Controversy roiled a town in the suburbs south of Birmingham this week after city officials awarded public money to private school teachers.
After swift and fierce backlash, the mayor of Helena on Tuesday said the city will rescind $425 worth of grants for teachers to buy literacy materials for their classrooms at The Hillsboro School, a private Montessori school in the Shelby County city of about 22,000 people.
“Based on careful review of the ordinances and guidelines for the TAG Team Grants there were no rules violated, but the public perception is that we gave a lot of money to the Hillsboro School,” Mayor Brian Puckett said in a statement to AL.com.
The city late Tuesday announced on its Facebook page that officials also coordinated with the private school to return grant funding that the city awarded to teachers in November. The city’s statement did not say how much funding it awarded in November 2023, but the Shelby County Reporter at the time reported that teachers at Hillsboro would receive more than $11,000 in grants from Helena.
Puckett said the city did not award any donations to the private school on Monday, but rather awarded Teacher’s Assistant Grants to two teachers there.
“As we do with everything in the city is we engage in our lessons learned and will make adjustments to the program,” Puckett said in the statement today.
Puckett, who serves on the Hillsboro School’s board of trustees, is one of three members of a city committee that doles out grants to schools. Puckett told AL.com that he recused himself from voting on grant applications related to Hillsboro and described himself as an “inactive” trustee.
Council president Alice Lobell and library director Daniel Dearing also serve on the committee.
AL.com reached out to Dearing, Lobell and the Hillsboro School for comments Tuesday evening. Dearing referred AL.com to the city’s official statement on the matter.
The committee on Monday awarded $25,000 to each of the city’s four public schools, and about $50,000 in grants to individual educators.
The city council did not vote on the grant funding, which comes from the city’s 1-cent educational sales tax.
“Many have raised questions about the expenditure of the funds to the Hillsboro school,” Councilman Chris Willis told AL.com. “While I am not and have not been in favor of this use of tax dollars. I do not believe anything was done nefariously and we will be looking to see if our policy needs to be amended to ensure the proper safeguards are in place.”
Several residents took to social media to demand that the city reconsider using public money to support a private school.
“How can we suspend the payment to the Hillsboro School while this is sorted out?” one poster wrote. “That money should be going to our public Helena schools only.”
Another resident expressed similar frustration.
“When I was growing up I went to a private school and my parents had to pay tuition….that’s where the school got their funds from. “PUBLIC” schools get their money from the ‘public.’ This is wrong on so many levels!”
Controversy over Helena providing public money for private schools is new, but the city’s support for Hillsboro is not.
The city in November 2023 awarded more than $11,000 to six Hillsboro teachers to support programs at the school, according to an article in the Shelby County Reporter.
Here’s a breakdown of grant funding the committee announced on Monday:
- $425 for two teachers at The Hillsboro School
- $16,083 for 13 Helena Elementary School teachers
- $18,426 for 18 teachers at Helena Intermediate School
- $15,632 for seven teachers at Helena High School
- $25,000 donation to Helena Elementary
- $25,000 donation to Helena Intermediate
- $25,000 donation to Helena Middle
- $25,000 donation to Helena High