.

1. Looking for a home in another school zone is not an option. My husbands new position comes with housing as part of his salary. This is the zone the house (and it is a very nice house in what appears to be a nice neighborhood) is located in.

2. What is wrong with the school. I am a former teacher in a low performing school. I understand how school districts work and the mechanisms that drive both district school boards and city government. So are the problems: administrative, teachers, parents, low income, transfers, violence, racial issues, lack of resources? ... the list could go on and on.

3. I quickly realized that the city of Huntsville is somewhat segregated. I don't really care about this, I've seen it before in other areas we have lived in, I will see it again in other areas in the future.

4. What I really am looking for is the good, the bad, and the ugly about this school before I drop my daughter in this learning environment. Is it safe? I haven't found any evidence of violent actions reported. Is it healthy? I haven't found any mold or asbestos reported. Is the administration and staff credible? I have found some information that makes me question the human resources qualifications. But we all know these types of actions can be kept quiet, swept under the rug, or just plain ignored when a school district is trying to present a certain type of picture.

5. What I really want is to hear from someone who has had experience with this school.

What's the neighborhood you're living in, or the names of any nearby streets? Just wondering if I could help out, because I live in between Oakwood Avenue and University Drive and I'd be able to tell you if it's a safe place. There's a stretch of University Drive from the parkway to Wynn Drive, which has some of the worst neighborhoods in the city. Places like: Northridge Apartments, the projects, Terry Heights/Hillandale, apartments along Sparkman Drive and University Drive, Qail Pointe apartments are pretty crappy too, but the hands down, crappiest, dirtiest, and most dangerous apartments near University Place, is Hillside Village. Hillside Village is located on Bonnell Drive, I heard so many shots fired from their last year. I haven't seen many reports of shootings there recently,just a few, and some shots go unreported like in most hoods, but I think the criminals there are just saving up for a summer shootout. Just stay away from that area.

[CoreLysium]

You want to get your kid into the Arts and Academics, or whatever AA stands for. When we were going to be feeding into Williams we covered our bets by getting our daughter accepted into it. And, really, it seems like a great school. But we had planned on moving anyhow, and that's what we did.

[deesonic]

Originally Posted by Reactionary

Much of the tension is due to renaming Johnson High School. Johnson and Butler High Schools are being closed (both are recognized by the State as 'failing schools'). The students are to attend a new high school named after astronaut Mae Jemison, who is from the area and who is also black. IMO part of the reason for a new name is to erase the 'failing' status, although the official reason is that since two schools are merging, neither school should keep its name.

Kinda off the subject to address this, but I feel the need to clarify. Butler and Johnson aren't necessarily "merging" into Jemison. Butler's current zone goes as far south as Airport Road. While most of Butler's zone may fall into the new Jemison zone, the plan I saw most recently would actually spread the Butler student body across new Jemison, Lee, Huntsville, Columbia, and even Grissom's zone. Completely merging Johnson and Butler into a new school would certainly get the feds riled up I would think. Case in point, Holiday Homes in SW Huntsville (where I grew up and attended Butler) is less than 2 miles from HHS. It's 10 miles to the current Johnson. The new Jemison would still be more than 9 miles. How could HCS justify that to the feds that they were not violating the almost 50 year old desegregation order? The decades old desegregation order, while controversial it may be, will certainly not go away by taking the city's two poorest, most minority majority, and failing high schools and dumping them into a new school on the northern fringe of the city when many of the kids actually live south of Clinton Ave as much as 12-15 miles away while there are better performing schools much closer.

[CoreLysium]

Right, Dee. Butler is being split up and distributed in a way that makes sense and those kids who lived close to HHS, like you did, will actually be going to HHS. Though, oddly, since Grissom is getting some old Butler territory, we'll have the same situation where HHS is much closer to those kids than Grissom is.

The rezoning is mainly a reaction to Butler closing and doesn't take a systemic approach. What I mean by that is it just takes the old Butler territory and parcels it to different schools. What would make more sense in the long run is to look at the city as if you didn't know where the boundaries are and draw the most reasonable boundaries based on what we have now. But that's not going to happen.

[Reactionary]

deesonic - thanks for clarifying. In my post I used the shorthand "merge" to represent what you so rightly describe.