Albertville City Schools is in desperate need of more funding to accommodate its rapid growth and immigrant population, according to Superintendent Bart Reeves.
He made an impassioned plea during a Partners in Education breakfast last week, asking the public to contact their state legislators for help with this "unique situation," The Sand Mountian Reporter reported.
Formerly the assistant executive director for the Alabama Association of School Boards, Reeves recently moved back to the Albertville area to fill the district's superintendent position following Boyd English's retirement.
"I was gone from the area for eight years and didn't know what the challenges facing our school system were," Reeves said at the breakfast. "We are in a unique situation here."
The two biggest challenges facing the district were the language barrier among the majority Hispanic student body and space constraints, Reeves said, according to The Reporter.
"I beg you to call and email your local legislators," Reeves said at the breakfast. "...We have children speaking French, Spanish and Haitian Creole. They struggle to communicate. Can you imagine moving to a place where you didn't speak the language and you were trying to learn?"
Albertville has been a magnet for immigration since the mid-1990s, when the Hispanic population grew from 1% to over 25% by 2010.
RELATED: Albertville: How lax immigration policy drastically changed the character of an Alabama town
According to the 2023 federal report card, Hispanics made up almost 57% of Albertville City Schools' student body, and 29.4% of students had limited English proficiency. Those numbers grew from 41.6 % and 12.4%, respectively, since 2015.
Even with the addition of two new buildings at the high school campus, Reeves said the rate of registration is stretching the student-to-teacher ratio to uncomfortable levels. However, to hire more teachers, he'd need a place to put them.
"I have concerns with our student-to-teacher ratios. We have kindergarten classes with 21 and 22 students in them," he said. "If we hire more teachers to handle the additional students, we don't have any place to put them."
Reeves hopes the forthcoming magnet school, which could include an EL Academy, will help alleviate some of the pressure, particularly if it can be adapted to other grade levels.
1819 News contacted Reeve's office for further comment but did not receive a response before the deadline.
To connect with the story's author or comment, email daniel.taylor@1819news.com or find him on Twitter and Facebook.
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