Students and teachers rang in the new year at a brand-new campus as Calcedeaver Elementary School opened its doors in north Mobile County in early January 2015. The $10.5 million, 58,000-square-foot facility replaced an older building and came with new leadership as well: interim principal Laura Hittson stepped in after previous principal Paige Mixon moved to lead North Mobile K-8 School.
Calcedeaver’s opening was one of several major building projects moving forward across Mobile and Baldwin county school systems that month. The Mobile County school board approved a $22 million construction bid from White-Spunner Construction to serve as general contractor for the long-planned new Citronelle High School, with work expected to begin later in January. The project represented one of the larger capital investments in the county school system’s building plan for the area.
Families interested in Mobile County’s magnet school program also had a deadline to watch. The system’s seven magnet schools were accepting applications through its website, with the first lottery drawing set for late February, giving parents several weeks to apply for specialized programs across the district.
In Baldwin County, school leaders touted a different kind of investment: a $2.7 million aviation training facility at H.L. “Sonny” Callahan Airport that had just opened, enrolling 15 students from five area high schools with room to grow. The program, developed in partnership with Faulkner State Community College, Enterprise State Community College and the Fairhope Airport Authority, allows high schoolers to earn college credit through dual enrollment coursework tied directly to aviation careers, an unusual offering for a coastal Alabama school system.
Baldwin County’s school board also received an update on a broader slate of capital improvement projects during the same period, as newly hired Superintendent Robbie Owen continued settling into his role after his first semester leading the system. Owen had spoken publicly about his priorities heading into the new year, including plans for the district’s Digital Renaissance technology initiative and the challenge of explaining the system’s capital improvement plan to voters.
Elsewhere in the region, the City of Bay Minette held a sale of salvaged doors and windows from the former Baldwin County High School building, giving residents a chance to own a physical piece of the county’s educational history. And in Chickasaw, the city school board began weighing whether to reopen the former Hamilton Elementary School building on Grant Street, which had sat vacant since Mobile County’s magnet program moved out.
Personnel changes also touched the region’s education leadership. Bay Minette native Jeff Langham, who had spent a decade as superintendent of the Elmore County School District, started a new role as Assistant State Superintendent for External Affairs with the Alabama Department of Education on Jan. 1, taking his South Alabama roots to a statewide policy post.
Local school boards in Baldwin County, Chickasaw and Saraland all held meetings that month to continue routine business, underscoring how construction, staffing and program decisions across several small and mid-sized districts were shaping the school year for thousands of students throughout Mobile and Baldwin counties.