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2,000 may transfer to new high schools
The school district wants to draw from enrollments at several existing high schools to ease crowding and to fill schools in Brandon and Ruskin.
By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published January 28, 2006
About 2,000 students from Riverview and East Bay high schools might find themselves on a new campus this fall.
The school district released a proposal Friday to fill two new south Hillsborough high schools with freshmen, sophomores and juniors from four existing high schools.
Steven Ayers, who oversees pupil assignment for the district, said that Spoto High in Brandon would open its doors this fall with about 1,230 students, mainly coming from Riverview High.
About 200 students would come from East Bay High.
Farther south in Ruskin, Lennard High would open with a little more 1,000 students - nearly all of them from East Bay. About 30 students would come from Durant and Newsome high schools.
The two new schools should ease crowding at Durant and Newsome, Ayers said.
"We're looking to the future," he said. "As growth goes out that way, it won't go into Newsome and Durant. It will go into Lennard."
The proposal is a overhaul of an earlier plan. For example, no students from Bloomingdale High would have to transfer schools, as was first proposed.
If approved by the School Board, students still have a chance to avoid a transfer, either through the district's "open choice" program or through special assignment.
Ayers said he will schedule a community meeting in coming weeks to discuss the plan further.
While many parents and students have been apprehensive about the possibility of switching schools, East Bay senior Sharon O'Leary-Martin, 18, said she thought the plan boded well for her school - even if she won't be around to see it.
"It will be less crowded," she said. "WAY less crowded. Right now, it's really hard to walk in the halls."
S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at 813 661-2442 or srosenbaum@sptimes.com
[Last modified January 28, 2006, 01:37:10]
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