Climb To The Top No Easy Task For Freedom Valedictorian

Taravat Tarahom didn’t get to bask in the glory of being Freedom High School’s Class of 2020 valedictorian, thanks to the outbreak of Covid-19 cutting short her senior year. Nor did she get to give her speech in front of a throng of her classmates in an arena, instead settling for a safe and socially distant recorded message.

What Taravat says she did get out of being Freedom’s valedictorian, however, was a life-altering accomplishment at the end of what, at times, was an extremely difficult journey.

“This has taught me to look at one goal, but not make (that goal) my entire life,” the 18-year-old says. 

She was able to balance a huge school load, deal with the divorce of her parents and the death of her dog, as well as a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, all while unexpectedly rising to the top of her class.

Taravat walked away from Freedom with a greater appreciation of her relationships and health and with the piece of mind that comes from learning how to stay prioritized.

“The experience definitely changed me,” says Taravat, who finished with a 7.64 weighted grade-point-average.

Leyla Mohebbi, her mother, says she couldn’t be more proud. She says academics have always been a priority in her home, where bringing home a B meant you would be asked, “Why not an A?”

“I feel like Tara put the expectation onto herself that she did not want to be anything less than a valedictorian,” Leyla says. “I’m very happy. I knew that was her dream, and she made it happen.”

Taravat has followed in the footsteps of her sister Targol, who was Freedom’s valedictorian in 2015 and is now in medical school at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Lauderdale. Taravat says she felt the bar was “set impossibly high” before she even started high school. She faced a steady climb up the academic ladder, ranking only around No. 25 in her class after her sophomore year.

She remembers moving up in the class rankings after the first semester of her junior year, somewhere into the teens, and her determination to become the second valedictorian in the family was growing. 

She mentioned to some of her classmates and her teacher in AP Biology that she was going to go for it, and they laughed, because she still had more than a dozen students to pass. 

“That set something off in me,” Taravat admits.

A former cheerleader, she started her senior year ranked No. 7 in the class, but once her summer grades were input into the system — “I had a crazy workload that summer” — she had quietly risen to No. 3. But, she stayed under the radar, and continued to take a heavy load.

Taravat, who was co-president of the school’s Sierra Club, says a typical day in the fall of her senior year would entail waking up at 7 a.m. for six hours of school at Freedom, then coming home around lunchtime to eat and pack herself a dinner, and working for three hours as an online tutor, driving to the Hillsborough Community College (HCC) Ybor City campus for a three-hour English class and then heading over to the HCC campus on N. Dale Mabry Hwy. for physics lab. 

In February, she found out it was official — she had quietly risen to the top of her class. She called Leyla. They cried.

Even More Challenges

The hard work did not come without a cost, however.

In December, she had lost 15 pounds and spent two days in the hospital, where she was diagnosed with Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes. “I was so wrapped up in school I didn’t even pay attention to my health,” Taravat says. “I was kind of mad at myself for not noticing.”

Her diagnosis has triggered an interest in endocrinology, which she hopes to study at the University of Florida. She plans on majoring in microbiology and cell sciences.

And while her valedictorian speech wasn’t delivered to a crowd of her classmates, it did come from the heart. Without the trials and tribulations of her senior year, it might have been a completely different speech.

“Remember this,” she told the Class of 2020. “If you fall: get back up. It’s cliché, I know, but get back up. Don’t allow setbacks to steer you off your natural path. Don’t let a single failure ruin those deep-rooted hopes and dreams. Because ultimately, rock bottom could be the solid foundation that you build the rest of your life on.”

Hillsborough changes course

Classrooms will be empty for the first week of the school year, after which parents who want their children to learn in-person can send their kids to brick-and-mortar school.

School in Hillsborough County is starting on Monday, August 24, but instead of being online the first four weeks as voted on by the Hillsborough School Board and based on recommendations from local health experts, those wanting to send their children back to in-person classes can do so beginning Aug. 31.

Superintendent Addison Davis made the announcement Thursday in an email to parents.

“To meet the state’s emergency order for all schools to open on August 31, Hillsborough County Public Schools will now begin eLearning for all students on August 24 and transition to brick and mortar a week later for those students whose parents want to come back on August 31,” the email said.

