PROGRESS with #iamwilling!

Good Evening, I wanted to share the latest update with everyone who has invested in this petition. Yesterday, I was invited to a 'Meet and Greet' at the home of Gordie and Nicole Stewart. The event was a get to know candidate, Derrick Murphy, who is currently running for city council in the City of Hoover. Mr. Murphy is also the current Hoover City Schools board president. I would like to thank Nicole Stewart for hosting this informative meeting and Mr. Murphy for taking his time to educate us on his platform for the upcoming city election in August. I would also like to thank Mr. Murphy for meeting with me after the event to discuss this petition regarding our school system. He graciously wore 2 hats yesterday, board president and candidate. Mr. Murphy took the time to listen to the facts that surrounded my daughters disappearance as it related to the Hoover City Schools. He asked many questions and also updated me on what he had been told. At the end of our conversation Mr. Murphy asked, 'What can I do for you?' At that point, I requested to open a line of communication with the HCS board and administration about creating a system of parent notification in the case a student (of any age) goes missing either from the school itself or off school campus. I explained that I do not want this situation to happen again for any family in our school system. I also stated I had been informed that at hour 24 in a missing persons case it is considered crucial by authorities. Our petition is requesting a parent notification system be enacted at hour 24 if a parent or legal guardian of a HCS student request a notification be sent out to parents in the system. Mr. Murphy committed to me that he would be taking my request to Superintendent, Dr. Kathy Murphy. I will be following up with Mr. Murphy next week to see where this stands. I believe yesterday was the start of communication and I look forward to seeing progress made in this area. However, I still need help getting signatures on the petition. There are approximately 84,000 citizens in Hoover and almost 14,000 are students in the HCS school system. The signature goal for this petition has changed. The goal is now 1400 signatures which is a 10% representation for the student body. You do not have to be a parent with a child in the school system to sign. It is open to all City of Hoover residents. At this point, I would like to ask anyone reading this petition to sign if you are a resident in Hoover and to share this on any social media platform. If you are not a Hoover resident please feel free to 'share it' in order to help promote it. I have discovered that other school systems in our area do not have a system in place for parent notification either. Hopefully, our petition will encourage awareness of a potential problem within any school system. Thank you to everyone who has signed to help in the fight to keep our schools safe for the children. Sincerely, Jessica Gannett Burkholder