Schools

Scrambling to fix crowded schools

The problem is most immediate at Bryant Elementary and Durant High.

TAMPA - In Hillsborough County's battle to ease overcrowding, no two schools pose a more immediate problem than Bryant Elementary in the northwest and Durant High in the southeast.

The two are filled well beyond capacity and already have more students than they expected for the year. Homes are rising rapidly around them, yet the schools have no hope for new classrooms or campuses to relieve them by next fall.

As rumors of double sessions and other horribles swirl, superintendent MaryEllen Elia and her staff have come up with some strategies to help Bryant and Durant survive another year. Once those two are handled, Elia said, the district will consider how its options might apply to other overcrowded schools.

About a quarter of the county schools have more students than permanent seats, and the district faces a $364-million shortfall in its plan to tackle the situation over the next five years.

"We're going to look at everything," Elia said.

To help Bryant, which has 1,305 students in a school built for 882, the administration is proposing to fast-track the construction of a new school by canceling a pending land swap with the County Commission. Instead, Elia plans to ask the School Board to retain its land in Fawn Ridge and begin building there as soon as possible.

The district staff preferred the county-owned land, Elia said, but untangling all the legalities of a swap would take too long.

"We just don't have the time," she said.

The earliest a school could open in Fawn Ridge would be early 2007, though. Until then, the district is considering altering attendance zones, setting up a campus of portables away from Bryant, and creating an attractor program to draw about 200 students to a school with seats.

Elia has scheduled a town hall meeting for Bryant parents for next week Thursday. She said nothing is settled, and the perspective of parents will be considered.

Bryant PTA president Michelle Mayfield said some parents will be unhappy with the proposals. After all, she noted, many, including herself, bought homes in the Westchase area specifically to attend Bryant, which is at Race Track Road and Nine Eagles Drive.

"We just have to not be negative, and be positive, and deal with what we have until they come up with a solution," Mayfield said.

To help Durant, which has 2,826 students in a school built for 2,448, one possibility is moving boundaries in conjunction with the opening of Spoto High next year, Elia said. Spoto is slated to ease crowding at Riverview and East Bay high schools.

The district also is considering moving some Durant students to a satellite campus, and, like Bryant, trying to attract some students from Durant to a school with vacancies. Nearby Newsome High has about 200 seats open, though growth in the Fishhawk Ranch area could quickly eat those up.

"There's no question that double sessions is an option," Elia said. "But that's not our first option."

Elia said the district wants to open a new high school in northern Plant City, which would help Durant to the south, at the end of Turkey Creek Road. But it has no site for that school.

Durant PTA President Maureen Carney predicted parents would strenuously oppose a boundary shift.

"They just finished not too long ago when they opened Newsome," Carney said. She also wondered how double sessions could work because of Durant's block schedule.

"There is no easy solution to this," Carney said.

School Board member Jennifer Faliero, who represents eastern Hillsborough, said she would not support redrawing attendance zones because she did not want to upend families for the second time in three years. She doubted whether students would voluntarily go in large numbers to a different school, noting that, like Bryant, Durant parents chose to live nearby for the school.

"They would already be doing that if that were an attractive option," Faliero said, calling the mass migration a "hard sell."

A meeting with Durant parents has not been scheduled.

Regardless of the outcome, Durant and Bryant represent just the tip of a large and growing problem, one that could be further exacerbated if the state continues to move ahead with its class size reduction program that bars coteaching.

Overcrowded McKitrick Elementary in Lutz is waiting for a new campus in Keystone that neighbors have sued to stop. Randall Middle School in Lithia is about as over capacity as Durant, and the next reliever middle school is more than two years away.

"We have a really tough road ahead of us," Faliero said, adding that she looked forward to receiving specific recommendations from Elia.

The School Board has scheduled a workshop to discuss school crowding for 9 a.m. Tuesday.

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

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