The district’s decision to start the school year online the first four weeks was rejected by Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) Commissioner Richard Corcoran, and the threat of losing more than $20 million in funding forced Davis to put a new plan — the first week online is being called the “The Smart Start Week” — into place to meet the state’s Aug. 31 deadline.

Those who chose eLearning can continue to have their kids learning online.

Davis said the district is spending $7-9 million on PPE to ensure the safety of students and teachers. He said schools would try to make social distancing work. “It is going to be hard to do,” he said, “but we’ll do it.”

Superintendent Addison Davis

Asked about a possible outbreak and how the district would react, as Florida’s Covid-19 numbers remain high — more than 6,500 positive tests and a 9.52 positive percentage in the latest numbers — Davis said unless it was a statewide decision by Governor Ron DeSantis, schools would be treated individually depending on the significance and spread of any outbreak.

“We will not be closing everything down,” he said.

Parents were given three choices back in July — to send their kids back to brick-and-mortar schools, keep them home for structured eLearning (that follows the typical daily bell schedule), or have them learn on their own schedules via virtual school.

Countywide, 49 percent of parents preferred the brick-and-mortar option for their children, compared to 42.7 percent for eLearning.

However, eLearning is the most popular choice of parents with kids going to New Tampa schools, according to results from Hillsborough County Public Schools.

Of the 9,322 declaration surveys returned from New Tampa, 5,080, or 52.3 percent, chose eLearning, or distance learning.

Roughly 39 percent, or 3,834, chose the brick-and-mortar option, with 759 parents (about 8 percent) selecting virtual school.

Pride Elementary had the highest rate of parents choosing eLearning — 66.8 percent.

In fact, elementary schools where, ironically, children are said to be the least affected by the virus, led the way when it came to parents choosing to keep their kids home — Clark Elementary (61 percent choosing eLearning) was second, and Tampa Palms Elementary (59.6) was third.

Freedom was the only New Tampa school where parents favored in-school to distance-learning, by a 46-41 percent margins. At Wharton, 695 parents chose eLearning, while 679 favored a return to the classroom.

* * * *

On Aug. 6, the Hillsborough School Board voted 5-2 to open the school year with eLearning for the first four weeks. The Board planned to meet again on Sept. 8 to see what the Covid-19 numbers were looking like.

And yes, the Board had already voted two weeks prior to approve Davis’ reopening plan, which offered the three choices for parents. But, it did so almost begrudgingly, due to a July 31 state-mandated deadline and concerns that it didn’t have enough medical data.

On Aug. 6, the Board brought in experts to help with that decision.

After listening to more than 50 mostly-impassioned public comments, a panel of medical experts from the USF Department of Health, the Moffitt Cancer Center and Tampa General Hospital and faced questions from the Board, with the most important one coming from District 5 School Board member Tamara Shamburger: 

“Yes or no?,” she asked, cutting to the chase. “Should our schools be reopened?”

One by one, the medical officials said no — with most citing the current community spread of the virus and the county’s already high positivity test rate. While five percent is considered safe, the county’s positive Covid test rate was nearly double that at the time.

Based on that medical advice, Shamburger and District 6 member Karen Perez pushed to open the school year with eLearning — originally for the first nine weeks — and when the vote was taken, everyone on the Board agreed to online-only for four weeks, with the exception of chairperson Melissa Snively and Cindy Stuart (who represents District 3, which includes all of New Tampa’s public schools).

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis expressed his displeasure at the county’s decision. Corcoran wrote a letter to Superintendent Davis, saying Hillsborough County couldn’t do eLearning for four weeks, because it went against his decree that parents must be given a choice of returning to school.

Meanwhile, Miami-Dade and Broward counties are among the districts being allowed to open online, because they are still in Phase One of DeSantis’ re-opening plan.

The Grove Theater Getting A Major Makeover

When CMX, the parent company of Cobb Theatres and CineBistro, filed for bankruptcy in April, citing the damage done by the coronavirus, it officially brought to an end Wesley Chapel’s popular movie theater in The Grove.

It also, however, has ushered in a new opportunity.

