Category: Education

New School Boundaries Could Bring Big Changes

The long process of finalizing controversial school boundary changes proposed by the Hillsborough County School District is going to take just a little bit longer.

In an email to parents on Jan. 25, Superintendent of Schools Addison Davis wrote that his recommendations, after weeks of community meetings, would not be presented to the School Board on Jan. 31, as expected, and would instead be provided to the parents and the Board at a workshop now scheduled for Monday, February 13 at 10 a.m.

Please note that no public comment is permitted at School Board workshops.

The Board also will hold special meetings on Tuesday, February 28, and Thursday, March 9.

The email also said that between the workshop and the special meetings, five new community meetings would be held. The closest to New Tampa, which isn’t impacted as much as other parts of the District, would be held on Monday, February 20, 6 p.m., at King High on N. 56th St.

The School District, which paid New York architectural firm WXY Studio $567,000 to help with the new boundaries, has developed three scenarios, and as many as 24,000 students throughout Hillsborough County could be shifted to new schools. More than 100 of the District’s 303 schools could be affected by a process designed to save millions of dollars by improving efficiency, addressing imbalances in enrollment — some schools are overcrowded while others are so far below capacity that they may have to be repurposed — and reducing travel.

“When we look at schools that are being overutilized, those are (schools) operating at 110% (of their capacities) or greater,” Davis said. “Underutilized is 60% or under, and we have 24 schools that must be addressed.”

Many schools in New Tampa could be affected, although none are in danger of being repurposed.

In all three scenarios proposed by the District, for example, 133 students at Heritage Elementary and 49 students at Pride Elementary would be moved to Hunter’s Green Elementary.

Pride is currently at 124 percent utilization, though losing 49 students would still keep it over capacity, at 119 percent. Heritage currently is at 111 percent, but after losing students to Hunter’s Green, would be at a more desirable 95 percent.

Hunter’s Green is currently at 84%, and the influx of new students would put it at 101% of its capacity.

Each scenario means different things for different schools. The only New Tampa public schools not affected in some way are Clark and Tampa Palms Elementary schools.

In Scenario 1, Heritage, Pride, Hunter’s Green, Chiles Elementary and Liberty Middle School would be affected by losing or gaining students.

In Scenario 2, Wharton, Liberty, Benito Middle School, Turner/Bartels K-8 School, Heritage, Hunter’s Green, Chiles and Pride elementaries are affected.

In Scenario 3, the most aggressive of the three proposals, nearly 1,000 students combined at Pride, Hunter’s Green, Heritage, Wharton, Freedom, Chiles and Liberty would be affected.

On paper, it looks as if many students that are bused into New Tampa schools would remain closer to their neighborhood schools instead, saving on travel costs during a time when the district has a bus driver shortage. Changes like Wharton losing 423 students to King (Scenario 2), Chiles losing 112 to Mort (all three scenarios) and Liberty losing 329 to Buchanan (Scenario 1) or 329 to Adams (Scenario 2) middle schools appears to point towards a reduction in bused students, as opposed to moving New Tampa residents.

Hunter’s Green Elementary takes on students from Heritage and Pride in every scenario.

All of the numbers presented so far can change, as Davis takes into account all of the public feedback — 15,000 people have attended community meetings (including the one held at Wharton on Jan. 13), and the district’s website (HCPS-boundary.org/home) has had more than 335,000 page views, 126,000 address searches and 15,500 comments on the interactive map.

“The School Board will make the final decision, and they could take any recommendations (by Davis) and make changes to those,” said Hillsborough Schools spokesperson Erin Maloney. “There’s still a lot of stuff to work out, and none of the numbers you are looking at are final.”

The delay means parents like Dawn Eagle will have to wait a little longer to find out the fate of their children for the 2023-24 school year. She was one of roughly 100 parents to attend the Jan. 13 community meeting at Wharton, hoping to learn her options.

Scenario 2 would move 163 kids from Benito, including Eagle’s daughter, 6th grader Jessica, to Turner-Bartels.

Eagle already has put her sons, who are now at Wharton, through Heritage Elementary and Benito, and would like Jessica to follow the same path.

“It’s closer to our home and all we’ve ever known,” she said. “We know the administration, we know the teachers. We’ve had a great experience and we don’t want to disrupt that.”

But Eagle’s concerns go further than that. Jessica is in the orchestra at Benito, and Turner-Bartels doesn’t offer orchestra. Also, driving from their home in K-Bar Ranch to Turner-Bartels in Live Oak Preserve would be far more inconvenient.

The Eagles have options, like school choice or magnet schools, and Dawn hopes if Scenario 2 or some version of it is chosen, she would be able to use school choice so her daughter could stay at Benito.

“I do appreciate trying to set up these scenarios and having discussions so the community can be heard,” Eagle says. “I appreciate the effort being made. I understand they’re trying to do a job and everything comes down to money. That’s unfortunate but I get the reality. But logistically, this restructuring for our neighborhood doesn’t make sense.”

School boundaries

‘Kidpreneurs’ Learning The Art Of Making Business Deals

On the way to school one day just over a year ago, one of the neighborhood kids that Danielle Cannon was driving to school mentioned that she wanted to start selling some of her homemade bracelets.

