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Schools

Board changes stance on new students at elementary

A vote Tuesday could send just 40 students to a new $1.2-million wing at Chocachatti, not the 150 officials initially projected.

By ABHI RAGHUNATHAN
Published March 13, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - In a meeting last May, the Hernando County School Board made its position crystal clear: If school officials wanted to spend $1.2-million for a new wing at Chocachatti Elementary School, they would have to significantly increase the school's enrollment.

Yet for months, senior district officials never carried out those plans, even though the documents they had submitted in May specified the wing would have "150 student stations." Then, at a Feb. 15 workshop, the School Board revised its position, agreeing to increase Chocachatti's enrollment by just 40 students for the 2005-06 school year, even though the new wing will create room for at least 110 students.

On Tuesday evening, the School Board could vote to make that agreement official. If that happens, the board will have spent $1.2-million for an addition of about 10,000 square feet - all to house a few dozen more students at one of the county's least crowded elementary schools, a school that turns away dozens of children every year.

If the agreement holds, Chocachatti could be roughly 100 students under its capacity next year, according to fall 2004 projections. Meanwhile, other elementary schools, such as Spring Hill and J.D. Floyd, continue to struggle to house hundreds more students than they were built for.

"It doesn't make sense, does it?" School Board Vice Chairman Jim Malcolm said last week.

In fact, Malcolm said, he was stunned when he learned recently that district officials, including superintendent Wendy Tellone, didn't want to admit any additional students to Chocachatti next year. It was only after Malcolm brought up the issue on Feb. 15 that other board members agreed to raise Chocachatti's enrollment by 40 students.

School Board Chairman Robert Wiggins also confirmed that Tellone did not want to increase Chocachatti's enrollment. He said the board may have to re-examine the issue.

Tellone said last week that the decision on the 40-student increase had been made by the board and suggested that future enrollment changes should be voted on to avoid misunderstandings.

Chocachatti principal Michael Tellone, the superintendent's husband, said he worried that adding too many students would damage the special programs at the arts magnet school. Chocachatti also features a microsociety program; it admits students through both a lottery and applications.

Still, several board members now wonder how a decision they reached at a workshop, based on a figure of "150 student stations" provided by district officials, could be altered so quickly, with little public debate.

"I don't like favoritism," said School Board member Sandra Nicholson, who criticized her colleagues at the Feb. 15 meeting for admitting only 40 more students. "It appears to be that way. . . . We've got other schools that are vastly overcrowded, and we're telling them to suck it up."

The story surrounding the Chocachatti addition began in 2003, when the School Board was struggling to deal with an overcrowding crisis.

By May of that year, conditions had grown so bad at other elementary schools that the School Board declared a state of emergency and waived the waiting list at Chocachatti. The board increased Chocachatti's enrollment from 720 to 800, ordering that 40 students each from the attendance zones of J.D. Floyd and Pine Grove elementary schools be moved to Chocachatti.

School Board members said then that they could not leave the magnet school's enrollment at 720 when both J.D. Floyd and Pine Grove had more than 1,000 students each. Only John Druzbick, the board's chairman at that time, questioned the plan.

The board decided the new students at Chocachatti could be handled with just two more portables - a single trailer and a double trailer. The school currently has three portables that can hold 75 students, according to district figures.

At that time, the new Chocachatti addition was still only a vague idea and not much of a consideration. The board had not received the state funds that would eventually finance the addition, and there had been no serious discussion of building plans.

It wasn't until several months later that district officials began planning for new construction projects. An October 2003 memorandum from district facilities director Graydon Howe detailed possible additions to Central High School, Nature Coast Technical High School, Powell Middle School and Chocachatti.

Howe's memorandum to a senior district official noted that an addition at Chocachatti could hold six classrooms, with 25 students per classroom, for a total of "150 student stations" at a cost of $1.25-million. The money for the projects was expected to come from the state.

