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REBECCA CATALANELLOThree new schools owe thanks to methodical planning and plenty of elbow grease.
How do you open a school that's never been opened before?
With a lot of volunteers, several box cutters, a few paint brushes and enough patience to know that it sometimes takes one screw turn at a time before a school is ready.
That's how those at three new schools in Pasco County are doing it.
"There's no grass that grows under our feet," said Monica Joiner, principal of the new Pine View Elementary in Land O'Lakes, where the parking lot has been so full the past few weeks that you'd think class was already in session.
Almost every day at the busy campus brings another truckload of desks, chairs, books, basketballs, music equipment and anything and everything else that the new school will need to open Aug. 11 to 640 students.
"Everything that comes has to be put together," Joiner said, her smile never disappearing as she showed off her fresh campus. The school will relieve overcrowding at Sanders and Lake Myrtle elementary schools.
Several miles away, at the new Dayspring Academy Junior High at Embassy Hills, the disco ball hanging in what will soon be classrooms is a fun point of contention between the soon-to-be students and their once-hip parents.
"I say the disco ball stays," said Kim McPherson, beaming at her 11-year-old son with a paint brush in her hand.
Volunteer parents like McPherson and Michelle Mariano have been busy painting and readying the old Embassy Hills clubhouse for its debut as the charter school's newest campus.
Civic association members donated the property to the school at their June 30 meeting, giving Dayspring organizers about six weeks to make renovations that might otherwise take six months. The school wanted to relieve overcrowding by about 100 students at its Ponderosa Avenue campus, where grades K-5 will remain.
"We'll be taking the NoDoz," joked John Legg, deputy administrator for the charter school.
Though publicly funded, charter schools are privately run and don't have the same sort of access to school district labor as do schools like Pine View, where a five-person custodial crew has worked tirelessly with faculty to ready the school.
At Renaissance Academy, a new private school in New Port Richey, the school's top administrator has relied on the help of church volunteers to convert a 16,000-square-foot office building to a schoolhouse.
The school has temporarily shared a space with Riverside Fellowship. Janine Caffrey, the school's head, said the members put their hammers to work, busting down and building up walls under the oversight of a contractor.
"Finding quality staff was easy," Caffrey said. "Getting the facility ready is the hard part."
Opening a new school takes methodical planning and a lot of elbow grease, said Joiner, who opened Lake Myrtle Elementary 20 years ago.
Joiner and assistant principal Margie Polen are working on a how-to handbook for future Pasco County school openings. The best thing about opening a school today compared with two decades ago, Joiner said, is the addition of technology as a tool to organize and communicate.
But for physical education instructor Karen Turman, the real treat is the brand new sports equipment that comes with the new school. That, and the fact that there's a water fountain and a bathroom near the 10-net basketball court. Don't even get her started on the 10 nets compared with the four nets at Lake Myrtle, her former school.
"There will be a basketball phenom coming out of Pine View," Turman said with a chuckle. "We're all very excited."
The preparations take time, but the work can really bring together a close-knit school community, Legg said.
"They feel like "This is our school - we were here when the electrical lines were hanging down and the walls needed painting,"' Legg said. "This is our school."
- Rebecca Catalanello can be reached at 727 869-6241 or e-mail rcatalanello@sptimes.com