schoolsearch: Here's how to get started

Here's how to get started

[Times photo: Chris Zuppa]
Erica Wieland, right, a customer service representative at the school district’s Family Education and Information Center on Eighth Avenue S, advises Kathy Flareau about schools for Flareau’s 13-year-old daughter.

By KELLY RYAN GILMER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published September 15, 2002

As emotions churn over choice, School Search offers a helping hand. Parents should remember key deadlines this fall.

Rotten eggs were thrown at School Board members' homes. Parents organized protests. A tax referendum to pay for dozens of new school buses was soundly defeated.

Those bursts of anger and disapproval were widespread in 1971 after a divided Pinellas County School Board voted to approve a countywide desegregation plan. The vote came seven years after a group of black parents sued the district, accusing board members of operating inferior schools for blacks.

The countywide desegregation plan required thousands of students, primarily black, to be bused out of their neighborhoods to meet rigid race quotas in schools. That plan, later incorporated into a federal court order, did desegregate schools but it also uprooted families, disrupted schools and cost a lot of money.

Except for the eggs, sound familiar?

Beginning in fall 2003, the Pinellas County school district will undergo its biggest transformation in 30 years. The goal is to keep schools desegregated by choice rather than to continue assigning students to specific schools to achieve that purpose.

No longer will students be assigned to a school primarily because of their home address. Instead, parents will have some say where their children attend school.

The choice plan is part of a settlement between the school district and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to end federal court supervision and forced busing. The settlement requires that for four more years, schools remain racially balanced.

The choice plan has caused heartache like that of 30 years ago, with parents nervous and frustrated by the sweeping changes.

Think of School Search as a how-to guide to navigate choice.

You'll find maps that explain new attendance areas created for choice -- four for elementary, three for middle and one (the whole county) for high school. You'll find details about how the plan works and how to fill out applications. You'll learn about special programs offered around the county.

But perhaps most important, you'll find families like yours trying to make sense of the changes. They'll represent different points of view and situations -- some wanting to explore magnet and fundamental schools, some wanting a school close to home.

You'll also be able to weigh public schools against vouchers, private schools or home-schooling. Over the past few years, more and more families have opted out of public school; it remains to be seen whether choice will bring more families in or push them away.

In Pinellas, more than 114,000 students attend public schools, while about 20,000 attend private schools and more than 2,000 are home-schooled.

If you learn nothing else in School Search, understand that you must choose. The days of moving into a house and assuming you can attend the school around the corner are over. Families that wait until the last minute, or after application deadlines, lose.

The new choice system demands active participation from parents, and that includes knowing when to choose.

The district has firm application deadlines beginning Oct. 15 and ending Dec. 13. Time is running out to get your research done, but you can still catch up.

If you've grown accustomed to the district's choosing for you, where do you start?

Decide what you and your child are looking for in a school.

Is it strong parental involvement? A brand-new building with the latest technology? A well-known principal? An emphasis on traditional academics, art, marine science, life skills?

Arm yourself with the general facts.

Go to a Family Education and Information Center. Gather maps and figure out which schools you can choose from. Read up on the origins of choice and its rules.

Research the schools.

Read School Search. Pick up brochures, available in family centers or online -- www.pinellas.k12.fl.us. Study test scores. Talk to your friends. Visit the schools, either during a discovery night or tour. If you have questions about programs, schedule an appointment with a family center employee.

Come up with five schools that would meet your family's needs. The form to keep your current school assignment is called a "declaration of intent." The district would like it back by Oct. 1, but it's actually due by Dec. 13. Magnet and fundamental school applications are due Oct. 15. Choice applications are due Dec. 13.

What if you are exasperated and simply ignore it all?

Your child will get leftovers -- any seat still available after all students who turned in applications on time are placed.

Don't do that.

The success of choice depends on parents taking an active role in choosing and then supporting their kids' schools. District officials hope that families will pick schools for their programs, not their proximity. That could keep schools integrated after ratios disappear in 2007.

But that's jumping ahead.

This fall, you must make a choice: Keep your current public school, choose a private school, enroll in a charter school or hope for a seat in a school clear across town so your child can study the environment.

Remember to tell the district.

Change is always hard, particularly a transition like this one where everything you thought you knew goes out the window.

The same was true in 1971.