Students & Teachers Across Wesley Chapel Are Back In School

The lunchrooms and the walkway and courtyard at Cypress Creek Middle High School were finally filled by students as the new school, while others across Pasco County were back in business on Aug. 14. (Photo: Pasco County Schools)

Among the thousands of students who went back to school in Pasco County on August 14, more than 1,500 of them spent their first day at Wesley Chapel’s newest school, Cypress Creek Middle High School, which is located off Old Pasco Rd.

Cypress Creek Middle High was expected to open with about 1,500 students, but actually had 1,603 students show up on the first day. The school’s capacity is 1,958 students, so it still has some room to grow.

The new school was needed to relieve crowding at not only Wiregrass Ranch High and John Long Middle schools, but also has students who previously were zoned for Sunlake and Wesley Chapel high schools, as well as Weightman and Rushe middle schools.

All students at the new school follow the same bell schedule, from 7:25 a.m. to 1:50 p.m.

“The first few days have been outstanding,” said Cypress Creek principal Carin Hetzler-Nettles. “Our students are enjoying their new environment and are learning the layout of the campus. Other than the normal situation of getting used to the routine, and watching to see where we need to change procedures with car loop or bus loop, etc., we have truly had an amazing first few days.”

Hetzler-Nettles also said that the campus was filled with Parent Teacher Student Association members helping students find their classes, and even Pasco Superintendent of Schools Kurt Browning was on hand to help welcome the students and direct them to their new classes.

Cypress Creek Middle/High. (Photo: Cypress Creek Howler)

“It takes a village to open a new school,” added Hetzler-Nettles, “and our community has just been so welcoming and helpful! We couldn’t have done it without them and are excited for our future!”

Among those who helped get the teachers set up in their new digs at the school on July 26 were volunteers from the Pasco Education foundation and the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel.

At Long Middle School, one of the schools that lost students to Cypress Creek, principal Christine Wolff said, “You always miss the kids on campus that you have grown attached to, and my wish for all of our former students is to have a good adjustment and get excited for learning, and take that excitement for learning with them wherever they are.”

She says that while Long’s enrollment numbers are down slightly (1,488 students were enrolled on opening day this year, versus 1,810 last year), the school is still over capacity because of all the growth in the area.

“We did have a smooth start to the school year,” Wolff says, “And, just like all of our Pasco County schools, we’re focused on meeting our school improvement goals and making sure they (the teachers and students) are meeting the learning standards in the classroom.”

And at Wiregrass Ranch High (WRH), the 10-period schedule is a thing of the past, as many former students have new homes at either Cypress Creek Middle High or WCH.

A contentious rezoning process last year was designed to ease the overcrowding at Wiregrass Ranch while also filling the new school.

“We had a great start,’’ said WRH principal Robyn White. “We are back to the 7-period day, and while there are a lot of students on campus at the same time, it is manageable. We started day one with a little over 2,200, which was a decrease of 300 from last year.”

CORRECTION: We inadvertently omitted New River Elementary from our chart of Pasco County school grades in our last issue. We’re really sorry about that, because principal Lynn Pabst and the students and teachers at New River earned a “B” grade for the third consecutive year.

Benito 7th Grader Aubrey Raile Scores A Flag Football TD With Her Persistence

Gabby Allen (left) and Aubrey Raile after the first day of boys flag football tryouts at Benito Middle School on March 21. (Photo courtesy of Christy Raile)

For the first time ever this school year, middle school girls in Hillsborough County can play flag football, and middle school boys can play volleyball.

Both sports have been added to the calendar, and Benito Middle School seventh grader Aubrey Raile played a big role in making it happen.

It was Aubrey’s carefully researched crusade that led county administrators to take a closer look at the middle school sports calendar. While the Hillsborough County School District couldn’t legally stop Aubrey, or any of her friends,  from trying out for the boys flag football team, concern about letting girls play a physical contact sport with much bigger boys led to the addition of two new middle school sports.

Aubrey started playing flag football in the sixth grade last year during PE class. She had never played before, but found that her speed made her an excellent pass rusher and that she enjoyed the other aspects of flag football – passing, catching, dodging tacklers, and pulling flags.

Flag football is 7-on-7, with all of the players wearing a belt with three flags on them (one in the back, one on each side). Everyone on the field is a receiver, and the game is played on an 80-yard field with first downs for teams every time they advance the ball 20 yards.

