by Steve Alexander
Published: Thu, April 03, 2008 - 8:26 pm CST
Saraland's new school superintendent is officially on the job.The Saraland School Board Thursday night approved a four year contract with David Stiles for initially $145,000 a year.
Stiles is a former assistant superintendent from the Birmingham area.
He signed a contract after Thursday night's board meeting to become the system's first full-time superintendent.
Stiles said his first priority will be sitting down with the individual board members to get a sense of a vision for the school system.
He said, "I haven't had the opportunity to spend extensive time with the board members. I'll be doing that very soon. I'd like to set up a school board retreat, perhaps, in the near future where we all go away together and really spend some time rolling up our sleeves and talking about the priorities for the community."
Board members also took action Thursday night paving the way for the new Saraland High School to be built on an 83 acre site near Chickasabogue Creek.
They approved a bid for site work at the high school.
Board President Bill Silver said, "This bid was for the site selection plan, which is simply the clearing, getting the site ready for the bid. And June the first, we will actually bid out the high school itself."
There are a number of questions that have to be answered when starting a new school system and one of them came up at Thursday night's meeting concerning cheerleaders.
The question was whether the new school system will allow cheerleaders to tumble or build pyramids.
Regina Everett, the interim cheerleader sponsor for incoming freshmen, said, "We just need to know which direction we're going because that determines where the girls go to summer camp, whether they go to ground-bound camps, or what competitions they enter."
Stiles said, "There have been some issues from a legal standpoint over the years at various schools and some schools have banned that (tumbles and pyramid-building) and cheerleaders are allowed only to be on the ground or floor. I don't know where we'll end up. We need to research it a little bit and see what the history is here."
The school board also decided to choose red and grey as the colors for the new Saraland High School.
The new school is scheduled to open in August of 2009.
Superintendent Selection Delayed
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