There's a change in the air as students, parents and teachers prepare for classroom doors to swing open.
By MELANIE AVE
Published August 3, 2003
TAMPA - It happens about this time every year. Bikinis go on clearance, sandals settle into the back of the closet and every store in town brags about back-to-school bargains.
Life is about to change.
Riverview parent Robin Leavine feels it in her wallet, much leaner after school shopping for her East Bay High senior.
Eighth-grader Woody Brooks hears its rhythm in his heart. "I hope I get classes with the girl I like," he says, freckles practically dancing across his nose.
Lifeguard Anthony Campanello, 18, sees it in the disappearing number of families at Ben T. Davis Park's beach rollicking in the surf, hunting for crabs.
"I'm sad summer is ending," says Campanello, scanning the sparsely populated sand. "It went by too fast."
Summer is nearly over, a new school year about to begin.
Forget that the temperature is 90 degrees, or that the calendar says summer doesn't officially end until Sept. 22. (This is Florida - summer doesn't really end until November.)
Classes at Hillsborough public schools start Wednesday for 180,000 students, beginning a new season for thousands of families, not to mention movie theaters, malls and roadways.
Dread, sadness, excitement, nervousness and frustration mix together in a powerful concoction being felt around the county.
Change is coming.
It doesn't matter if you're Seminole Heights kindergartener Sydney Shearer about to meet your first teacher, or a commuter who has been enjoying emptier roads on summer mornings about to deal with being stuck behind a belching school bus going 15 mph.
"You never want summer to end," says Janel Massioni, the East Bay senior with new clothes in hand at University Square Mall. "But a little part of me wants to go back to school and see friends."
For teachers, it's a return to the hectic, noisy life of children in close quarters.
Pam Mankowski has been teaching for 25 years but is feeling the same way she always feels as the school year gets cranking.
"Butterflies," says the Anderson Elementary School second-grade teacher after decorating her classroom with paper fish. "I can't sleep at night. I get nervous about making everything all right."
For Diana Kanyer, the change will be the quiet that comes when her children return to school.
The stay-at-home mother took three of her children to Davis Park's beach on Thursday for a final summer hurrah. She's starting to make them go to bed earlier so they can adjust to the school schedule.
"There's an emptiness when they go back to school," says Kanyer, 32, while coating one child in sunscreen.
Many parents feel relief.
Lisa Shearer, mother of Sydney, 5, and Priscilla, 6, is more than ready to say sayonara, summer, and hello, schoolhouse.
The summer was a fun one, filled with shopping and trips to the beach and the zoo. But packing the days with activities didn't seem like enough for her children.
"They get bored," she says. "They want to sit inside the house and watch TV."
On a recent day, 32-year-old Jason Muse sat on the porch of his yellow house on West Street next to Graham Elementary School. He pondered the coming change.
Soon, every morning and afternoon, parents will line up in cars to drop off and pick up children, and Muse and his wife will have to try other ways of leaving and getting home during school rush hours. After the bell rings, children will walk by his house and drop homework and candy wrappers.
"I'm constantly picking up trash," Muse says. "It does change our life."
If it seems like school comes earlier every year, it does. For 30 years, the first day of school in Florida has crept up earlier and earlier, unlike schedules in the Midwest and on the East Coast.
Last week, city recreation worker Patricia Martin held a goodbye skate party for the 80 kids attending her summer day care program at Al Lopez Park. Thinking about the start of school makes her sad, and with the kids, it hasn't been a popular topic.
"I haven't heard anybody say they're excited to start school," she says. "Not yet."