“As soon as I played, I found an enjoyment in the sport and wanted to play for my school,’’ Aubrey says.

When the middle school flag football season rolled around last March, however, she was told she couldn’t try out for the Jaguars’ team. Boys only, they said. Aubrey didn’t think that was fair.

She marched right to the library, and starting reading about the rules, and specifically, Title IX, a federal law that ensures that no one can be excluded from participation in any school program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. Basically, if a school offers a program just for boys, it needs to offer an equal opportunity for girls.

“When the coaches told her she couldn’t play, she went to the school library and found some books that explained the law,’’ said Christy Raile, Aubrey’s mother. “She put sticky notes all over the pages and gave it to me. She found the law, and highlighted it.

“Mom, is this right?,” Aubrey asked Christy. “Am I right?”

“I’m not an attorney, but I think this is right,’’ Christy replied. “I think they have to let you play.”

Emboldened by the support of friends like fellow sixth-graders Alexa Evans, Suhani Rana, Sannvi Prasad and Gabby Allen, the Railes continued to fight.

The people she talked to at the school district, Christy said, tried to dissuade Aubrey from trying out. She said she was told their rules overrode the state rules, although the county athletic office denies ever having said that.

Both sides continued to talk, but Aubrey was determined to show up to tryouts with a stack of books to argue her case.

An hour before the tryouts began at 3 p.m. on March 21, Christy says she was told Aubrey could trade those books for cleats and try out for the boys team.

While the school district does not consider it ideal for boys and girls to participate in contact sports like flag football, “We were directed by our attorney and our compliance officer that we needed to let that individual tryout,’’ said Jennifer Burchill, the county’s assistant director of athletics. “And, girls in general.”

Aubrey competed that day with roughly 75 boys, many of whom came up to her at tryouts and offered encouragement. Emery Floyd, one of the boys, was especially supportive, says Christy, picking Aubrey for his team and making sure she got as many opportunities to impress the coaches as everyone else.

Aubrey scored a touchdown during tryouts, produced several first downs and pulled four flags. Christy gets choked up when recalling that day, and how the other boys started chanting Aubrey’s name as she walked off the field.

“She played her heart out,’’ Christy said. “Maybe she wasn’t good enough to keep up with those eighth grade giants, only 5-feet tall and 95 pounds, but her heart was. And they knew it.”

Benito decided to create a sixth grade team for those who didn’t make it, and Aubrey played on it. The team had three practices, and played one game, against a sixth grade team from Turner/Bartells. Some of the opponents laughed at her, she says. “I expected it,’’ Aubrey says. “But, it only made me more determined to show I had as much right to be out there as they did.”

So, What About This Year?

The district, however, still had a problem to solve for the upcoming 2017-18 school year.

“It was felt in our department, amongst our district and upper administration, that we really did not want to combine boys and girls (on a flag football team),’’ said Burchill. “It really was not to our advantage for boys and girls to play together in flag football. We needed to find a solution.”

One principal from each of the county’s eight areas came together to form a committee. Instead of cutting sports to meet Title IX compliance, they came to the decision in May to reduce the track and field season, making room to add a boys team to volleyball, which previously only had a girls team, and a girls team to flag football, which only had a boys team.

It was the perfect compromise. The two sports are both low cost and open up a number of athletic opportunities that didn’t otherwise exist. It also keeps the county Title IX complaint.

“A win, win, win, all the way around,’’ says Christy, proudly.

While very few high schools have boys volleyball teams — Berkeley Prep and Brooks Debartolo are two of them — girls flag football has taken off at the high school level.

Last year, the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA), which has offered a high school state championship since 2003 when it had 70 teams playing, expanded its playoffs from one classification to two.

There are now more than 200 girls flag football teams playing statewide, and Tampa Bay is one of the hot spots. Last season, Tampa’s Robinson High captured the Class A flag football title, while Plant High in downtown Tampa took home the Class 2A title.

For the first time, the teams at Wharton and Freedom high schools will now have feeder programs.

And, they can thank Aubrey, who saw something she thought was wrong and fought to make it right.

“I think this has been a great experience,’’ she says. “It opened up a lot of new opportunities and new possibilities. I think its great to know that kids and people like me can make a difference. That’s pretty amazing.”

