Vote on school site canceled

The Pinellas School Board says it will return to its original plan for building Bayside High.

By KELLY RYAN GILMER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 27, 2002

LARGO -- For months, Pinellas School Board members have wanted to know whether environmental problems could be cleaned up near the juvenile detention center so an alternative high school could be built there.

As they waited for answers, the district considered building the school, to be called Bayside High School, in the High Point neighborhood. That neighborhood quickly mobilized to oppose Bayside's being built in their community, next to an elementary school.

One of the neighborhood's activists, Glenda Datsko, recently visited the state's Department of Environmental Protection and discovered documents that she says make it clear Bayside can be built at its original location.

After hearing Datsko's presentation Tuesday, board members canceled a March 12 vote on the High Point site and said they would go ahead with their original plans. All that's left to work out, they said, are details of an agreement with the county.

"This is going to empower the community to go forward with the vision we have for our community," Datsko said.

School Board members had wanted to open Bayside in the fall of 2002, but environmental concerns at the original site caused a delay. The $15-million school will serve 500 at-risk students, including those who are truant, disruptive or have criminal records.

Despite the documents Datsko presented, facilities director Tony Rivas said he is still not sure that groundwater contamination has been sufficiently cleaned up to build Bayside near the juvenile detention center.

Usually, he said, DEP sends a letter that states whether a site is clean, how it will be monitored and when it would be safe to begin construction. He said none of the letters he has seen from DEP are that clear.

"I don't see where it says we can build," Rivas said. "Maybe I'm just not understanding."

In other news:

The School Board heard complaints from a dozen parents and teachers from Riviera Middle School in St. Petersburg about extensive health and safety problems at the 35-year-old campus.

They described rats climbing on the walls and running through classrooms. They talked about rat droppings being cleaned up daily. They said air quality is poor. Teachers have reported rashes and pneumonia; students with asthma say their breathing problems have worsened. They said their complaints had gone unheard or had not been satisfactorily solved.

One administrator said he thought some of the problems had been corrected by an exterminator. But people from the school said otherwise. Superintendent Howard Hinesley and School Board members were horrified and promised to work quickly to make the school safe, eliminate the rats and clean up the faulty air system.

The School Board agreed to review its policy that gives siblings of students in magnet and fundamental programs priority to get in.

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