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Students moving to fill new school
By S. COLAVECCHI0-VAN SICKLER TAMPA -- They came out in their maroon and gold letter jackets, in their cheerleading shorts and in their soccer T-shirts. They told School Board members how much they love Durant High School's advanced classes, uncrowded classrooms, the award-winning band and the soccer program that could net them scholarships. But after spending 90 minutes listening to impassioned pleas from students and parents, Hillsborough School Board members still approved the superintendent's recommendation to fill the new Newsome High School with 988 students, including 831 from Durant. That's one-third of Durant's total population of 2,552. "This is horrible!" Durant freshman Lisa Hayman said after the board vote. "It was like we talked for nothing tonight," she said, before going to join her friends, some of them teary-eyed. By a 6-1 vote, with newly elected board member Jennifer Faliero dissenting, board members embraced the plan, saying that while it may be difficult and emotional for Durant students, it creates neighborhood schools and provides classroom space for future growth in southeast Hillsborough County. "There's a great deal of growth coming to the east, and I don't have the liberty to consider just one school," said board member Carolyn Bricklemyer. "I have to consider the whole county." But Durant students and parents questioned why they have to be moved, since their school is only 100 students above capacity. Riverview High, another east Hillsborough school, is about 25 percent above capacity. And Bloomingdale High is 21 percent above capacity. The plan, which shuffles a total of 1,700 students from Bloomingdale, Riverview and Brandon high schools, unloads nearly 400 students from Riverview. But that school still will open 8 percent above capacity in August, according to district projections. Another high school will open in the area as early as 2005, further relieving crowding at Riverview, board members told the standing-room-only audience. Under the plan, Newsome would open with 988 students, or nearly 42 percent of its 2,383-student capacity. They come from neighborhoods now zoned for Bevis and Lithia Springs elementary schools, and from the Pinecrest area west of County Road 39. Newsome will get another 157 students now attending Riverview High. They live in Boyette Springs, east of Bell Creek. Also, nearly 250 students living in Heather Lakes would be moved from Riverview High to Brandon High School. Students from the Cimino Elementary area will stay at Bloomingdale, but nearly 550 students living in the Buckhorn community would move from Bloomingdale to Durant. More than 100 Buckhorn-area students already attend Durant through special assignment, an option that still will be available for all the affected students. "Oh, I am going to try so hard to get special assignment," Hayman, a member of Durant's soccer team, vowed. "I don't want to move!"
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From the Times |