School’s In: Things To Know

After a somewhat tumultuous spring, with several changes being implemented or announced — including new attendance boundaries for many New Tampa schools, busing and bell schedules — things are seeming to calm down as students and parents adjust to new routines.

Here’s what’s new for the 2017-18 school year in New Tampa, with more changes on the horizon for the following school year, including the rezoning of Clark, Heritage, Hunter’s Green and Pride elementary schools.

New Principals At Two Schools

While their official start dates were late last spring, two principals are looking forward to starting off the school year with new schools in our area.

Cindy Land is the new principal at Turner/Bartels K-8 School.

At Turner/Bartels K-8 School, principal Cindy Land replaced Jonathan Grantham, who left to become a deputy superintendent of schools in Marion County. Land had been principal at Pride Elementary since 2009 and prior to that, worked at Chiles.

“It’s definitely a blessing to be promoted to this position,” says Land, who lives in Live Oak Preserve and whose three sons will all attend Turner/Bartels this school year. “This is the neighborhood school for my children.”

She says that while her new school includes middle school grades six through eight, she sees a lot of similarities between  Turner/Bartels and Pride.

“We have a diverse population,” she says. “Parents are very interested in their children’s education, they participate and volunteer and are supportive. I also see that the community seems to really embrace the school. I’m excited to be here and to bring the school and community together,” she says.

Land’s departure from Pride left a vacancy there that has been filled by Amy Zilbar.

For the last four years, Zilbar was a principal coach for the school district, working with new principals and supporting them and others in leadership development. She says her position at Pride is a homecoming, of sorts.

Amy Zilbar replaces Cindy Land as principal at Pride Elementary.

“Early in my career, I worked at Hunter’s Green teaching first grade and as an administrative resource teacher,” she says. “Back then, the only schools in the area were Hunter’s Green, Clark and Tampa Palms.”

While Zilbar says she loved working as a principal coach, she’s happy to be back at a school site, “to put into practice all the things we have been working on,” she says.

“This school has been absolutely wonderful,” Zilbar adds. “Everyone has been so welcoming, from the teachers, to the PTA, to the community, and especially the students have been amazing.”

She says she looks forward to continuing the level of academic excellence already in place at Pride — a consistently A-rated school by the State Department of Education — and to building even more partnerships and traditions there.

Courtesy Busing Ends For Some

As school is getting under way, more New Tampa students will be walking and biking to area middle and high schools.

Many middle and high school students who have received courtesy busing (a bus to a school that is less than two miles from a student’s home) in the past will no longer have bus transportation provided by the Hillsborough County School District.

The responsibility of transportation is now on the parents, so expect further crowding of the roads, as parents who don’t want their children walking or biking will be driving to and from school, too.

However, for Wharton High students who live across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from the school, bus transportation will still be available for this school year.

Jamie Warrington, transportation and safety manager for Hillsborough County Public Schools, says that now that BBD is under construction to go to eight lanes in front of the school, it is considered a hazard for students to cross. Once that construction has been completed, BBD’s eight lanes will still be considered a hazard, so the bus transportation for those students will continue.

At our press time, the affected students had not yet been notified of the change, and the school district’s website has not been updated to reflect it, but Warrington says parents will be notified by email before school starts.

To find out if your child will be provided bus transportation to their school for this school year, visit http://www.sdhc.k12.fl.us/doc/445/transportation/resources/busroutes/.

It also is expected that the School Board will end courtesy busing for elementary school students for the 2018-19 school year.

New Bell Schedule For Turner/Bartels K-8 School

All of the schools in our area will have the same school hours as last year, except for Turner/Bartels K-8, where the school day will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. this school year.

Back in the spring, school officials proposed changing the bell schedules countywide to allow more time for buses to get students to school on time, but were met with such backlash that they put off the change for all schools countywide until next school year, 2018-19.

Through Friday, August 25, the school district is again accepting feedback on adjusting the school schedule ahead of the School Board’s final vote on the matter, which is expected to be held on Tuesday, October 17.

The District is asking parents, students, employees and members of the community to download and use an Excel spreadsheet “simulator” to “try out” different school start and dismissal times (using formulas in the spreadsheet that ensure each scenario meets appropriate number of minutes in the school day, along with not starting too early or late).

