That extra hour of sleep each morning makes all the difference in the world
By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published August 3, 2003
[Times photo: Ken Shimizu]
Paula Beatty says she feels better now that her two daughters, Kimberly, center, and Brianna, are no longer bused far from home.
ST. PETERSBURG - Kimberly and Brianna Beatty will be able to sleep until 7 a.m. Tuesday, even though it's a school day. That's something new.
Instead of scrambling to catch a bus that would transport them miles from their neighborhood on the east side of Lake Maggiore, they will sit down to a breakfast prepared by their grandmother.
Kimberly, 8, will walk about six blocks with her cousin Elizabeth to Lakewood Elementary School. Brianna, 11, will hop on a bus and travel less than 3 miles to John Hopkins Middle School.
For the past two years, the girls, who are African-American, endured an 11-mile bus ride to Shore Acres Elementary School - at the far eastern end of 62nd Avenue NE - to help balance racial ratios. Because of the district's controlled choice plan, their mother, Paula, was able to secure spots for them closer to home this year.
"Their lives will be different," Beatty said. "They had to get up at 6 every morning so they didn't have time for breakfast. They're going to be able to come home and do their homework and play outside a little."
Beatty and her daughters moved to their home near Coquina Key three years ago. Both girls attended Lakewood Elementary for a year, then became part of a two-year bus rotation to Shore Acres. Beatty was relieved when the district matched the girls with her first choices.
"I feel the kids should be going to the schools in their neighborhoods," she said. "What if something happened to them and they're that far away from home?"
Like many African-American parents, Beatty resigned herself to busing for desegregation, but she never got used to it.
"I didn't want them to be bused, but it was out of my hands," she said. "Since I've had the opportunity to choose, it's made me feel better."
