School location again riles neighbors

Three officials fear that reviving a proposal for an alternative school in High Point in Largo amounts to breaking a promise to residents.

By KELLY RYAN

© St. Petersburg Times,
published September 5, 2001

LARGO -- In 1997, High Point residents pleaded with the Pinellas County School Board not to build a high school for troubled teenagers in their neighborhood. School Board members eventually found another location on 49th Street.

But now environmental problems have made the site near the Pinellas County Jail unusable, so the school district is returning to High Point and proposing that the alternative high school be built there.

That has upset residents. And it has worried some of Bayside High School's biggest supporters, including Sheriff Everett Rice, State Attorney Bernie McCabe and School Board member Linda Lerner. All three said they felt they were going back on a promise made to the neighborhood.

Despite the concerns, Superintendent Howard Hinesley and most School Board members agreed at a workshop Tuesday the district should press forward.

School Board members gave Hinesley the go-ahead to begin meeting with High Point residents, drawing building plans and appointing neighborhood residents to a committee planning the school. The details of the new school eventually will be brought to board members for official approval.

In the meantime, an emotional debate is likely.

"What are you going to do if the community is still opposed because you've broken a promise?" asked High Point resident Debbie Birge, whose neighbors have numerous worries, including the type of student who will attend the program, the school's proximity to an elementary school and how it might affect the neigborhood's reputation. "The community did oppose it before."

The $15-million Bayside High is for students who don't succeed in traditional classrooms, including those who are truant, disruptive or who have criminal records. The school likely will house 500 students, grades 9-12.

The school district thought it had solved a public relations problem by finding a site near the juvenile detention center in Largo to build the school. Only in the past year has the district understood the extent and the expense of cleaning up groundwater contamination there.

Hinesley told board members that it could take years for the property's owner to clean up the site. The district wants to have the school open in fall 2003, so officials have spent months searching for a new home for Bayside High.

The search ended at a site next to High Point Elementary School at the former High Point Service Center, which was a warehouse for the district.

Hinesley said the site is well-suited for an alternative high school because the district already owns the land, it's centrally located and it's near PTEC, where many Bayside students may go.

The High Point site has environmental problems, too. It will cost the district about $250,000 to clean up soil there that is contaminated with fuel, oil and arsenic. That process could take about a year.

Lerner told her colleagues that the district should have community meetings before allowing the architect to draw plans so residents know the district will listen to their concerns. But other board members said waiting to draw plans could unnecessarily delay the school's opening.

Board members and other officials urged High Point residents to keep their minds open.

"I think when they find out what it really is, their fears will be allayed," Rice said.

In other news:

Board members, by consensus, gave Hinesley permission to move forward with plans to use space at the PTEC St. Petersburg campus for a family education and information center when the district begins giving parents more choice in their children's schools in 2003.

Using that space will displace a collection of social service organizations, which board member Linda Lerner opposed. She said the family information center seemed to be using too much space and added that she had hoped the district could have found some way to share space with the Community Outreach Center, which provides child care, mental health, counseling and other services.

In northern Pinellas County, another family information center might be located at Oldsmar Elementary. No site has been found in mid county.

The School Board studied giving School Board attorney John Bowen a 6 percent raise to $128,000 a year and a three-year contract extension. Under the terms of the proposed new contract, each year, if Bowen receives an above-average evaluation, his contract can be extended for one more year. Board members will vote on Bowen's contract Tuesday. The board met with a consultant who is using recent U.S. Census data to redraw School Board members' districts. Consultant Kurt Spitzer told board members that several districts would have to be adjusted so all have about the same number of residents.

Lee Benjamin's district, for example, needs to lose about 25,000 residents. Board members expect to take their first look at the proposed districts at their Sept. 25 meeting.

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