Hoover High School (Alabama)

The origin of Hoover High School traces back to one of the older Jefferson County Schools, W.A. Berry High School. In the late 1960s only two high schools existed "over the hill" of Red Mountain and the further south Shades Mountain. These were Shades Valley High School established in Homewood in 1948, and Mountain Brook High School established in 1966. Shades Valley, also a Jefferson County School, began to rapidly grow in the late 1960s from a large population of people moving south of Birmingham. Mountain Brook was not growing near as rapidly due to high living cost and having an independent school system since their inception in 1966; prior to this, Mountain Brook was zoned for Shades Valley's pattern. To offset the rapid student body growth in the city of Vestavia Hills, Cahaba Heights, now a neighborhood in Vestavia Hills, the unincorporated communities of Hoover, Bluff Park, and other unincorporated communities, Jefferson County Schools created a new school zone for the southern area of the county. W.A. Berry High School was built originally as an elementary school off of Columbiana Road in Hoover, opening in 1959. A grade was added every year starting with the seventh grade until the first high school age grade was added in 1962, with the last grade added in 1965, two years before the city of Hoover incorporated. However the cities of Vestavia Hills and Homewood began to question the logistics of financially supporting independent systems, with both separating from Jefferson County Schools in 1970 to create Homewood City Schools and Vestavia Hills City Schools, creating the independent Vestavia Hills High School in 1970 and Homewood High School in 1972. This pulled some of Shades Valley and Berry's feeder schools, including Pizitz Middle School which was a feeder school for Berry. Pizitz is the only school in the Vestavia Hills school district to have a different mascot than the Rebel, it continues to sport its Pirate mascot to pay homage to the Berry Buccaneers. Through the 1970s and 1980s, Shades Valley saw massive growth, with Berry taking on even more tremendous growth with the other "over the hill" schools, which had gone from two high schools to five in less than six years. Primarily fueled by people desiring to leave the Birmingham City Schools, notably Woodlawn High School among others, the surrounding communities saw almost interstellar growth. The school was so popular to move to that classroom trailers filled the outside parking lot of the school to handle the excess population of students. The student to teacher ratio neared 40:1 during this time. In 1988 the city of Hoover (in large part due to the construction of the Riverchase Galleria in 1986 and massive land annexation efforts) left the Jefferson County School system to form Hoover City Schools. Several of the original feeders such as Simmons Middle School were brought into the new system. The 1990s continued to see rapid growth in the city of Hoover, prompting the school district to build a new high school that opened in 1994. The new school was decided to be called Hoover High School, with the district electing to convert Berry into a new middle school instead. Still facing rapid growth and soon overcrowding at the new high school, the school board drafted new plans to build a second high school in the eastern areas of Hoover such as Inverness and Greystone that were rapidly expanding. These plans soon led to the opening of Spain Park High School in 2001, splitting much of Hoover High School's student body. Hoover retained Simmons and Bumpus middle schools as feeders, while Berry Middle School was rezoned as a feeder to Spain Park. In 2006, a new building was constructed for Berry next to Spain Park's campus to replace the original Columbiana Road school, leaving the old building unused. The Columbiana Road school after almost a decade of being vacant was de-annexed from Hoover to Vestavia Hills in 2016, soon being remodeled and opened in 2020 as the new Louis Pizitz Middle School for Vestavia Hills. From the turn of the millennium onward, boasting a new school and a new name to go with it, Hoover High School dominated the fields of athletics in addition to above average academics in Alabama, with its football program being the pride and joy of the school. Hoover's MTV show spread their popularity, which saw their football dynasty last from 2000 to 2017, a remarkable and state record breaking feat. The last school in the largest classification (AHSAA 6A until 2014, AHSAA 7A post-2014) from the north to win the football state championship that wasn't Hoover or Thompson High School was Clay-Chalkville High School in 1999. Since then only Hoover, Spain Park (2007, 2015), and Thompson (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021) have been the only teams from the north bracket to make state championship appearances. Hoover still keeps consistently great teams, but has seen challenges lately from Thompson High School who is currently the biggest rival and has knocked Hoover out in the semifinals for four years straight, and Hewitt-Trussville High School who in 2018 put up a record 56 points against Hoover that has not been topped as of 2022. Lately Hewitt-Trussville has continually fallen short to Hoover since the 2018 game with multiple games finishing by less than a touchdown win for Hoover. The three teams compete regularly in 7A Region 3, with matches between all three being some of the most anticipated games of the year. Hoover is also known for their remarkable girls' basketball team, indoor and outdoor track & field teams, as well as their volleyball team. == Student profile ==