Trussville City Schools is the public school system for Trussville, Alabama, a suburb east of Birmingham. The Trussville City Schools school district serves 4,269 students and is ranked among the top 10 districts in the state of Alabama by both Niche and School Digger. The mascot is the Husky, and team colors are red and gray.
History
Trussville schools were part of the Jefferson County School System until 2005. In 2000, a financial crisis forced the county to reduce funding for teachers, and when the city of Trussville was not allowed to offset these reductions with its own funds, it began to explore the possibility of creating a separate system. In 2004, the city council passed a resolution that created the Trussville Board of Education, and in 2005, Trussville City Schools officially separated from the Jefferson County School System. Suzanne Freeman was the district's first superintendent, serving from the district's inception until 2012. She was succeeded by Dr. Patricia Neill, who is still in that role.
Student profile
Trussville City Schools serve all students living within Trussville city limits. The student population is 86% white, 10% African-American, 2% Asian-American, 1% Hispanic, and 1% multiracial. Approximately 10% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch. Less than 1% are English Language Learners, and about 8% have Individualized Education Programs. Trussville City Schools have a dropout rate that is less than one half of one percent. Approximately 93% of Trussville students meet or exceed state proficiency standards in mathematics, and about 95% meet or exceed standards in reading.
Schools
The Trussville City School District includes five schools: a high school, middle school, and three elementary schools.
is the only high school in the district and serves all students in grades 9-12. It enrolled 1,396 students in the 2013-14 school year, and with 94 faculty, had a student-teacher ratio of approximately 15:1. HTHS athletic teams compete in AHSAA Class 7A athletics. Completed in 2008, the HTHS campus is located on a 127-acre site on Husky Parkway between Trussville Clay Road and Deerfoot Parkway, across I-59 from Hewitt-Trussville Middle School. The school is able to accommodate about 1,600 students, with room to grow to 2,400 students in the future. The school was designed by Davis Architects and encompasses 285,000-square feet. Its design includes white columns and a clock tower, and at a final cost of $70 million, the school was the most expensive high school ever built in Alabama upon its opening in October 2008.
Hewitt-Trussville Middle School serves all students in grades 6-8. It enrolled 1,000 students in the 2013-14 school year and employed 68 faculty. Students from Paine Intermediate School enter HTMS in the sixth grade, as do students from Cahaba and Magnolia Elementary Schools. HTMS was established in 1984 on the former campus of Hewitt-Trussville High School in the Cahaba Homestead Project. In 2008, it moved to its current campus on Trussville Clay Road, across Interstate 59 from the new Hewitt-Trussville High School.
Cahaba Elementary School
Cahaba Elementary School welcomed its first students for the 2016-17 school year. It is located on the Mall in the Cahaba Project and occupies the renovated campus of the former Hewitt-Trussville Middle and High Schools. The historic campus was renovated at a cost of approximately $9 million and has the capacity to house up to 500 students. It is expected to enroll approximately 400 students.
Magnolia Elementary School
Magnolia Elementary School was scheduled to open for the 2016-17 school year, but construction delays pushed its opening back by a month and a half. Magnolia serves most of the students in the southern part of the city. A new construction with a budget of $14 million, Magnolia is large enough to house up to 500 students but is expected to enroll approximately 400.
Paine Elementary School
Paine Elementary School is situated on U.S. Highway 11 on a tract of land donated by Amerex Corporation founders Ned and Goldie Paine. Paine previously comprised two distinct schools on the same campus: Paine Primary School, which enrolled grades K-2, and Paine Intermediate School, which enrolled grades 3-5. Starting with the 2016-17 academic year, the two schools were consolidated as one. The most recent enrollment data for the two schools, from 2013-14, indicated that they jointly enrolled 1,873 students and employed 141 teachers. That number is expected to be cut by half with the opening of Cahaba and Magnolia Elementary Schools.
Governance
Trussville City Schools are governed by Dr Pattie Neill and Trussville Board of Education, which comprises five individuals who serve staggered five-year terms. Members are appointed by the Trussville City Council as there are openings on the board. All members of the board serve as volunteers, without pay. Unlike other school systems the board of education, city council, mayor and state representative Danny Garret all answer to the superintendent Dr Pattie Neill. Current board members are:
The Board meets in regular session at 6:00 pm on the third Monday of each month. The Board holds a Work Session at 4:30 pm prior the Board Meeting. Both Work Session and Board Meetings are open to the public. Board Meetings are held in the Board Room of the Central Office and Work Sessions are in the Training Room of the Central Office at 113 North Chalkville Road.
