I graduated in '98 and it was a much different school then; this was before the over building of apartments took their toll on the system. I believe Spain Park and Homewood High School are pretty much equal, but there's a small gap between them and Hoover High School. However, there's a substantial gap between Brook/Vestavia and Hoover. 15 years ago, those 3 were interchangeable. I'm not sure how involved with Hoover High School today, but I feel confident in saying the quality of teachers on staff is well below what it once was.

I occasionally do work with the education community in the OTM cities and the you'd be hard pressed to find an educator who's been involved since the 90s that would disagree. Several of the department heads from my era and yours would be the first to echo my sentiments. There's obviously disagreement on the cause of the decline, but a couple will point to the community's obsession of being the dominant football power in the state as the underlying problem. Let's be honest, the average person in Hoover would likely choose to be elite at football while having good academics over being an elite academic institution with good football.

I loved going to school there and being part of the first class to go to through the full IB program. Unfortunately, when we move back, Hoover City Schools won't even be on our radar. We will either buy in Mtn Brook or Vestavia.