New Plans for Mobile’s Shaw High School

By Steve Alexander Reporter

Some students who now go to Adams Middle School will go there next year New Plans for Mobile’s Shaw High School

Published: Wed, February 13, 2008 - 9:23 pm

Steve Alexander

Students and parents at Adams Middle School in Saraland face big changes.
Saraland's new school system may force some students to attend the old Shaw High School in Mobile next school year.
Mobile school officials say there are about 400 students that live within the county school system boundaries that are going to Adams Middle School this year.
But next school year, the new Saraland School system takes over Adams.
So Mobile school board members have voted to move those students living in their jurisdiction to what is now Shaw High School.
Mobile School Superintendent Dr. Roy Nichols says, "We've got Shaw high school which is a beautiful facility with a gym and athletic fields."
Mobile school officials say the last students grandfathered into Shaw graduate this year.
Nichols says, "What we're trying to do is to keep the principal and the Adams teachers who want to remain Mobile County employees and those kids together as a unit, so we move them to Shaw."
Saraland interim School Superintendent Paul Sousa says an important deadline is coming up for teachers.
Sousa says, "By the 22nd of February, every teacher in Saraland has to declare whether they want to stay with us or stay with Mobile county."
Some parents of Adams students who live in the Mobile jurisdiction had hoped their children would be able to go to Adams next year.
But the two superintendents seem to disagree on whether that's been an option recently.
Nichols says, "My conversations with their superintendent as late as a week ago led me to believe that our students would still be welcome there as transfer students, so I'm a little disappointed."
But Sousa says that issue was decided by Mobile school officials last year.
Sousa says, "They wanted their students back from Adams. That was during the negotiations and the state department was in those negotiations. That was their request: not their request, their demand."
Adams Middle School will have a new principal next school year.
He's Dr. Stephen North, a former assistant principal at Gulf Shores High School.
Meantime, the current principal at Saraland Elementary, Peggy Clements, will stay on as principal next year.