Month: May 2021

Education Notebook — Local PTSAs Take Home County Honors

The Hillsborough County Council of PTAs/PTSAs held its annual awards ceremony this year on May 1, with several New Tampa schools, educators and volunteers taking home top honors.

Hector Rivera of Liberty Middle School was named Instructional Person of the Year for middle school. Rivera is a technology resource teacher who was nominated because he, “worked tirelessly to provide technical support and troubleshoot problems that our e-learners encountered with technology during the year,” according to his nomination. Rivera uses his bilingual skills to help Spanish-speaking parents overcome technical difficulties, and enthusiastically supports his school and students.

At the high school level, Dr. Tammy Crawford of Wharton High also received the Instructional Person of the Year award. Dr. Crawford is a success coach at the school who, according to her nomination, “is someone who has been a very strong advocate for all students, but especially for those who sometimes need the most help and are often overlooked.”

Wharton principal Michael Rowan was named Principal of the Year among the county’s high school nominees for the second time in three years.

According to the Wharton PTSA’s nomination, “Our principal, Michael Rowan, works to make our school a safe, welcoming and fun place that students want to come to!”

Hunter’s Green Elementary won awards for Health & Safety for its “Walk & Bike to School Week” event, for Advocacy/Legislation for its “Engage 33647” initiative, and for Volunteer of the Year, which went to PTA treasurer Rachel Barten.

This year was a year of unknowns for Barten, whose work used to include frequent international travel, which was stopped due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Then, she faced unexpected surgery to remove a brain tumor. As she recovered, with no work obligations, she returned to the school PTA and became one of the group’s busiest and most passionate volunteers.

“I honestly think between Covid and my diagnosis, it should have been the worst year ever,” Barten says, “but it truly gave me the opportunity to focus on things I always wanted to do.”

Barten’s main priority is her daughter, Reagan, who is a fourth-grader at the school. She jumped in and volunteered at every possible opportunity, from the school’s fund raisers to running errands, helping with staff appreciation and handing out fliers in the car line after school.

“It was two very odd crises that turned into blessings,” Barten said. “I was able to totally repurpose my attention to what I’ve always wanted it to be.”

After A Decade In New Tampa, Principal Gaye Holt Retires

After 10 years serving as principal of New Tampa schools, Gaye Holt will retire June 30. She steps down after a 39-year career in education, with the last seven years as the principal of Hunter’s Green Elementary and three years prior to that at Clark Elementary.

“I’m really going to miss everyone, and it’s going to be hard,” she says. “Whether I was at Clark or Hunter’s Green, the boys and girls, the parents, everyone in the community has been nothing but supportive, helpful and caring.”

Holt is known for her hard work and generous spirit, whether it’s greeting each child by name every morning or keeping the campus looking top-notch with her personal, daily inspections.

She says one of the funniest memories she has is when she dressed up as a member of the rock band KISS for a school fund-raising lip synch contest among teachers and staff.

“It’s those kinds of things that everybody enjoys,” she says, “because it’s very uncharacteristic of me. I did it because the kids love it, and I’ll do anything for those kids – goo and slime, getting iced, all of that, I’ll do it for the kids.”

Her teachers and staff at Hunter’s Green say Holt will be missed tremendously.

“She’s so wonderful about procedures,” says Roxi Coriell, one of HGE’s kindergarten teachers. “There’s a plan for everything and the plan makes sense. When it came to coming back after Covid, I knew that we would be in great hands.”

Coriell says it’s obvious how much Holt cares about all of her students and members of the school community, a sentiment echoed by current PTA president Rebecca Towner.

“She is leaving Hunter’s Green Elementary with a strong foundation and a legacy that will not be forgotten,” says Towner.

Holt’s replacement was scheduled to be named at the Hillsborough County School Board meeting on May 18, which was held after this publication was printed.

PTSA

Win A Prize Package Worth Nearly $500 At The Sarah Vande Berg Tennis Center!

Now that it’s been open for a while, you’ve hopefully heard of the Sarah Vande Berg (SVB) Tennis & Wellness Center, located on Simons Rd. in Zephyrhills.

