By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

Three homes have been added to the Alabaster city limits, paving the way for those residents to attend the Alabaster City School System for the upcoming school year.

The Alabaster City Council voted unanimously during its May 27 meeting to annex houses at 258 Cox Lane and 230 Cox Lane – both of which are across from Thompson Middle School – and a house at 7195 Alabama 119 into the city.

All three annexations came at the requests of the properties’ owners, City Council members said.

The council voted to suspend the rules of order in all three cases so they could vote on the annexations the same night.

Ward 7 Councilman Tommy Ryals said he does not like to suspend the rules often, but said voting on the annexations quickly will allow the homeowners time to register their children for Alabaster schools for the upcoming school year.

“If we hadn’t voted on this tonight, it would have caused these folks to possibly miss the beginning of the school year,” Ryals said.

Beginning with the 2014-2015 school year, some students who live in unincorporated Shelby County but who are currently zoned for Alabaster schools will begin transferring to other schools in Shelby County.

The gradual school zoning change was a result of separation negotiations between the Shelby County School System and the Alabaster School System, which broke away from the county school system in July 2013.