To ease crowding and create academic choices, J.D. Floyd Elementary turns to environmental education.
By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published March 28, 2004
SPRING HILL - Scott Barnwell could not be more enthusiastic.
J.D. Floyd Elementary School, where his children attend and Barnwell serves as chairman of the advisory committee, is about to embark on an endeavor that will achieve two key school district goals.
The school's environmental education program for 375 fifth- and sixth-graders aims to help ease crowding concerns at several Spring Hill school campuses and further the School Board's long-term plan to create more academic choices for families.
These issues have long been challenges for the district, Barnwell said, and educators appear to have found an intriguing way to handle both. He likes the idea so much, in fact, that he's signing up his 10-year-old son for the program.
"This will meet classroom size (requirements), deal with growth and give a new twist," Barnwell said. "As a parent, if you really look at the whole picture, this is really creative and innovative."
The program is a marriage of ideas.
At district headquarters, top School Board officials were seeking options to cope with the unprecedented growth that prompted the board to seek a sales tax increase to support new schools. They looked at a range of possibilities, from the obvious construction projects to the less likely conversions of existing buildings to new uses.
One concept that surfaced was placing portable classrooms on acreage behind Spring Hill Elementary for a magnet charter school program involving environmental sciences. But that idea had problems, not the least of which were legal obstacles to creating a charter school.
Folks at Spring Hill Elementary, which is crowded and overtaxed, did not warm to the notion, either.
The staff members at Floyd, meanwhile, were thinking about ways to accommodate that school's growing population, now at 1,100 students. Compounding the school's crowding troubles was traffic congestion that grips the Amber Woods neighborhood daily at drop-off and pickup times.
School secretary Pam Senior, who has worked at Floyd for 18 years, stared at the endless line of cars one February afternoon when it hit her that putting some sixth-graders into portables on the campus would ease crowding at middle schools while helping some fifth-graders make an easier transition to the upper grades.
If the program started its day an hour earlier than the regular elementary school, Senior reasoned, the impact on traffic would be minimal. Perhaps, she said, it might even be lessened if some fifth-grade families were removed from the regular program.
"I was just trying to think of ways to help with the overcrowding here and at the middle schools," Senior said. "We have to wait another year for another school to open."
It just happened that superintendent Wendy Tellone came to the school the next day for a site visit.
"I said, "I have an idea.' She said, "Tell me.' That was it," Senior said.
Tellone brought the two thoughts together. From there, they blossomed.
School Board members were thrilled.
"I would like to see more of these developed, and we're certainly going in that direction," said Jim Malcolm, perhaps the board's most ardent supporter of increased school choice. "Some real exciting ideas are flowing out of that department. Real creative ideas are on the table."
Board member John Druzbick agreed that the district is headed toward more magnet and themed schools, to give families more education options. In the short term, he said, creating an attractive program with open seats should make it easier to convince parents to voluntarily switch schools, rather than having to force their reassignment.
"If this (environmental program) is successful, I would like to see it expanded K-8," Druzbick said. "We want to see how this is going to pan out."
Floyd principal Marcia Austin has high expectations, based on positive support from the majority of her school's parents and staff members. The program will give children the opportunity to delve more deeply into their curriculum, with many field trips and experiments, she said.
The school has 18 acres right next door to explore, too.
"This will be hands-on, in the field, to experience exactly what we talk about in the classroom," Austin said.
Work in every class, whether math or language arts, will be infused with environmental sciences, said curriculum adviser Mark Weaver, who is designing the county's environmental education center at Weeki Wachee.
"The average kid needs to see and feel and touch and have those base-knowledge experiences just to relate to those concepts," Weaver said.
Adding more students to Floyd's crowded campus has not met universal praise, though.
One activist mom and neighbor, Joan Anderson, has blasted the School Board for trying to overburden the neighborhood. She argued that the nearby streets cannot handle more cars and said the board should look for other alternatives.
Austin is quick to point out that Anderson has been the only person she knows about with complaints. The school can cope with more students easily if it has more building space and if it gets another entrance, she said.
The School Board recently approved the purchase of nine double-classroom portables for the program. On the same night, it initiated condemnation proceedings to take land for a second entrance to the campus.
The earlier start time for the environmental science program should alleviate any traffic concerns that neighbors might have, Austin said.
To make sure the program draws students from the most crowded campuses, the board did not set it up as a magnet. Rather, the board agreed to expand Floyd's enrollment and opened the program only to students from the Deltona, Floyd and Spring Hill elementary school attendance zones.
Registration is open until April 23. If any seats remain, a second round of applications will be accepted.
Barnwell, the advisory committee chairman, said he can hardly wait. The program, he said, offers a "different flavor" to education that offers exciting promise.
The Hernando County School District will present information about the environmental science program at J.D. Floyd Elementary School, 3139 Dumont Ave., Spring Hill, during two meetings this week. Registration forms will be available at each session. Only students living in the Deltona, Floyd and Spring Hill elementary school attendance zones are eligible to enroll in the program. The meetings will be at:
6 p.m. Tuesday, Deltona Elementary media center, 2055 Deltona Blvd.
6 p.m. Thursday, Spring Hill Elementary cafeteria, 6000 Roble Ave.
For information, contact Mark Weaver at 797-7070, ext. 442.