In case you haven’t heard of it before, SVB has an amazing array of competition tennis courts, as well as the full-size courts for both pickleball and padel, two of the fastest-growing racquet sports in the world.

But, SVB also is home to an amazing fitness center and also offers licensed massages, cryotherapy, salt therapy, sports counseling, a boutique pro shop and a full-service restaurant with chef-created food by locally renowned Vesh Catering.

But, you might ask, what does all this have to do with you? I’m glad you asked.

One of the things we’ve heard from our readers in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel is that SVB is “too far away” for our readers to join. Wrong! It’s only 15-20 minutes away from most of our Wesley Chapel communities and, with its unique variety of activities, you really should check it out.

Still not convinced? Here’s some incentive: To win an amazing prize package to give SVB a try for FREE, send us an email (to ads@ntneighborhoodnews.com) or message us (at “Neighborhood News” on Facebook) with your name, address, the community you live in, a valid email address and daytime phone number, by Tuesday, June 1, to be entered into a random drawing to win this incredible SVB prize package worth nearly $500:

• One week of Recreational Kids Summer Camp (for ages 4-6) or Boot Camp (for athletes ages 8-14) with former NFL star Mel Williams

• One 25-minute Salt Room session

• Brunch for two at the Vesh Café

• SVB “swag bag,” including an SVB logo mask, Mahala cup, lipstick, sunstick, black cup & borosilicate verre water bottle

Sarah Vande Berg tennis

Wharton Valedictorian Manages To Make It Look Easy

*Siya Patel, foreground, worked hard to graduate with the highest GPA for a female in Wharton history, utilizing advice from brother Yash (background), last year’s salutatorian.* ***(Photo: Charmaine George).***

Siya Patel knew when she entered Wharton High that she could become her class valedictorian, but she didn’t really give it much thought.

Instead, Siya decided to focus on her grade-point-average. While the two things — a high GPA and becoming a valedictorian — go hand in hand, she decided she wanted to post the highest GPA ever, so instead of chasing another student for valedictorian, she decided to chase a number: 9.0.

When Siya officially graduates, it will be with a 9.09 weighted GPA, the highest ever for a Wharton High female. Tori Bell had a 9.01 in 2019.

“I wanted my GPA to be well over 9, because that’s the highest in Wharton’s history,” Siya says. “Due to Covid, I thought I wouldn’t make it because some of the classes I wanted to take were only being taught in school. But, I was able to work around it and accomplish my goal.”

Siya achieved her goal with a busy schedule of classes, taking as many as she was allowed. In her time at Wharton, she took 15 dual enrollment course online — three classes each semester her last two years — through Hillsborough Community College, as well as 13 AP classes for Wharton.

While that may sound like a grind, for Siya, it wasn’t. She managed to fit in time playing the violin in the school orchestra, she was in a number of Honors clubs and volunteered 200 hours.

Like almost every valedictorian at every school, she was masterful in not taking too much and using enhanced time management skills to get it all done.

“I didn’t ever think it was too hard,” she says. “I always just did what I could do.”

The key was not letting the schedule get the best of her. She was attending school during normal hours, and would do her homework before starting on her HCC assignments. She says she split up everything evenly during the week so her weekends wouldn’t be filled with stressful deadlines.

She did not try for an AA degree, saying that it would have involved too many unnecessary classes that she wouldn’t normally be taking. So instead, she took extra math classes. Her favorite was AP Statistics.

She’ll attend USF in the fall and major in finance. Sometimes, she sits with her father, Dr. Prakashkumar Patel, a neurologist, and her mother, Aarti Patel, and helps do the billing for her father’s practice.

Siya will join brother Yash, a biomedical science major, at USF. Last year, Yash was the salutatorian at Wharton, and used his experience to help guide his sister to the top of the academic standings this year.

“He always helped me whenever I needed help, and was one of the biggest reasons I was able to become valedictorian at Wharton,” she says.

Yash says he is proud of his sister. He advised her about what classes to take, and which ones to avoid, and was happy to see her finish No. 1.

