By Lauren Estes-Velez

Special to the Enquirer

Morgan County Schools Superintendent Bill Hopkins, Jr. recently announced that he is seeking a third term in the position.

A 28-year veteran of Morgan County schools, Hopkins reflected on the financial strain the county system faced in the early years of his tenure as well as the successes since that time. “I still remember being told prior to my first board meeting that we had to borrow money to make payroll,” Hopkins said. “We had less than one month in reserve and the system was in financial trouble due to years of state probation. Now, here we are, less than eight years later and Morgan County Schools now have over three months of finances in reserve. The school system currently operates on an $81 million budget.”

Hopkins shared some of the system accomplishments within his past eight years as superintendent.
“We’ve updated and constructed facilities in all five high school feeder patterns while increasing the monthly reserve,” he said. “We started the county schools’ first school resource officer program, making SROs available to all campuses. We began nine pre-K classes for 4-year-olds and supervised the development of the CARE program, providing support for students who are in need of assistance earning the required credits to graduate in four years.”
Hopkins also shared that the system has met the communities desire by providing career and technical classes in all junior High schools, as well as has expanded fine arts and music across the school system which included a county-wide art show and play. They have also been instrumental in developing the Morgan County Schools Robotics Team, which has won awards on both the state and national levels.
“We’ve also implemented A+ College Ready programs, consisting of Advanced Placement (AP) classes in three high schools, with the others to follow in 2019,” Hopkins said. “Five Morgan County Schools are currently pursuing Blue Ribbon School Status.”

Bill Hopkins is a 1985 graduate of Falkville High School, and he has degrees from Athens State University, Alabama A&M and The University of North Alabama.

He is the husband of Shannon Hopkins, the father of Weston and Emma Hopkins, and the ‘papa’ to Emory Hopkins. His wife and children are all Morgan County graduates.
His career as an educator began in 1990 as a social science teacher and coach; his days were split between West Morgan High School and Ryan School. During the next 12 years, he served in various roles which included being the head football coach at West Morgan for five years. He then became the first principal of Morgan County Learning Center Alternative School. After two years, Hopkins was named principal of West Morgan High School. Following six years in that role, Bill was elected Superintendent of Morgan County Schools.

He shared that he has drawn inspiration from the Jim Collins book “Good to Great” which promotes the concept of getting the right people on the bus, and the right people in the right seats on the bus. This process challenges the reader to avoid settling for good when you can achieve greatness. Hopkins requests for support from the community as he leads the Morgan County School System to pursue greatness. Voting for the election primaries will be June 5. Runoffs will be decided July 17, and the general election will be Nov. 6.