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Catholic school's enrollment cap to rise
By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer SHADY HILLS -- Pasco County plans to lift its 425-student enrollment cap on the new Bishop McLaughlin High School, the $22-million campus that will serve Pasco, Hernando, Citrus and Hillsborough counties. Armed with new traffic surveys that suggest the high school wouldn't jam area roads as previously thought, the county plans to allow up to 650 students to attend the high school, scheduled to open on Hays Road in 2003. Officials with the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg cheered the news, even though Bishop Robert Lynch had sought permission to enroll 800 students to handle the area's growing Catholic population. Bishop McLaughlin is the first high school the diocese has built since Clearwater Central Catholic opened in the early 1960s. Already partly built on 90 acres in rural Shady Hills, the school will start by teaching only ninth- and 10th-graders in August. "We understand we don't have permission to go to 800 students," diocesan attorney Joseph DiVito said Wednesday. "But we don't expect to need room for 800 yet with just freshmen and sophomores coming the first year." In March, while approving the diocese's construction plans, the county capped the school at 425 students, arguing the school would generate a handful too many car trips on U.S. 19. Although he backed the enrollment cap, County Administrator John Gallagher said the ruling defied logic and suggested the diocese renegotiate the numbers with county engineers. That's what happened. Today, the county's Development Review Committee is scheduled to amend Bishop McLaughlin's development plans to accommodate 650 students. The 180,000-square-foot Catholic school will include 40 classrooms, a 1,000-seat performing arts center, a chapel, athletic fields and a 600-car parking lot. DiVito said the project, transforming the landscape on the southwest corner of Hudson Avenue and Hays Road, is at least a month ahead of schedule. Crews will complete the school's "key buildings" by late spring or summer, he said. "We may not have the gymnasium done or some of the accessory buildings like the fine arts center," DiVito said. Staffing also is proceeding: Bishop Lynch has hired an out-of-diocese priest as principal, although there has yet to be an official announcement.
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From today's Pasco Times Editorial Letters |