Developer Mark Gold, whose Mishorim Gold Properties owns The Grove, is remaking the popular 85,000-sq.-ft. movie theater into something that he says will be bigger and better.

“I am bringing something for the whole family,” he says. And, don’t worry, he adds, the new project will still be a movie theater, it’ll just be, “unlike any you have seen before.”

To name a few of the major changes: Instead of 16 movie screens (and roughly 3,000 seats), there will be 12 screens, with at least one or two dedicated to children. The additional space freed up by consolidating the screens will be used to create a video game area that Gold says will resemble the popular arcade and restaurant/bar Dave & Buster’s. There will be a sushi restaurant upstairs and one with more traditional American/theater food options below.

Outside, new landscaping and a mini-golf course will create an area for people to gather and make a night of it.

Gold says the entire facility will be redesigned, reimagined and most important, rejuvenated, and that there already are plans for an adjoining housing development featuring 540 townhomes and apartments.

“This is going to be an entertainment complex like no other,” says Tom Peck, the director of operations for The Grove Theater (working title).

The large arcade area — which, in most theaters, is just a small room set off to the side with a dozen or so games set up — will replace the current lobby, with games designed for teens and adults in one area, and games for younger players in another. 

At least one or two of the movie theaters will be modified to serve as a “kids zone,” with things like bean bag chairs and sofas for those watching the movie and a play area for those who’d rather climb through tubes and tunnels. The kids theater will be ideal, Gold says, for parents looking to watch a movie or enjoy dinner while their children watch something more suitable for their age.

Gold says he also is considering converting one theater into a ninja-style obstacle course for younger kids.

Before….
…and after.

The other movie theaters will carry the latest Hollywood releases and will be fitted with newer, and more comfortable, leather reclining chairs. There will be VIP theaters, will full-fledged dining options like the old CineBistro model. “The name won’t be there,” Peck says, “but the same concept will continue.”

You Still Have To Feel Safe

Gold says he is most pleased, however, with his plans to ensure safety. In an era where the Covid-19 pandemic has changed everything about the way the world does business, Gold promises that with each movie ticket, gaming pass and meal purchased, customers also will receive the one thing that will best allow them to enjoy the experience — peace of mind.

State-of-the-art cleaning equipment will be employed to keep the theater virus-free. There will be hospital-grade fog machines and ultraviolet lights to disinfect walls, floors, handles, seats and the air in between each movie, and temperature monitors at the front door that will keep those showing coronavirus symptoms from entering. 

Social distancing will be implemented, as will face masks, depending on the state of the virus when the theater opens.

“Our theater will be extremely safe,” Peck says. “It will have things in there no other company has ever been able to do because of the (costs associated with the) large number of theaters they control.” 

And, if you wonder what happens when (or if) Covid-19 finally passes, Gold says he is still playing the long game with his safety measures, because there will still be plenty of other germs out there and families will be looking to stay safer than ever in the future.

“Everyone is going to want to feel safer, more secure,” Gold says. “Even 2-4 years down the road. The idea is we will be much safer than your grocery store. This place will be 3,4, 5-times safer because we are taking all these steps.”

Only with these safety measures, Gold says, can he see his vision fulfilled, where families come out to play a round of miniature golf, enjoy a dinner together, see a movie and play some games afterwards. Instead of two hours in a theater, families can spend 4-5 hours enjoying a night of entertainment.

“It will have everything in one complex,” Gold says. “At a normal movie theater, maybe you go eat before you come, then see the movie and go somewhere else after. But, this will have everything. It’s going to be a real destination spot.”

The theater renovations, which Peck says could be completed sometime in September, are another part of a massive project at The Grove, which Gold purchased last September for $62.7 million. 

By the end of the year, The Grove is expected to have more than 60 converted and redesigned shipping containers open at the trendy KRATE by Gold Box container park, which is being built on nearly 7 acres of land just west of I-75 and east of The Grove’s big box retail stores like Best Buy and Dick’s Sporting Goods.

A host of other restaurants, bars and businesses are opening now, or are expected to open soon in “The Village” portion of the 200-acre complex.

For leasing & other info, search “Grove At Wesley Chapel” on Facebook, call (407) 636-1266 or see the ad on pg. 1 of every issue of New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News!