Then, people can submit their suggestions for start and end times by emailing their completed spreadsheet back to district staff.

To check out the start time simulator, click the link on the school district’s home page at SDHC.k12.fl.us or go directly to SDHC.k12.fl.us/doc/1985/administration/resources/bellsimulator/.

School Grades For 2016-17 For Wesley Chapel’s Schools


School grades have been announced for the 2016-17 school year and, of the 12 public schools located in Wesley Chapel, all either maintained their grades from the 2015-16 school year, or went up by at least one letter grade.

Letter grades are assigned by the State of Florida Department of Education (DoE), based on statewide standardized assessments. High schools also have a graduation component, based on how many students graduate in four years. The letter grades then reflect the percentage of points received, of the total number of available points.

The biggest jump in local school grades was at Quail Hollow Elementary (QHE). For the 2016-17 school year, QHE received an “A” from the DoE, a big boost from the C it received last year, in 2015-16.  Prior to that, the school had been closed for two years for remodeling.

But, QHE isn’t the only school that improved. Veterans and Seven Oaks elementaries both improved from B to A, while Watergrass Elementary improved from C to B.

For the other elementary schools, Sand Pine and Wesley Chapel both maintained their A ratings, while Double Branch maintained its B. Wiregrass Elementary received its first-ever grade since it opened last fall, a B.

Wesley Chapel High (WCH) raised its grade back up to a B again after last year’s grade dipped to a C for the first time in the school’s history.

“I was ecstatic,” says Carin Hetzler-Nettles, who was the principal at WCH until she was named principal of the new Cypress Creek Middle High School in January. “It’s fun to see that grade improve, and it’s exciting for the community, staff and kids at the school.”

The other Wesley Chapel high school, Wiregrass Ranch (WRH), maintained the B rating it had last year.

Dr. John Long Middle School maintained its A from the previous year, and Weightman Middle School kept its B.

While the school grading system has many critics, the grades are widely used by parents as a measure of how well their child’s school is performing.

Hetzler-Nettles is among many who say that school grades are just one of many factors to be considered when attempting to measure a school’s performance. This is partly because a different group of students is tested each year.

“In high school, tenth grade is our heavy testing year,” she says. “Next year, we’ll test a completely different group of tenth grade students. There is a human factor.”

And, she says, the specific criteria that make up the school’s grade also are different from year to year.

“There are always things that change,” says Hetzler-Nettles. “The grading changes every year at the state level, and then we tend to see trends. This year, it seems like the schools are on an upswing.”

New Tampa DoE School Grades Are Still Among The County’s Best

School grades have been announced for the 2016-17 school year. Of the 12 public schools located in New Tampa, most maintained their grades from the 2015-16 school year. However, two schools — Liberty Middle School and Tampa Palms Elementary — improved by a letter grade, while just one school, Heritage Elementary, dropped a letter grade.

Letter grades are assigned by the State of Florida Department of Education, based on statewide standardized assessments. High schools also have a graduation component, based on how many students graduate in four years. The letter grades then reflect the percentage of points received, of the total number of available points.

Both New Tampa middle schools are now rated A, with Benito maintaining its A rating and Liberty improving from a B.

Turner/Bartels K-8 School maintained its B rating.

Congrats to Chiles Elementary in Tampa Palms, which earned an “A” grade from the State of Florida Department of Education for the 15th straight year, and scored the highest among New Tampa schools in English Language Arts Achievement, Mathematics Achievement and Science Achievement.

Of the elementary schools in the area, Chiles, Clark and Pride all maintained their A ratings, with Tampa Palms jumping up from last year’s B. Hunter’s Green maintained its C rating, and now Heritage is the second elementary school in our area to also be rated C.

Both high schools in our area, Freedom and Wharton, maintained the C grades they received last year.

While the school grading system has many critics, they are widely used by parents as a measure of how well their child’s school is performing.

“The school grades are a snapshot based on school grade calculations and assessments which are subject to change by the state,” says Tanya Arja, a spokesperson for Hillsborough County Public Schools.

“While we celebrate the successes and look for ways to improve,” she continues, “a parent really needs to look at how well their child is doing and if they are making gains. Parents can get a much clearer picture of the education their child is receiving at a school by touring a school, getting involved and talking with the teachers and administrators to see the hard work they put in every day to ensure student success.”