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School copes well with crowding

Bryant Elementary shows flexibility as it benefits from parents' affluence and their involvement.

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published September 12, 2005

TAMPA - By the numbers, Bryant Elementary School should be a complete mess.

It is the most overcrowded school in Hillsborough County, packing in 50 percent more kids than it was built to hold. Nine teachers float from room to room because they have no room of their own. Lunch service begins at 10 a.m. and runs almost until the final bell.

Experts say such extreme overcrowding is a recipe for all kinds of problems, including high teacher turnover, poor student performance and unhappy parents.

But by the numbers, Bryant is an enormous success.

It has some of the highest student test scores in the state. Parents adore it. Teachers say they wouldn't want to work anywhere else.

So what exactly is going on at this 3-year-old school tucked into the booming suburbs of northwest Hillsborough? And what lessons does it offer others?

First, that it helps to be new and located in an affluent community. But just as important is attitude, said Debi Veranth, Bryant's principal until a recent promotion.

Instead of focusing on limited space, she told teachers to concentrate on student needs. When parents complained about the conditions, she told them to make things better by volunteering.

Something is definitely working. The campus is surprisingly quiet. Traffic moves quickly and efficiently through the hallways.

"It is very overcrowded, but when you're there, you don't feel that," said PTA president Michelle Mayfield. "The teachers and the administrators play a huge part in that, being as creative and working together as well as they do."

* * *

Despite its floating teachers and a campus filled with portable classrooms, Bryant has some advantages over other schools.

Only a handful can match its level of parental involvement, which produced 12,500 volunteer hours last year.

Few of its students are poor and almost all speak English.

The staff has had little turnover since the campus opened in 2002.

And Bryant is not the only overcrowded school in Hillsborough to net good results.

Alafia Elementary School to the east, for example, was nearly as crowded as Bryant in 2001 and 2002. Yet it also earned A's from the state.

"You have an anomaly that really works well," said Glen Earthman, a Virginia Tech University professor emeritus and an authority on the relationship between school conditions and student achievement. "It confirms that the home, the family and genes play a great deal in influencing how children learn."

So does flexibility, a hallmark at Bryant and an absolute necessity when 1,305 students are being squeezed into a school designed for 882.

One recent morning, 39 third-graders formed two neat lines and walked quietly from their classroom to the physical education courtyard outside.

Teacher Heather McCluskey led the way, while teacher Aaliyah Mitchell kept stragglers in place in the back.

As the kids began to exercise, the two educators - who have worked collaboratively since 2002 - marveled at how much they like sharing a classroom and students.

"It works out beautifully," Mitchell said. "We were saying if we had known that, we would have opted to do it three years ago."

Rather than co-teaching, Karen DiGiacomo decided to give up her third-grade classroom to become a floating second-grade teacher. Now she moves among three portables, helping small groups of children.

She keeps supplies in each room, carrying just a small green bag and a bottle of water with her.

"I would do this in spite of the crowding," said DiGiacomo, who said she enjoys the collaborative teaching model.

Teachers Mitchell and McCluskey - known affectionately around campus as the M&Ms - also volunteered to co-teach. They say their styles mesh well and they learn from each other.

While one leads the class, the other circles the room, helping stragglers and disciplining as needed.

"Actually, the kids have less opportunity not to be on-task," Mitchell said.

* * *

Parents are another key ingredient.

They help run the Great American Teach-In and Red Ribbon Day. They make copies for teachers, check out books in the media center and assist in many other non-instructional tasks, leaving educators to do what they're hired to do.

Even in areas where you might expect troubles to arise, such as the cafeteria and the front office, things run smoothly.

The cafeteria handles an almost endless lunch period. It begins at 10 a.m. and doesn't end until 45 minutes before the final bell. But the seven who work in the steamy kitchen say they're not bothered by a pace that keeps them running from sink to cash register to food warmer.

"Everybody just knows what they need to do," said manager Sue McCoy, who noted that most of the team has worked together since the school's first day.

If there's a breakdown, assistant manager Carole Howsare said, it's with tasks not related to meals. "When you have more kids, the servers are busy and you don't have a backup on doing the dishes and preparing for tomorrow," she said. "It takes a lot of teamwork."

The office secretaries share that view.

They, too, have worked together since Bryant opened, and while their responsibilities have grown with the enrollment, so have their abilities to deal with it.

"I don't think anybody thought the growth would be this bad," principal's secretary Mary Craine said. "You have to take it in stride and make it what it is."

* * *

Pressed to come up with an area where Bryant feels as crowded as the numbers state, everyone at the school gives the same answer: traffic.

Parents fill up Nine Eagles Drive in the morning, and sometimes the parking lot is so crowded that cars and buses can't come and go freely.

Some park on the road just to avoid dealing with the situation.

But even there, things have improved with a revised dropoff and pickup in the parking lot.

On a recent morning, the longest a car had to wait was one minute, and by 8 a.m. the lot was clear.

Crowding is, in many ways, the least of a school's concerns, says Ken Otero, the school district's incoming chief of staff.

First, he says, the fact that a school's population is beyond its capacity does not necessarily translate into overcrowded classrooms.

If space is used wisely, including through portables, student-teacher ratios can remain small.

Bryant has achieved that goal while still keeping its multipurpose room for special events and even retaining recess areas for its children.

Second, and more important, Otero says, is the strength of the staff. That's why the district is trying so hard to attract top teachers to high-poverty schools.

"You can get a great teacher and put them under an oak tree" and learning will occur, Otero said. "I'd rather have my kid in a class of 40 with a great teacher than in a class of 10 with a mediocre teacher."

That said, he and others worry that Bryant's success can't last forever.

New homes are going up every day in Bryant's zone, potentially sending hundreds of additional children to the school.

Already this year, the school had to add several full- and part-time teachers because its student numbers exceeded projections.

Dawn Foster, who has a daughter in second grade, says she loves Bryant and its private school feel. She has nothing but praise for the staff. But she sees her daughter in a portable surrounded by standing water and knows the school can't handle another influx of students.

"I feel like we're constantly being told to grin and bear it. But how long is that supposed to last?" Foster asked. "I would be more comforted to know someone from the school district is saying, "We understand there's a problem and this is what we're going to do about it' and not ... "We're working on it."'

But "working on it" is the best district officials can do.

The district has no land immediately available to build new schools nearby, and Bryant has no space for more portables.

Double sessions and other solutions are on the table, but no one has settled on an answer.

--Jeffrey S. Solochek can be reached at 813 269-5304 or solochek@sptimes.com

[Last modified September 12, 2005, 03:15:25]