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Choice team finds its focus

Ideas for school attendance flow - with some help.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN
Published February 4, 2007

LARGO - Perhaps it was the bottomless supply of cake and coffee at the back of the room, or the tasty lasagna lunch.

Maybe it was the nifty surroundings - the 65-inch plasma screens, the projectors, the white marker boards on every wall, the comfy chairs with wheels that made it easy to break into small groups.

Whatever the cause, the large task force charged with helping the Pinellas School Board chart the future of the district broke out of a long-standing funk at a special meeting Saturday.

It took a relaxed setting and some gentle but focused prodding by three smiling facilitators at Collaborative Labs, a gleaming facility in a Largo office park. Operated by St. Petersburg College, the lab helps companies, government groups and nonprofits zero in on their purpose.

For members of the Choice Task Force - a melting pot of more than 40 business people, educators, volunteers and activists - the fix may have come just in time. After 17 months of meetings, public hearings and a broad survey of parents, their recommendations are due in just three weeks.

At its last meeting in January, the panel struggled as it has on many occasions to knuckle down, focus on specifics and reach a consensus. The group seemed stuck, tense and as far from recommending anything as it had since convening in August 2005.

Collaborative Labs markets itself as a place that "stimulates organizations to achieve business breakthroughs in about a day."

When it became clear recently that the task force was meandering, the district spent about $8,500 for two sessions at the lab. The Pinellas Education Foundation sprung for lunch and beverages.

After seven hours of meetings in the facility's calming meeting rooms - the Beach Lab, the Tropics Lab, the Forest Lab, the Water Lab - about two dozen members of the task force laughed and applauded. One member reported that hugs were exchanged earlier.

"I think we did in one day what's taken us a year and half to get to," said Carol Thomas, an assistant superintendent in charge of Pinellas elementary schools.

"This gave us a sense of who we were as a task force and we really found out that we were so close in our mind-set," said Sami Leigh Scott, a member of the Pinellas School Advisory Council Association.

She described a group hampered by "personality issues, cultural issues" and differences in perspective from north to south county.

"What would we have accomplished 16 months ago had we had this kind of focus?" Scott asked. "The creativity would have flowed in a much better way."

The group's job is to advise the School Board on how the district should adjust when its practice of busing students for desegregation ends in May after more than 30 years. It is an unwieldy and sensitive topic that affects everything the district does, from how it transports kids to how it staffs schools to where it draws boundaries for attendance areas.

The task force recommendations will help shape the district for another generation. The panel's work will be heavy in coming days with a meeting Thursday, another session in the Collaborative Lab Saturday, then a final meeting in mid February.

Pinellas schools' Choice Task Force

The Pinellas schools' Choice Task Force emerged from a session Saturday with several concepts that will likely end up in its final report in three weeks. Among them:

- Add magnet and fundamental programs to keep pace with demand from parents.

- Give families that don't get their choice of schools to have a say in a backup school, instead of assigning one.

- Use attendance area boundaries to prevent large concentrations of poor, disabled and non-English-speaking students in certain schools.

[Last modified February 4, 2007, 05:30:23]