Schools

Pinellas schools okay new assignment plan

By Times Staff Writer
Published November 14, 2007

LARGO

The Pinellas School Board on Tuesday voted 6-1 to approve a controversial student assignment plan, overriding eleventh-hour efforts to delay a decision on an initiative two years in the making.

The vote was the first of two that will determine whether the district will return to a system of neighborhood schools beginning with the 2008-09 academic year. A final vote is scheduled for Dec. 11.

About two dozen parents and community activists, including representatives from the St. Petersburg and Clearwater-Upper Pinellas branches of the NAACP, pleaded with board members to postpone their decision until more provisions for improving black student achievement can be built into the plan.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has threatened to take the school district to court over the plan. Officials in the fund's national office are backing the effort, said Enrique Escarraz, a St. Petersburg lawyer who works with the group.

TAMPA

Democrat pitches bid against tax plan

The top Democrat in the state House of Representatives has a message for voters: Say no to the Legislature's tax plan.

House Minority Leader Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, offered that at a luncheon for Democrats on Tuesday in Tampa.

Gelber said the plan, on the ballot Jan. 29, does nothing to help those who most need property tax relief - new homeowners and small business owners. He said he hopes a reform commission will have better ideas.

WESLEY CHAPEL

Macy's to open store at Wiregrass mall

Macy's Inc. ended two years of speculation Tuesday when it announced that it has picked the Shops at Wiregrass for its eighth Tampa Bay area store.

The store plans to open in October 2008, said Macy's spokesman Jim Sluzewski.

Officials also killed rumors that the Wesley Chapel store would mean the end of the Macy's at University Mall in Tampa.

[Last modified November 14, 2007, 06:30:59]