Some face crowds at school choice centers; others go shopping.
By THOMAS C. TOBIN
Published August 5, 2003
Still need a school? Pinellas public schools start today: If you need to register, call 727-552-1595 or 727-298-2858 or go to a Family Education and Information Center: 3420 Eighth Ave. S in St. Petersburg or 1101 Marshall St. in Clearwater.
[Updated August 5, 2003 | 15:37]
CLEARWATER - Before walking through the door Monday at the Pinellas school district's regional registration center in Clearwater, visitors got a sense of the urgency.
"It is very busy today," the sign said. "Please be patient. We are working as fast as we can."
And this: "Disruptive, abusive behavior, foul language and threats are not acceptable."
As if to prove the sign's relevance, a father huffed out of the center, hotly jabbing a finger at Andrea Zahn, a school district spokeswoman who had pitched in to help on the last day of summer vacation for Pinellas students.
"This is garbage," he told her. "My attorney will be getting in touch with you."
It was that kind day at the Clearwater center on Marshall Street and at the district's other family center on 8th Avenue S in St. Petersburg.
With parents, grandparents, guardians and children enduring 3- to 5-hour waits, both facilities served as collection points for frustration over the new choice system and the 11-hour dash to get children registered before the start of school today.
Waiting rooms brimmed with glum faces, antsy children and tired, sweaty bodies worn down by the waiting, the uncertainty and the heat. The centers had the hopeless air of a backed up triage center.
Dozens waited in the sun for hours at the St. Petersburg center. Parents and students sat on the floor in Clearwater, lining both sides of a hallway.
District officials have long expected the crush of latecomers. But the centers, which were introduced for the new choice system, were not designed for big crowds.
The crowds included private school parents making last-minute decisions to go to public schools, parents appealing their children's school assignments, procrastinators and parents who have just moved to Pinellas County.
The choice system is particularly unfriendly to the latter group. Not only are new arrivals forced to wait with residents who have put off their decisions, they get the least desirable school seats in the district.
The problem will continue next year. Families who move to Pinellas after the Nov. 1 application deadline face the same prospects for the 2004-05 school year.
Lori Bloom, 31, moved to Palm Harbor five days ago from New Jersey with her two daughters, ages 12 and 15. Five hours into her wait at the Clearwater center, she came out to puff a cigarette near her blue Nissan Altima with Jersey tags still attached. Her daughters and the family dog waited in the car with the air-conditioning on.
School officials placed Bloom's younger daughter at Tarpon Middle School, but said the only high school seats available for the older girl were in Clearwater or farther south.
"They want to send us down this way and I'm not having it," she said. "How's a parent supposed to get down here for an emergency?"
In St. Petersburg, Kwanita Morton, 28, had paperwork showing she had played by the rules of choice. Still, her third- and fifth-grade children were assigned to different schools.
Morton appears to be the victim of an early choice glitch: an application form (later changed) that omitted a checkbox alerting the district to place siblings together.
Under School Board policy, siblings are supposed to be placed in the same school. Morton said she has been to the center twice a week all summer to get the problem corrected.
Such problems appear to be the district's fault. Others are clearly the fault of parents.
Zahn said she asked one private school family Monday why they chose to register their child so late for public school. The parents said their decision to undertake a home improvement project killed their private school budget.
"Some things choice hasn't changed," said Jim Madden, the choice coordinator. "It just reminds me of when I was a principal ... You deal with them one at a time."
Not all of Monday's school preparations were so serious.
Gina Snyder and her 15-year-old daughter, Marki, rummaged through hangers of jeans, blouses and skirts. They already had been to Old Navy, Gap, Wet Seal and American Eagle, accumulating nine outfits for Marki's new year at Northeast High School.
"It's my daddy's money," Marki joked. "Shopping's great!"
- Times staff writer Leanora Minai contributed to this report.
