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Schools

Votes split on plans to move students

Some parents come away happy with the result of a bitterly fought redistricting, while others are left deeply disappointed.

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published April 19, 2006

	[Times photo: Brian Cassella]
	Joe O'Sullivan hugs his wife Kathy as they celebrate the decision to keep Dickenson Elementary open. Concerned citizens packed a meeting of the Hillsborough County School Board Tuesday to protest new boundary lines.

TAMPA - The Hillsborough School Board caused tears of joy and cries of frustration Tuesday night with a mixed vote on a plan to move 1,500 students to new schools in the fall.

The most controversial part of superintendent MaryEllen Elia's proposal, to shut Dickenson Elementary and turn it into an alternative school, was voted down by a board majority unwilling to close an A-rated school.

But the bulk of the plan, which includes hotly contested moves of children out of Westchase, Essrig, Twin Lakes and five other elementary schools, remained intact, with just two board members opposing the boundary shifts.

Board member Susan Valdes, on the losing side of that vote, urged her colleagues to give unhappy parents more time for input and collaboration in the process.

"There is a need to be able to include folks and listen to everyone, and maybe before we come up with a proposal," Valdes said.

But a board majority instead heeded the cautions of its longest-tenured member, Carol Kurdell.

"We have to do this as a whole," she said. "If you put this off for a year, you're only going to complicate the problem. . . . If you think this is bad tonight, it's just going to get worse."

The board split the two issues on a 4-3 vote, giving an opportunity, as board member Candy Olson put it, to "elegantly sidestep" their biggest concern - the closing of Dickenson.

"I am very troubled by the idea of closing a school that has been so successful," Olson said, capturing the board's misgivings.

Dickenson parents and students shouted, hugged, cried and gave thanks to God and to the School Board for refusing to turn their highly-rated school into an alternative campus.

"We've been praying hard about this," said Joseph O'Sullivan, who has three children at the high-poverty school. "It's one of those schools where all the socioeconomics and demographics would say the school would fail. But it's gotten together because people are impassioned."

The outcome could not have been better, said Carrie Bowcock, who spearheaded a "Save Our School" campaign. She planned to go home and wake her second-grader, Brieanna, with the news.

"I'm overwhelmed and overjoyed," Bowcock said. "She's going to be a happy little girl."

The same could not be said for the dozens of parents from Westchase, Carrollwood Springs and other communities who fought unsuccessfully to keep their schools intact.

They left the board room shaking their heads, many red-eyed from crying, after the board ignored their pleas and counterproposals.

"We're frustrated. We weren't heard," said Dionne Hammond, who has two children now slated to move from Westchase Elementary to Lowry Elementary in the fall.

Westchase organizer Matt Calabro complained that the board refused to engage in a dialogue with the community, choosing instead to take its staff members' comments at face value. He predicted political fallout for the board. His son, Craig, a fourth-grader who will move to Lowry in the fall, put the issue in kid terms.

"We hate them," said Craig, 10, who sat through the 51/2-hour meeting. "They made us move for a stupid reason."

Before the board debate, which lasted about 11/2 hours, 89 parents and community members prodded the board to rethink the superintendent's proposal. Many were from Dickenson and Westchase, where opposition to the boundary shifts had been most vociferous.

But parents from Bellamy, Twin Lakes and Essrig elementaries also weighed in.

Their message: The School Board has ignored community input and refused to consider alternatives. Some called for the vote to be postponed. Others wanted the board to throw out the entire plan.

One group of parents produced data showing the numbers of homes being built in communities would overcrowd the schools their children would be moved to. That prompted much scurrying among district staff.

Others talked about how their children are being displaced by students on special assignment. They asked the board to consider retaining the current boundaries and sending away students from outside first.

"Moving a line is not going to fix anything," said Robert McLaren, whose sons attend Twin Lakes Elementary. "Get more input from the neighborhoods, the communities you're affecting."

Linda Connolly, whose children attend Westchase Elementary, called the process a failure.

"Do not patronize me by telling me we had choices when we were never asked," Connolly said. "Have the courage to vote no."

Tish Dietrich of Westchase put the message to the School Board in plain terms: "The people of Hillsborough County did not hire the district staff or Mrs. Elia. We did, however, hire each of you through our votes."

It was Elia who called for the boundary shifts, saying the school district had to show it was using classroom space efficiently if it is to ask Hillsborough voters for a sales tax next year to raise money for school construction. The district is growing by more than 5,000 students a year, and is facing a $400-million building deficit.

Elia targeted the county's westernmost schools first because the area has the highest concentration of crowded schools. It also has a large number of schools with open seats.

The proposed shifts were announced just before spring break. Despite the timing, parents quickly galvanized.

They had hoped to use facts and figures to convince the board its staff had done an incomplete job and that with more time, a better plan with community buy-in might emerge.

In the end, they only half won. The boundary changes, without Dickenson, take effect in August. And more communities will undergo the same far-reaching boundary review in coming months, with central and northeastern Hillsborough slated to come up next.

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

[Last modified April 19, 2006, 02:00:07]