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By BILL COATS
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 19, 2000
LUTZ -- School administrators are reversing a proposal to move children from the Van Dyke Farms neighborhood into a new elementary school, meaning the new school could start the next school year with one-third of its classrooms empty.
But few people doubt that the Yvonne Tomei McKitrick Elementary School, being built on Lutz-Lake Fern Road, will fill up quickly. The future campus is surrounded by new subdivisions and will serve the county's hottest development corridor west of Interstate 275.
"I think it's going to be overcrowded," said Karen Potter, a Van Dyke Farms parent who led a petition drive to keep her neighborhood in the zone of the 8-year-old Schwarzkopf Elementary School.
Under the proposal, McKitrick was set to open next August with a capacity of 941 students but a projected enrollment of only 590.
Schwarzkopf, currently 50 percent over its capacity of 869, would begin the new school year with a projected 798 students.
The new zones are being submitted to the Hillsborough County School Board for a vote on Tuesday . The board will hear public comments before voting. Superintendent Earl Lennard has endorsed the change.
Parents from several neighborhoods southwest of Schwarzkopf were upset when they found out last month that their children were among those targeted for the new school. Schwarzkopf's PTA president, Jane LaRose, who lives in Van Dyke Farms, had not planned to attend the Oct. 2 public meeting on the zone changes until she heard what they proposed.
"We were kind of surprised," Mrs. LaRose said.
Mrs. Potter said Van Dyke Farms is closer to the current elementary school than the new one. The neighborhood is 3.3 miles from Schwarzkopf and 6.7 miles from McKitrick.
"We just strongly felt logistically it was not a good move," Mrs. Potter said.
Mrs. LaRose said school buses would have to turn left out of Van Dyke Farms into rush-hour traffic on Van Dyke Road as they left for McKitrick.
"It's almost impossible to make a left turn there in the morning," she said.
The parents spoke out at the meeting and began lobbying the school district to keep Van Dyke Farms in Schwarzkopf's zone.
Schwarzkopf Principal Jennifer Kori, whose school has more than 20 portable classrooms now, could not be reached for comment. Mrs. LaRose said the principal is concerned about staying close to capacity.
"Once the portables are taken away next year, state law says they can't come back," Mrs. LaRose said.
But Bill Person, the school's administrator responsible for zoning proposals, said the shrunken Schwarzkopf zone mostly contains neighborhoods that are built out.
"The growth in the Schwarzkopf area is minimal or almost nonexistent," Person said.
But home-building still is booming in McKitrick's neighborhoods of VillaRosa, Cheval, Heritage Harbor, Stillwater and Montreux. East of Heritage Harbor, zoning is in place for 329 homes to be built at Lake Nancy Estates.
"We already know we're going to have to build another school to relieve that school," Person said.
- Bill Coats can be reached at (813) 226-3469 or coats@sptimes.com.