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Parents push to stop moves to new school

School officials get feedback on a plan to ease overcrowding. The School Board will have the final say.

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published October 30, 2005

NEW TAMPA - In what has become a familiar scenario in growing New Tampa, parents say they will try to stop the Hillsborough County School District from moving their children into a new middle school.

Plans call for students from West Meadows, Richmond Place and Pebble Creek to attend Nancy Bartels Middle School when it opens next fall in Live Oak.

Although parents of children from Benito Middle School predict little resistance, feelings are stronger among Liberty Middle families.

"We are extremely upset about this because it is a proposal that would send our children outside of what we consider our community," said Dionne Sholl, who represented West Meadows and Richmond Place at a meeting last week with school officials.

She noted that many families chose their homes specifically to send their children to Liberty and then Freedom High. Though the school district does not have to honor that, she said, the communities feel it should be given "great, great weight."

Families raised similar issues with opening of Clark, Chiles and Heritage elementary schools, and also with the transfer of students from Benito to Liberty.

Sholl said she and her neighbors are not just concerned about middle school. The reassignment, they said, could ultimately cause their children to attend Wharton High School instead of Freedom.

Such a move is highly unlikely, given that both high schools are equally crowded and the school district has no plans to build others in the vicinity, said Steve Ayers, the school district's attendance zone architect. His staff plans to schedule a larger community meeting on the zones in mid November.

The School Board will make the final decision, Ayers said, adding that sometimes the board revises boundary lines minutes before adopting them.

Neighborhoods, natural boundaries, travel patterns and all sorts of other factors come into play.

"I walk a fine line between your immediate need as a parent and the long-term goals of the district," he said.

The school district is opening Nancy Bartels Middle to ease crowding at Liberty and Benito. Each is over capacity by more than 100 students, and the development of new neighborhoods such as Live Oak and Grand Hampton will add even more students.

Ayers' proposal is to remove West Meadows and Richmond Place from Liberty, and Pebble Creek, Live Oak, Villa del Mar and Grand Hampton from Benito. Some students who are bused to Liberty and Benito from the University area also will attend Bartels.

The new school would open about half full. Enrollment at Benito and Liberty would fall below capacity, at least until new class-size rules take hold in 2010.

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

[Last modified October 30, 2005, 01:13:18]