Magnet school fears crush of students

ST. PETERSBURG -- The county's most popular elementary school faces a crisis because of a quiet wrinkle in the new school choice plan.

Perkins Elementary School, a magnet school for the arts and international studies on 18th Avenue S, may see its regular student population rise by nearly one-quarter this August. The numbers stunned Pat Archibald, the school's magnet coordinator, when she heard them this week.

The school cannot handle that many new students without watering down its magnet program or costing the district a great deal of money, said Archibald, who has been with the program since its start a decade ago. There are no empty classrooms on the campus, which was rebuilt 31/2 years ago, so Perkins would likely need to put several portable classrooms on its P.E. fields.

Also troubling, in her view, is the strain the extra students would put on arts instruction. Without more arts, drama, dance, strings, Spanish and other instructors, she doubts the program can continue in its present form.

"During this time of budget cuts, it would be unlikely that we would get more teachers," she said. "I guess we could get rid of the computer lab. We have a room for Spanish. We'd have to get rid of that. We have the three (emotionally handicapped) classrooms we could probably move to another school."

Enrique Escarraz, local attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, wonders if the officials who established the capacity numbers understand the needs of the program.

"I know that the district has made a commitment that the magnet programs will continue through 2007 and that they cannot be changed," said Escarraz, who has children at Perkins. "Certainly, if you do something to change the quality of the program, it's not the same magnet program."

Officials at the district level think there is room at the school. Relying on data prepared by Jim Underhill, a planning specialist in the student assignment office, choice coordinator Jim Madden said Tuesday the school has room for 742 students. The number has risen from 600, the figure the district pegged as the school's permanent facility capacity in October, and from 663, the school's stated capacity when students were assigned last month. That differing capacity has a great impact on how many students could ultimately end up at Perkins.

It was unclear Tuesday if the latest figure will stand or change. Several calls to the school's principal, Robert Lister, were not returned.

Students were to be notified this month of the results of choice, but those letters have not yet gone out.

Schools Superintendent Howard Hinesley said that additional resources would accompany the extra students.

"When you get students, the per pupil allocation comes with them," he said, adding that portables could be brought to the campus to accommodate the increase.

Perkins is a magnet school, created to offer special programs to entice white children to attend school in a predominantly black neighborhood. It has proven quite successful. Last fall, more than 1,000 children applied to the magnet school, and there was room for only about 90 new magnet students to enroll. However, there has always been another way to get in. Until this year, students who lived very near the school automatically got to attend. But the zone was very small, and so was the number of neighborhood students attending. With the advent of choice, the neighborhood zone disappeared, and a portion of the school's seats were instead reserved for children from Attendance Area A -- the southern part of Pinellas -- who picked the school on a choice application. This number was small, too, at least initially.

Moreover, under choice, black children who had borne the brunt of school desegregation for decades, were given an option: They could stay at the mid-county schools to which they had been bused, or they could choose a school closer to home. Many of them chose Perkins.

In fact, so many chose Perkins that its kindergarten class will have 48 black students instead of its current 22. Because up to 42 percent of its students can be black, that meant there was room for more students who aren't black, at least on paper.

But the settlement that is ending busing for desegregation does not allow more magnet seats. So while scores of black and white kids still sit on the waiting list, other students apparently are getting into Perkins from the "choice" list instead.

The end result: Perkins has 542 regular education students (not including special needs students or preschoolers). The district plans to put 671 students there in August, an increase of 129.

There are now four kindergarten teachers who have classes of 22 or 23 for a total of 90. The district plans to put 120 kindergarteners in the school this fall.

"If we have six kindergarten classes, we would have to have six first-grade classes the next year," said Archibald, the magnet coordinator. Then there will have to be as many second-grade classes. It will just keep on growing."

A new school blocks away, built on the same floor plan as Perkins, is at two-thirds capacity. One Perkins parent cannot understand the logic of overcrowding the school when classrooms at James Sanderlin Elementary will be empty.

"I really don't understand overcrowding and bringing in portables when you have empty classrooms in brand-new schools down the street," said Nancy Gaesser, who has one daughter in fifth grade at Perkins and another entering kindergarten.

"I think it's very disheartening that a successful magnet program would be overcrowded to the point where the reason why people wanted to go there no longer exists," she said. "If our capacity is 600 and they want to put in over 700, it will automatically change the school."

Archibald, the Perkins official, understands the reason for adding more children to the school, but she remains concerned. "We worked so hard to get the program we have now," she said. "The parents worked so hard to make the school better. It's just a wonderful place, and you hate to see it changed in any way.

"That may be unrealistic, but you hate to see it happen."

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