Yash says the best piece of advice he gave his sister was to not rest on her laurels. No one ever asks if he was salutatorian in high school, and next year, no one will probably ask Siya if she was valedictorian. It is one of those nice but fleeting distinctions, and something he says she will discover quickly fades into the past.

“This is just one step in the journey,” he says. “When you go to college you still have to show that same rigor and effort and still be motivated, even if you’re not first every time.”

That won’t be a problem for Siya. When she reunited with the senior class of 2021, which has been scattered due to Covid— some learning in school, others learning at home — due to Covid, she shared that same advice with her classmates at graduation.

“Take everything they’ve learned the last 13 years,” she says, “and put it to good use.”

valedictorian Wharton

One Year Later, No Regrets For These Parents

It has been nearly a year since families had to wrestle with one of the toughest decisions of their lives — whether to send their kids to brick-and-mortar classrooms, or have them learn at home via computer.

Because of Covid-19, the choices caused a great deal of consternation and debate among families in New Tampa, along with the rest of the state. We talked to three of those parents last July, each of whom had different and complicated choices to make.

So, how did those decisions work out?

Well, we caught up with those families as the 2020-21 school year was coming to a close, and they all say they would make the same decision again, even though the results were mixed.

Laurie Gonzalez actually had two decisions to make — should she return to teaching in a classroom at Turner-Bartels K-8 School, despite having an auto-immune disease, and should she allow her son Grayson to attend classes at Benito Middle School?

The answer, in the end, was no to both questions.

Gonzalez was fortunate, however. The administration at Turner-Bartels accommodated her health concerns, and she was not forced back into the classroom. She says that other teaching friends of hers weren’t so lucky.

“The administration at my school deserves some recognition for being amazing,” she says. “Other schools were not as flexible.”

Gonzalez admits that teaching virtually paled in comparison to teaching in a classroom, and it wasn’t her preferred method of doing her job. Even so, she says the school year went about as well as it could have.

However, she says Grayson did not have as good an experience.

While he had great teachers, Gonzalez says, Grayson did not enjoy learning online. “There was too much information being thrown at a 12-year-old,” she says.

Socially, eLearning also had a negative impact, because Grayson is outgoing and engaging. Gonzalez says it was “mentally taxing” for him to stare at a screen all day. While he had his friends in the video gaming community, he missed person-to-person contact.

As 2020-21 school year comes to a close, however, Laurie does not regret her decision, because she achieved her primary goal: keeping her family safe.

“I would 100 percent make the same decision again, because it kept us from getting coronavirus,” Gonzalez says. “I had two family members pass away from coronavirus complications, so I am still taking it very seriously.”

Other Decisions, Other Results

Despite the spread of Covid-19 last summer, and the uncertain future of the virus, Lisa Ling did not hesitate about returning her first- and fourth-grade children to school last August, convinced that schools would be taking the proper safety measures.

Her children attend Hunter’s Green Elementary (HGE), and disconnecting from the school community, which she says her family loves, was never a serious option.

Her decision was fortified by the end of the 2019-20 school year when, at the onset of the pandemic, all schools had to shut down in March and everyone was forced online. It was a difficult few months for her kids, and one Ling didn’t want to repeat that situation for an entire school year.

But, sending her children back to school turned out to be the right choice for Ling and her husband Eric.

“I definitely don’t regret the decision at all,” she says. “It went as well as it could have, considering the crazy circumstances we found ourselves in. The kids adapted to wearing the masks pretty well. They didn’t love it, but they were okay with it.”

Ling says there were very few cases of Covid-19 at HGE. Her kids did have to quarantine for 10 days once, but that was due to cases at their after-school daycare. She says most of the cases reported at HGE were due to exposure away from the school.

Ling says her children also were fortunate to have the same teachers all year, even as shortages and changes plagued many schools and caused a great deal of shuffling in many classrooms.

“It was a pretty good year for our kids,” Ling says. “I can’t imagine them having spent a whole year out of school.”

One Decision, Then Another

Meanwhile, Connor Kelly, a 17-year-old Wharton senior, decided to do eLearning for his final year of high school, mainly because he was concerned about bringing the coronavirus home to his parents, Cindy and Patrick.

But, after one semester, and with Covid-19 vaccinations right around the corner, he decided to return to the classroom at Wharton in January.