Teachers Concerned About Return To Classrooms

Danielle Biggs of Veterans Elementary was among many local teachers who protested having to return to brick-and-mortar schools later this month outside the July 21 Pasco School Board meeting. (Photo by Octavio Jones)

Her son had such a wonderful experience with his teachers in Pasco County that Danielle Biggs went back to school in her 20s to become one of them.

Today, she’s afraid that decision could kill her.

Like many teachers not just across the county but across the nation, Biggs, a mother of three, is preparing to get back into a Veterans Elementary classroom on August 24, when Pasco’s schools are scheduled to reopen. She is filled with trepidation, however, because she says the growing spread of Covid-19 poses a serious threat to her and her teachers and students.

“I don’t want my children to grow up without a mom because I chose to be an educator,” she says.

That is not hyperbole, she adds. While the numbers suggest that children catch the virus and are less affected by Covid-19 than adults, the fear of them spreading it to teachers (and students with underlying health conditions), and as a result the community, is frightening for Biggs.

There are countless layers and questions when it comes to reopening schools, as Florida continues to struggle with containing the virus, which is infecting more than 10,000 people a day in the Sunshine State and the death count continues to grow.

But namely, consider this: What happens if a teacher contracts the virus? What happens if a student passes it around?

And, what happens when/if someone — even one teacher or child — dies?

“It’s unsafe for us to open right now,” Biggs says. “This has me pretty emotional. The decision our governor is making is ultimately going to cost the lives of educators, and the lives of family members and students. And to me that is just unacceptable.”

Biggs’ fears are shared by other teachers. But, they have few choices. U.S. Pres. Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have pressed for schools to open, even threatening to withhold much-needed funds if they don’t, and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran issued a July 6 order (now being challenged in court) that a five-day-a-week traditional school option should available to all parents.

“I teach kids every day about science and repeated trials and tracking data, and what it really means to look at facts,” Biggs says. “But,what we’re getting is a lot of opinion. When the Governor says I believe that we need to do this, and it is not supported by data…and that’s not okay.”

Most teachers, citing concerns about children spreading the virus, overcrowded classrooms and keeping their students from simple things like sharing pencils or a hug, would rather see the first semester — at least until infection rate numbers decrease significantly — be online only.

They have staged protests across the state, and Biggs was one of dozens of Pasco teachers who protested outside the July 21 School Board meeting.

At that meeting, Browning told those listening that Pasco County had no choice but to follow Corcoran’s order, even though school districts in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward counties are opening with distance learning.

“They’re still in Phase 1, they have the latitude,” Browning said. “We are not given that latitude. We’re in Phase 2 of the Governor’s (reopening) order. In fact, the (Corcoran)’s emergency order specifically states that upon reopening in August, districts must open brick and mortar at least 5 days a week for all students. The order does not give districts any wiggle room to not open our schools. I don’t necessarily agree with the order, but it is an immaterial point.”

Teachers like Katy Powers and her husband Robert Mueller, fifth grade teachers at Denham Oaks and Sand Pine elementary schools, respectively, don’t find any solace in the Phase 2 argument, however. 

“We closed schools when we had 300 cases in the entire state,” Katy says. “We’re now here in July, and statewide we have 436,000 cases. And, that’s with kids being at home. It makes no sense to go back now.”

Robert Mueller and wife Katy Powers are both elementary school teachers in Pasco County and are concerned about returning to the classroom.

Powers and Mueller are so concerned about the dangers of returning to school — Katy has a blood pressure issue from a pregnancy three years ago that puts her at risk — they decided to put together their wills.

The United School Employees of Pasco (USEP) conducted a survey recently of its teachers and school-related personnel (SRP), and 75 percent of the 3,800 respondents felt the only way to safely begin school was through distance learning.

In a formal resolution on July 24, the USEP wrote, “In order to promote health and safety for students and staff, USEP will strongly advocate for the District to conduct schools in a Distance Learning only format until there is a 14-Day downward trend in positive COVID-19 cases.”

NOTE: After our deadline, the USEP announced it would file for a temporary injunction to the emergency order by the Department of Education. Also, in Hillsborough County, its School Board voted 5-2 in favor of online learning for the first four weeks, with plans to revisit on Sept. 8.

