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McLaughlin at forefront of a building boom
By JAMAL THALJI, Times Staff Writer Pasco County isn't just expanding. It's booming. Three to four new high schools could be built in the county in the next 5-7 years, as expansion radically re-draws school districts and alters the balance of football power that long has resided on the east side. Two, possibly three of those new schools will be built by the Pasco County school district to relieve overcrowding in the fast-growing south- and central-corridor. The other high school is a private Catholic school scheduled to open next year on the west side of the county in Hudson. Ground was broken on Bishop McLaughlin High School in February 2001, and construction on the school is 5-6 weeks ahead of schedule on its 89-acre site at the corner of Hays Road and Hudson Avenue. The Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg is paying an estimated $22-million to build the new campus, which eventually will hold an estimated 800 students. Thanks to its proximity to the State Road 52 ramp of the Suncoast Expressway, diocese officials hope to fulfill a longstanding need to reach out to the North Suncoast, drawing students from Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties. It is the diocese's first new Catholic high school in nearly 40 years and the first in Pasco County. Bishop McLaughlin's teams will be called the Hurricanes, according to John Cummings, the diocese's superintendent of catholic schools, and the new school will field as full an athletic program as the students wish to. "Right now the plan is to have a full athletic program," he said. "I'm not sure what the program would look like in the first year, but the plan is to have a full-scale athletic program." Practice fields are being built as part of the first phase of the school's construction, which includes a nearly completed gymnasium. After the school opens in August 2003, phase two of construction will include stadiums for football, baseball and softball on campus. Registration should begin after Christmas. "We would like to eventually get to three levels," Cummings said. "Freshman, junior varsity and varsity, adding year-by-year." The school district is also busy, as a school plant survey is being conducted to confirm the need for two to three new high schools. School officials believe the schools will be needed to relieve overcrowding , according to Bob Dorn, the administrative assistant for secondary, adult and alternative schools. "We're reaching absolute capacity," he said. School officials' projections of student population seems to increase by the day. At last week's meeting, the school board discussed the purchase of land in Odessa to build a high school to relieve overcrowding at Mitchell and Land O'Lakes. But Dorn said Friday initial projections now show the Wesley Chapel region is growing so fast it may be necessary to build the county's 10th public school there instead. The ninth, Wesley Chapel High School, was completed four years ago, impacting traditional football powers Pasco and Zephyrhills. Monday, Dorn said school planning officials are speculating that a third new high school also will have to be built in an as yet-undetermined location. But the Odessa and Wesley Chapel high schools will be built, Dorn said, along with a host of new middle and elementary schools. Which of the two high schools, projected at a cost of more than $25-million apiece, will be built first is still up in the air. "It's too soon to say at this time when this will happen, but the need is there simultaneously," Dorn said. "It's a matter of if we can't build them both at the same time, which one is in the greatest need at the time of completion? Our latest information, and we'll continue to look, says the latest need may very well be over at Wesley Chapel." School officials are using attendance reports from Aug. 16 to gauge the overcrowding in high schools, and Dorn cautioned that these figures are conservative and in each case are actually higher. Wesley Chapel, which reported 1,507 students, should jump up a classification when the Florida High School Activities Association breaks the state down into new districts this year. So, too, could Land O'Lakes and Mitchell also step up a class. Wesley Chapel is already beyond the current Class 3A limit of 1,360 students this year. Land O'Lakes, which reported 1,881, is past the current Class 4A limit of 1,663. Mitchell, which reported a county-high 1,931 that same date, would be near the current Class 5A-6A limits. Under those figures, west-side schools River Ridge (1,801) and Ridgewood (1,796) also would jump up from Class 4A under the current guidelines. The FHSAA's classification population limits will change, but the current limits are an indicator of what is in store when redistricting begins. Adding schools will bring existing schools down a class or two. "We're going to continue to grow," Dorn said. "The state projection is for Pasco County to grow by 10,000 kids in the next six years. We're aware of the problem, and we're just trying our best to keep ahead of the curve to stay away from double-sessions." -- Staff writer Matthew Waite contributed to this report.
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From today's Pasco Times Letters |
