Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce : News

Education

Mountain Brook is a community of approximately 20,000 people and currently has 4 elementary schools, 1 junior high for grades 7-9, and 1 high school serving approximately 1200 students. It was incorporated as a separate municipality in 1942, and at the time of incorporation, there were only two schools within the newly formed city, Crestline Heights and Mountain Brook Elementary housing grades 1 to 8, with most graduates attending Ramsay High School in Birmingham. The City Board of Education was established in 1959 with the purpose of establishing an independent school system and Dr. William N. Eddins was appointed first School Superintendent.

In 1857, the first school house in Shades Valley (which also served as a community gathering place) was built in what is now the extreme western edge of the golf course of the Birmingham Country Club with the Reverend Joseph Byars as the teacher. Union Hill School began in approximately 1876 on (what was then known as) Montevallo-Trussville Road. When Shades Cahaba opened in 1926 as the first consolidated school in the county, Union Hill closed. Mountain Brook Elementary School with its six classrooms was the first school built after Robert Jemison started developing Mountain Brook. As the school was not completed before the fall term started in 1928, students were temporarily housed in various locations throughout Mountain Brook Village until its completion. The school was part of the Jefferson County school system until 1958 and high school students attended Shades Cahaba High School in Jefferson County until 1966.