Colleen Beaudoin, the Pasco School Board chair, says the school year will not start online.

“A lot of people are saying they want to start “On time and online,” Beaudoin says, referring to a campaign touted by teachers as the best way forward. “That is currently not an option. One thing that is crystal clear is that we must follow the statute to receive funding, or nobody gets paid.”

Beaudoin says she has received emails from teachers who are fearful of returning to their classrooms before Covid-19 is under control, and “I’ve also heard from some (SRP) and teachers who have advocated for going back on time, (that they’re) worried about how to make ends meet.”

Biggs says of all the teachers she knows, maybe five percent have no issues about returning to school, while another five percent are looking into taking a leave of absence. The remaining 90 percent “are absolutely terrified and looking to find other opportunities.”

Many are trying to get one of the District’s online teaching positions. But, Browning says that about 65 percent of parents who made their declarations by Aug 1 wanted their kids to go back to brick-and-mortar classrooms, so there won’t be too many online jobs available.

Katy Powers will teach online, as well as in a pod at Denham Oaks. Robert applied for an online teaching position but didn’t get it, and will return to his classroom at Sand Pine.

Katy has resigned herself to the fact that schools will reopen Aug. 24, but she still hopes that Browning and the Board will look at the Covid-19 infection rates and fight harder for the safety of teachers and students.

“I’m just afraid it’ll come too late, after schools are opened, after someone passes away,” she says. “After it’s too late.”

Outside The Box, Inside The Pod?

Although Hillsborough County is giving parents three choices for the upcoming fall semester, it really comes down to two choices — learn in a traditional classroom with other students, restoring the social interaction and face-to-face contact that are the stalwarts of education; or learn in a more isolated and individual-based online format at home that makes it easier to avoid contracting the virus and transmitting it to others.

However, there is a group of local parents considering something else — merging the classroom and online settings together in a unique collaboration that, they believe, will offer the best of both worlds.

Tampa Palms resident Jenni Wolgemuth, an Associate Professor of measurement and research at the USF College of Education and mother of a first- and fifth-grader, is helping to organize a group of 4-5 families whose children will learn online, but will learn together in a small “learning pod” overseen by a privately hired learning support specialist.

“A one-room school house,” Wolgemuth calls it. “It is an attempt to create a bubble around a group of families, all agreeing to similar standards of social distancing.”

That school house, or learning “pod,” that Wolgemuth has organized will have nine students in it. Four of the students are fifth graders, who would hopefully have the same teachers at the charter school they all attended last year.

The pod also will include two first-graders, a third grader, an eighth grader and a ninth-grader. The parents would rotate hosting and the kids would bring their lunches and eat together and have time for outdoor activities together, too.

Everyone would still be taught by their school’s teachers through the online platform and Zoom video classrooms used by their schools. However, the parents are already interviewing people to be a support specialist, who would monitor the pod from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. and help the students with technology issues, staying on task and doing their assignments.

“Basically what we would have been doing if we had been home,” Wolgemuth says.

The idea was Wolgemuth’s brainchild and she says she began thinking about the learning pod solution before the Hillsborough School District issued its choices for parents. She thought the District was too comfortable with the idea that everything would be fine by August. “I’m a planner,” she says. “This was my plan A.”

She mentioned the concept to friends, but the response, at first, was tepid. She continued, however, to bring it up in conversations.

When she had a Zoom call with other parents after the choices were revealed by the District, there was still some hesitation. During that call with other mothers, however, one of the husbands, a doctor who works with Covid-19 patients, overheard the plan.

“That is a really good idea,” he said, and the plan started to take root.

There are still hoops to jump through for Wolgemuth and her group, which includes a second Tampa Palms family, two families from Lutz and another from Carrollwood. 

They will have to see how the pod works for the younger students, namely the two first graders. And, having nine or so computers using the same WiFi network could create issues that would need to be addressed.

Otherwise, Wolgemuth thinks the idea is the best fix for one semester, with the hopes that the coronavirus can be brought under control and that everyone can go back to their brick-and-mortar schools in January.