ST. PETERSBURG - The line snaked out the door at the Pinellas school district's registration center as anxious parents scrambled Tuesday to grab remaining school seats.
Out of view, in a small office off the lobby, planning specialist Jim Underhill was at the helm of an operation that resembled a free-wheeling commodities pit.
"I need a seventh-grade seat in Area A. Black. Thurgood Marshall," Underhill said into a speaker phone. "Black" referred to the student's race, Area A to a region of South Pinellas. Thurgood Marshall is the district's newest middle school.
No seats available, a voice on the speaker phone shot back.
How about John Hopkins Middle School in St. Petersburg? Underhill asked.
No, again, but how about a seat for a black student at Tyrone Middle?
"Tyrone," Underhill said. "We'll take Tyrone."
A fellow administrator ran out to the lobby to "book it" for the parent.
As school choice debuted in Pinellas County, the futures of hundreds of children were determined in such transactions. Many families had just arrived in the county. Some had moved locally. Others had simply procrastinated. All were searching frantically for seats.
Administrators, meanwhile, were scrambling behind the scenes to the desk of Underhill, who took pieces of paper from their hands. Each slip detailed the school and grade level that parents wanted. They also contained each child's race, a necessity because the new choice system requires that no school's enrollment be more than 42 percent black.
As Underhill talked into the speaker phone, officials at district headquarters in Largo listened, consulting a database of all 112,000 seats in the district.
By restricting the placement of students to a small group of people, the district kept tight control of the process. Too many hands at too many computers might result in a coveted seat going to more than one person.
The system also allowed officials to keep a close eye on race ratios as seats were being parceled out. Placing too many black children in a school, for example, could send the percentage over the race cap, violating a hard-won settlement in federal court.
But the system became the bottleneck that kept hundreds of families waiting the past several days at the district's two Family Education and Information Centers in Clearwater and St. Petersburg.
Superintendent Howard Hinesley said Tuesday night he would work to prevent the problem next year, perhaps by opening more centers.
Underhill's task, meanwhile, seemed endless as the line at the St. Petersburg center grew longer before finally shrinking after 4:30 p.m.
"I need an Area B, kindergarten. Non-black," he said, following the scribblings of a colleague.
The student's family had moved to mid county and wanted out of its spot at Lakewood Elementary in St. Petersburg.
Underhill suggested over the speaker phone that Madeira Beach, High Point or Mildred Helms elementaries might work.
The answer: Helms.
"Helms. We'll take Helms," Underhill said.
Another request.
"I got a ninth-grader, non-black. Wants the impossible. Northeast."
That's Northeast High, where a row of zeros cuts across all four grades. Northeast has been out of seats for quite some time.
But Underhill found an open seat at Dixie Hollins High.
Some parents were happy with their children's placements. Others became angry at the limited options this late in the choice process. Still others were resigned to their fate, filling out transfer requests with the hope their desired seat will open over the next two weeks as students continue to move around.
All of the parents were oblivious to the backroom scene that sealed their child's future.
Hope Knox arrived at the family education center at 7 a.m. to try yet again to get her two sons enrolled at Campbell Park Elementary in St. Petersburg.
Zackery, 8, was registered for third grade there, but Branden, 5, was assigned to Westgate Elementary.
Knox said she was told July 3 that the brothers could not attend Campbell Park, even though the district pledged to put siblings together. Last week, she said she heard more spots had opened up at Campbell.
The rumor was correct. As of late last week, according to district records, Campbell Park had 12 kindergarten openings.
Tuesday, Knox came to press her case.
After waiting for hours, Knox reached the front counter, where she was told she would have to send Branden to Westgate for two weeks until district officials could determine whether there was space to move him.
Not good enough.
"I'm not leaving until this is taken care of," she said, clutching her green transfer request. "Is it okay to torture him for two weeks? ... This could help how he views school. I don't want him to make friends and then rip him out."
Behind the scenes, district officials briefly thought Branden was a black child. Campbell Park's racial cap for black students stood at 38 percent, and they had to be careful.
Once it was clear he was white, however, the decision came in seconds. Campbell Park is an "attractor" school with a marine science theme. It wants to entice white families into the school's predominantly black neighborhood.
"I've never been assertive in my life," Knox said. "But it was worth it."
The same proved true for Sean Berns, one of several parents who has decided to pull his child out of Gulfport Elementary, recently labeled a troubled school under the federal government's new No Child Left Behind Act.
Berns was told a week ago that his 9-year-old son, Cody, would be placed at Shore Acres Elementary near his home. Tuesday morning, however, Shore Acres had no record of him.
At the center's counter was School Board member Jane Gallucci, filling in on the busiest of days for the district. She went back to Underhill and came out a few minutes later with the problem solved.
"You are going to Shores Acres," Gallucci said, adding he could take the boy right over. But it was just before noon, Berns observed. Not much left of the school day.
