Tampabay: Where will you send your children?

They include a classical dancer, a volunteer recruiter, a married couple, a former teacher's assistant and an African-American woman who was bused to a faraway school because of Pinellas County's desegregation efforts.

And now they're ready to field questions about school choice.

The Pinellas County School District opens two Family Education and Information Centers today, one in St. Petersburg and one in Clearwater. They will be open during district office hours plus one night a week. During the summer, the hours will be 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Fourteen people will staff the two centers, which feature brochures about every school in the county, information about special programs and all the rules of the choice plan that begins in 2003-2004.

Parents will make their choices this fall. Eventually, the family centers will have all of the applications parents must fill out; right now, though, those forms are being developed.

The employees staffing the family centers will be, for many parents, a first impression of choice. As such, the employees have the power to further confuse mind-boggled parents or make true believers out of those who doubt the wisdom of choice.

"It's a big responsibility," said Dotti Guillaume, a 15-year district employee whose three children had varied Pinellas school careers. One earned a GED, one attended Pinellas Technical Education Centers, and one graduated from the medical magnet program at Boca Ciega High School.

"You're taking people's lives in your hands. What you do here can decide a future -- whether a student goes to college or drops out."

All the family center employees are women, except the secretary in the St. Petersburg office. Two are African-American. Their salaries range from $18,580 to $42,879. Five were transferred to the family centers because their old jobs fell victim to budget cuts; the other seven wanted to be choice ambassadors.

The supervisor and secretary in Clearwater have not been hired.

During a recent seven-day training session, employees learned that they will have to walk a fine line as they coach parents making choices. They are allowed to answer questions by presenting fact, not personal opinion.

That could pose a challenge. They all have opinions -- either from the perspective of district employee, grandparent, parent or former student. But they also know it will be more important to help parents think than to think for them.

"All of us see things from different eyes," said Sharon McCallister, the St. Petersburg center supervisor, who has worked for the district eight years, most recently as a community involvement coordinator. "What is okay for me may not be okay for you."

Nearly all the center employees think school choice, which will replace traditional neighborhood zoning, is a good thing. Their reason? It will force parents and guardians to investigate what school will best serve kids' needs and ambitions, rather than blindly choosing the campus around the corner.

Joanne Rainey, who was bused from Dunedin to the all-black Pinellas High School, still has some doubts. She wants to know whether choice will really make parents think and help students achieve.

"I'm kind of in that wait-and-see," said Rainey, who was an attendance clerk at Lakewood High School. "I'm hoping it all works out for the best."

Rainey and her colleagues feel confident that they know a lot about school choice. They've learned the plan's history and visited new schools being built in the southern half of Pinellas County. They know why certain students have priority to get into their first-choice school. They have cheat sheets with all the rules.

But it's somewhat frustrating to them -- and the community -- that there is much they can't know. That's because some details are not decided.

For instance, district administrators recently decided to change how parents will apply to countywide magnet and fundamental schools during choice. The deadline for applying to those schools will be weeks earlier than the Dec. 13 deadline for all other schools. But the exact date has not been set.

"We are going to exercise our patience and we hope parents will exercise theirs," said Debra Cooney, who will work with her husband Michael in the St. Petersburg center. The Cooneys' grandchildren will participate in choice.