Tampabay: Pinellas left out on choice grant

They envisioned using the money to extend hours for family centers where families can seek advice; add more special programs to attract students to struggling schools; hire 100 additional bus drivers; and buy a high-tech tracking system for students who ride buses.

On Thursday, they learned they lost.

A dozen school districts across the country and the state of Florida will receive federal money over the next five years to help pay for school choice initiatives. Hillsborough County, which begins choice in 2004, will get $13.2-million.

Pinellas, which starts choice in 2003, won't get a dime.

Superintendent Howard Hinesley and grant director Charlie Eubanks said many of the projects that would have been paid for with the federal grant are under way and will continue despite Thursday's news. Much of those costs will be paid from a $21-million reserve fund that could have been used for other purposes if Pinellas had won a federal grant.

For instance, the district will keep open Family Education and Information Centers, and hire more bus drivers. They also will have to translate district materials into Spanish and Bosnian.

But some plans will be scrapped.

Gone are dreams of a Global Positioning System for 800 buses that would have helped parents pinpoint their locations and ease concerns about students getting on the wrong buses. Principals at three new schools who hoped to start this month will start instead in January.

Gone are plans to award more than $2-million in grants to schools that aren't popular with parents during the choice process. Instead, only $400,000 will be available for so-called attractor programs. That money will come from other federal grants.

Gone are plans to appoint a full-time researcher to study choice. Gone are four full-time parent advocates to roam the county and reach out to families.

"It's disappointing," Hinesley said, "but what can you do about it? Move on."

Nearly 50 school districts around the nation applied for the federal money, and 13 grants were awarded. For this fiscal year, the grant awards total $23.8-million. Besides Hillsborough, Miami-Dade County and the state Department of Education won grants. Other winners included Chicago, Minneapolis and Portland.

The U.S. Department of Education said the purpose of the Voluntary Public School Choice grant was to help reduce the barriers to parental choice. Grant money could be spent on transportation or marketing campaigns, among other items.

Why would Hillsborough win and Pinellas lose?

Their grant applications were similar: Hillsborough wants to start a choice marketing campaign for its plan. It also wants to open family centers and buy buses. (Pinellas wanted to hire drivers, but not use the grant to buy buses.)

Barbara Anderson, Hillsborough's grant officer, has some theories. For example, she said, Pinellas is requiring families to fill out paperwork to keep their kids in their current schools; that won't happen in Hillsborough.

"Parents here are not required to fill out an application to keep their kids in the schools in which they're assigned," Anderson said.

Eubanks said he doesn't know why Pinellas didn't make the cut, but he plans to find out. Harry Glenn, a spokesman for Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Largo, said he doesn't know, either.

"It's a competitive process," Glenn said.

Since Monday, Eubanks has been checking the U.S. Department of Education's Web site for news. On Tuesday, he got a call from Brent Jacquet, a staffer in Young's office. Young had supported Pinellas' grant application.

Eubanks said Jacquet indicated that Pinellas wasn't going to get a grant. But Eubanks said he still thought Pinellas had a chance and continued checking the Internet.

On Thursday, Sen. Bill Nelson, D- Fla., and Rep Jim Davis, D-Tampa, sent out a press release about Hillsborough's grant. Later, Glenn confirmed that Pinellas didn't win a grant, adding that his office had given the school district the news on Tuesday.

"I guess I felt until the feds posted it on the Web site that we still had an opportunity," Eubanks said of that conversation. "I was wanting to hear something different."

Over the first five years, it will cost more than $200-million to start the Pinellas choice plan. That figure includes the cost of new and renovated schools, buses and bus drivers, full-time choice employees and other operational costs.

The district has had a choice rainy day fund for several years, but that $21-million won't last long. It already pays for Family Education and Information Centers, choice administrators and printing costs. It also will be used to recruit and hire 200 new drivers.

"It's bad news," said School Board member Jane Gallucci. "It puts us in a bad money situation."

Even as they acknowledged that $25-million in federal money would have given the district breathing room, Eubanks and Hinesley tried to put on brave faces.

The district didn't know about the grant until this summer and had not counted on it.

"We're no worse off," Hinesley said.

Denise Miller had her fingers crossed.

She's the principal at Clearview Avenue Elementary School. She's also the principal of Sanderlin Elementary, a new school that will open next fall.

If the grant had come through, she would have been able to start at Sanderlin full time this month and handed off Clearview to her successor. The juggling -- keeping Clearview running and marketing a new school -- is tough.

"Any time you can just concentrate on one thing, it makes things a lot simpler," Miller said. "But life is just not simple."

-- Times staff writer Melanie Ave contributed to this report.

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