From lunch periods in hurried shifts to leaking roofs, supporters of the tax hope the new revenue brings improvements.
By REBECCA CATALANELLO
Published March 5, 2004
ZEPHYRHILLS - It was 10:35 a.m. at Stewart Middle School and kids already were crowding up outside the two cafeteria doors.
"We're not ready!" one cafeteria worker yelled from inside the kitchen. "If you can hold 'em, hold 'em!"
One minute later, assistant principal Myra Croft asked again, "Are we ready?"
"Yes," cafeteria manager Julie Bess nodded.
Croft opened the door and in they poured, with backpacks and laughter, some stalling or stumbling.
"Come on, sweetie, rock and roll!" Croft said, waving students toward the serving lines.
Every weekday at this 77-year-old school, the four back-to-back 30-minute lunch periods come and go faster than a junior high crush.
It's one reason why the cafeteria workers here are crossing their fingers for the Penny for Pasco to pass on Tuesday.
The lunchroom fits exactly 288 seated students, plus 16 spots at the so-called "detention table." Though the school is below its 973-student capacity, the 962 students there now eat their chili dogs and canned peaches elbow-to-elbow - and fast. You have to get in line, get your food and get out before the next group's turn.
"We hate to push them, but the bottom line is they only get 10 to 12 minutes to eat at the bottom of the line," Croft said. "It's not a good thing."
For Merdiatra Lewis and pal Stephanie Shirley, both 13 and both at the very end of the lunch line on Wednesday, it meant sitting down to eat at three minutes before 11 and being ushered out of the cafeteria at 11:06 a.m.
If the 1-cent-on-the-dollar sales tax increase passes, Stewart is due to receive $15.8-million in maintenance and renovation between now and the 2012-13 school year, including a new, more spacious cafeteria, a new classroom wing, a new bus loop and air conditioning for the gym.
Slightly more than 80 percent of the $197-million that will be raised for schools by the Penny in the next 10 years is planned to go toward building nine new schools in exploding central and west Pasco.
But for older schools like the eight in the slower-growing eastern side of the county, passage of the Penny translates to $37.8-million in school improvements - a meaningful promise for school communities that have felt neglected amid all the focus on building new schools.
"When you have the need for 2,500 students a year, you have to build new schools," Stewart principal Buff Johnson said. "The way I look at it is my kids deserve better facilities."
So, if the tax referendum passes, look for thousands of dollars to go toward new covered walkways, security camera installations, gym floor replacements, air conditioning upgrades and reroofing projects.
If it doesn't pass, expect many of those projects to be put on hold, school officials say. New schools will take priority.
Back in the early 1980s, Tammy Wooten used to stare at the ceiling in Ms. Garcia's algebra class at the old Pasco High School in nearby Dade City. On that ceiling, staples pierced Deca playing cards, which helped secure clear, plastic sheets in a makeshift remedy to excessive roof leaks.
"Twenty years later, my daughter is in the same classroom in the same building and the roof still leaks," said Wooten, mother of two and a media assistant at Lacoochee Elementary, where she said 10 trash cans gather water in one room when it rains.
Wooten's sixth-grade daughter attends Pasco Middle in the old Pasco High building.
If Penny for Pasco is successful, Pasco Middle School will see $1.2-million in improvements, including a $570,769 roof repair.
Wooten's buy-in for the Penny proposal was largely due to such promises.
Ray Gadd, the Pasco County School District point-man on the penny sales tax increase, said he immediately sensed that parents and teachers at older schools were most likely to trade their votes for the Penny only if they knew the immediate needs in their schools would be taken care of.
"They perceived that their schools had been ignored," Gadd said. When schools like the new Wesley Chapel High open with state-of-the-art facilities, he said, "I think it's very difficult for those parents out there (in east Pasco) to feel like they're being treated equally."
There are 10 schools that would get renovation money only from the passage of Penny; all but two are in east Pasco. In the west, 38-year-old Gulf High and 39-year-old Gulf Middle would get a combined $4.8-million.
Gulf High principal Tom Imerson said he knows new schools are the priority, but the renovations are needed as well.
"My feeling is that if people are concerned about kids, (we should do) anything we can do to make the situation better for kids."
- Rebecca Catalanello covers education in Pasco County. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6241 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6241. Her e-mail address is rcatalanello@sptimes.com