Truthfully, he says, neither choice turned out as well as he had originally hoped. While he enjoyed the safety and freedom of online learning, he felt the instruction was lacking and didn’t think it was administered very well. He understands it was a difficult experience for everyone involved, “but it was a draining experience,” he says.

School wasn’t the same as he remembered when he returned in January. He’s not sure what he expected, but it wasn’t what he got. It was easier, less challenging. Different.

But, Connor regrets nothing. He loaded up on dual enrollment and AP classes as part of a challenging online workload in the fall, will graduate No. 8 in his class with a grade-point-average higher than 6.0, and plans to study accounting in the fall at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

As far as he is concerned, it wasn’t a great journey his final year at Wharton, but he arrived at his destination.

“I wound up where I wanted to be,” Connor says. “And I’m fortunate that the pandemic really didn’t touch that much. I was very fortunate. So, the decision I made led me to where I am, and ultimately I stayed on track.”

Cindy agrees. “I think it went as well as anything in the year of Covid 19. Everyone had to implement new and different ways to keep things moving along. Do I feel good about the decision? What I feel is very thankful to all the teachers and other team members in Hillsborough County education who worked so hard and made sacrifices so our kids could continue the learn, to participate in activities, and in some cases, to eat during this challenging time.”

Covid-19 School

Luis Viera Op-Ed: Local Support Reaps Results!

For too long, New Tampa has been characterized as an area that does not show up when it’s time to secure support from local government.

Over the last four years, however, we thankfully have begun to see this narrative change.

Just recently, a $7.5-million dollar New Tampa Performing Arts Center — long championed by former County Commissioner and New Tampa resident Victor Crist — looked like it was doomed in the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners. Many New Tampa residents — myself included — were disturbed to hear this and showed up to County Commission meetings to let the commissioners know where New Tampa stands. Thanks to this, as well as a promise of likely maintenance support from the City of Tampa, this at-risk project passed by a 5-2 vote.

This Performing Arts Center is but one of numerous local government wins New Tampa has had over recent years:

• In 2017, we passed, after years of rejection in the City of Tampa budget, the New Tampa Recreation Center expansion. Year after year, New Tampa saw this expansion rejected in City of Tampa budgets that seemed to care little about zip code 33647. But, New Tampa residents showed up in red T-shirts to City Council to demand that this Rec Center expansion be included in the budget, and it finally passed.

• That same year, New Tampa successfully pushed to have Fire Station No. 23 — which serves expanding New Tampa communities — included in the City budget.

• Recently, New Tampa residents supported a compromise in the Kinnan-Mansfield stalemate. Thanks to insistence between the City of Tampa and budget support from Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan and others, Kinnan-Mansfield is now open for first responders, pedestrians and bicyclists. Though this is only a single — and we wanted a home run — it is a pivotal single for public safety.

• And, just this past year, a top priority of mine — the New Tampa All Abilities Park for children with special needs — passed our City budget. Soon, New Tampa will be home to a park — a first for the City of Tampa’s budget — for children with intellectual disabilities or Autism.

And, New Tampa has been showing up. In town halls that I have organized, hosted or co-hosted (see page 6), New Tampa’s engaged citizens have been coming out to express their views.

When I ran for Tampa City Council in 2016, I did so because North and New Tampa had too often been ignored in the City budget. For New Tampa, our voice has been heard with results. My vision was and still is not for citizens to be adversarial protestors to the City. Rather, it is one of citizens being involved as stakeholders. This is the narrative that produces results. Residents — Republicans and Democrats — coming together to advocate for our neighborhoods.

And, to quote the Carpenters, “We’ve only just begun.” There is more ground to cover: Residents in K-Bar Ranch look to the County and City to work together on a K-Bar Ranch park; New Tampa lags behind in response times for Tampa Fire Rescue; New Tampa badly lacks robust mass transit investments; and roads like New Tampa Blvd. and Tampa Palms Blvd. also need help.

But, we should pause to see how becoming stakeholders in local government has been paying off for our community. New Tampa – Republicans and Democrats working together – is making its voice heard.

Luis Viera