Soon after, Carol MacLeod, then the district's executive director for business services, issued another memorandum to School Board members about the $6.1-million that Hernando was going to receive through the state's "Classrooms for Kids" program. MacLeod wrote that the money was being delayed; it would take until April 2004 for the state to issue Hernando the money for the projects.

On May 4, 2004, the School Board gathered at another workshop to discuss possible land purchases for new schools and the future facilities plan. That plan was presented by Heather Martin, who is now the district's executive director of business services.

The plan described future expansions, including the Chocachatti project. It said the additional wing would cost $1.25-million and result in "150 student stations."

According to a videotape of that workshop, Malcolm questioned whether spending money for the Chocachatti addition would result in more students there.

"I can't support this wing if we're not accommodating extra youngsters," Malcolm said.

Other board members said they had always assumed that building an addition at Chocachatti meant increasing the school's enrollment. Druzbick raised some questions, pointing out the 80 new students the school had recently accepted. But even Druzbick had relented somewhat by the end of that discussion. The majority of the board agreed that the new addition would not replace the portable classrooms on the campus.

"I was under the impression that 150 more students would go to Chocachatti," Martin told the board.

Both Malcolm and then-board member Gail David pointed out that with enrollment in Hernando schools surging, the district could not afford to remove portables as it built classrooms. Wiggins agreed.

Nicholson finally asked: "So is it the consensus of the board that we were adding students to these sites? That's what I thought. I mean, it's the only thing that makes sense."

At another meeting later that night, the School Board authorized a $105,000 payment to Ed Hoffman Architects for the Chocachatti addition. Two weeks later, they approved the future facilities plan that specified "150 student stations" for the addition.

The plans for the addition were tweaked repeatedly after the board vote because of rising prices for materials such as steel and concrete, according to Howe, the district's retiring facilities director. But the scope of the project and its cost were not significantly altered.

On Dec. 14, the School Board authorized plans to award the bid and issue the purchase order for the Chocachatti addition to Bandes Construction. The cost: about $1.2-million.

But by then, the plans for the addition had changed. Instead of holding six classrooms, the addition now is slated to include five classrooms, a science lab and a large teachers planning area. Both the science lab and teachers area are roughly the size of classrooms.

Construction on the addition began soon after the new year, according to Howe. It wasn't until then that Malcolm raised the issue of increasing enrollment with superintendent Tellone, and learned she didn't want more students there. "She maintained that board direction was never given" to increase enrollment, Malcolm said in a recent interview.

Other board members also began talking to Michael Tellone, who raised objections to additional students. Last week, the principal said that raising Chocachatti's enrollment beyond 850 would jeopardize "ancillary programs" such as art and music.

"With a magnet school come additional programs - programs beyond the normal elementary school realm," Tellone said.

The argument worked. At the Feb. 15 workshop, the School Board did an about-face.

Board members Druzbick and Pat Fagan said they didn't want to increase enrollment at Chocachatti by much and risk overcrowding. Nicholson insisted on raising enrollment by 100. Malcolm helped broker a compromise of a 40-student increase. At the end of the meeting, Nicholson read a statement into the record denouncing the decision.

When asked about their votes recently, both Fagan and Druzbick stood by their positions. Druzbick said the district's plans to open new K-8 schools would reduce the crunch at other elementary schools and that Chocachatti had special programs. Fagan said Chocachatti was already cramped.

In the meantime, Malcolm said he is frustrated with what he called superintendent Tellone's inability to carry out board decisions.

Wiggins, when told that he had agreed with other board members last May to significantly increase enrollment at Chocachatti, said he was pleased with the compromise. But he suggested the possibility of another workshop to discuss the issue and clear up any "misunderstanding."

"Maybe . . . we should have gone back and looked at the tape (of the board meeting)," he said.

Abhi Raghunathan can be reached at araghunathan@sptimes.com or 352 848-1431.

[Last modified March 13, 2005, 00:22:15]