Cannon’s own two kids, 7-year-old Jane and 9-year-old Adam, chimed in that they were interested in selling some stuff as well.

“So I posted online asking if anyone knew of a good place to do this little thing for the neighborhood,” Cannon says.

That little thing, however, became a much bigger thing. Within a day, more than 20 families had replied that their children wanted to be a part of it as well, and the Tampa Children’s Business Fair was born.

At the end of last month, Cannon’s army of “Kidpreneurs” set up more than 40 tables at the KRATE at The Grove container park, selling everything from artwork to tree saplings to cookies to Christmas trinkets to — you guessed it — bracelets.

“It has really grown,” says Cannon, who has poured thousands of dollars of her own money into her nonprofit fair where all the business owners are kids, ages 6-16. “Literally, the only limitation is finding places to hold it,” Cannon says.

The KRATE was generous enough to provide the space for free, although Cannon says other locations have charged as much as $1,500 to host a fair.

Cannon’s first event late last year attracted about 20 kids. The final event of this year, held at the Temple Terrace Recreation Center on Dec. 11, featured a whopping 75 tables and more than 100 Kidpreneurs.

“We would have had more but there was no more room,” Cannon says.

It was the fifth business fair of the year, and some of the young business owners — like New Tampa sisters Alghaliah (13-years-old), Layal (11) and Nouf Rizq (6) — have sold their wares at all of them.

The sisters, who all attend Turner-Bartels K-8 School, sell a variety of different necklaces and bracelets, including ones with clay beads displaying positive messages like “Kind,” “Cute,” “Love” and “Shine.”

At the KRATE fair, the trio’s Queen of Hearts business displayed an expanded product line to include pens and PopSockets (to help you hold your cell phone) and, at the Temple Terrace fair, they unveiled jewelry boxes made of resin.

“You can add colors to them,” Alghaliah says. “It looks really cool.”

The sisters have made more than $400 at the fairs. They say they wanted to learn more about entrepreneurship and the process has helped them become more confident.

“It’s been fun,” Layal says.

Cannon says the Rizqs are some of her best Kidpreneurs, even winning “Best Presentation” honors at one of the fairs. Typically, Cannon has local business owners help her choose the booths that have the “Best Presentation,” “Most Creative Business Idea” and “Highest Business Potential.”

*Wesley Chapel resident Gabrielle Thompson shows off her wares at the recent Tampa Children’s Business Fair held at the KRATE at the Grove. (Photos: Charmaine George).*

Gabrielle Thompson, a 15-year-old sophomore at Wesley Chapel High, was one of the “Kidpreneurs” selling blinged- out tumblers and other items from her business, jets_customs. She also does custom items if you’re looking to put a name or saying on a 12- or 20-ounce tumbler.

Gabrielle has been doing pop-ups for a few years now and was excited to join the TCBF event, and hopes to continue to do so in the future.

“It’s taught me patience and organization,” Gabrielle says. “And, money management, too, of course.”

The Tampa Children’s Business Fair encourages children to embrace all the tenets of entrepreneurship — developing a product and a brand, building a marketing strategy, setting prices and selling to customers.

Booths cost $25, but Cannon tries to return $5 to each business owner so they can walk around and network and buy things from their fellow Kidpreneurs.

Cannon hopes one day to not have to charge at all. She is hoping to land some sponsors to help cover some of the costs of running the quarterly fairs moving forward; those costs also include things like insurance and sometimes having to hire off-duty law enforcement officers, a requirement for some of the sites.

“I’m way over full-time hours working on this, but I know once people know about this they are going to love it,” Cannon says. “This is awesome, I love doing it, and the kids love it.”

For more information about the Tampa Children’s Business Fair and future fairs, visit TampaCBF.org.

Kid fair

Wharton High Drum Line Wins Lion’s Pride Competition

Wharton High’s drum line has brought home the “W” in a local battle for the best, held on Oct. 15 as part of the King High School Lion’s Pride Marching Festival.

While the festival, established in 1997, primarily helps high school bands sharpen their skills on the, ah, march to the height of the season, it allows drum lines the opportunity to choreograph a performance to show off their talents, too, in the Lion’s Pride Battle of the Drum Lines.

When the Wharton students asked director Marques Rudd if they could plan a routine for the competition, he signed them up. They did the rest.

Percussion captain Josh Benalcazar and other percussion leaders — including AJ Coveyou, Clara Riusech and Jeya Williams — came up with music, visuals, and choreography. Then, they planned rehearsals for all 18 members of the school’s drum line.

In addition to playing rhythm and cadences on snares, tenors, bass drums and cymbals, they created choreography to determine their placement on the field, and added visuals such as dancing, swaying, and moving in eye-catching and fun ways.

Wharton won the Lion’s Pride Battle for the first time ever. The Wildcats stunned five-time defending champion Strawberry Crest in the semifinals, and then were chosen as the best drum line in the finale against Spoto.

“It was crazy to me that we were able to put this together entirely student-led,” Benalcazar says proudly. “We had to really think outside the box and be creative.”

Rudd agrees that the students’ creativity is what propelled them to take home the competition’s bragging rights.

“Their interaction with the crowd was awesome,” he says. “They even threw in some cartwheels and something from the Cha Cha Slide.”

Rudd says he’s proud of the students and the fact that they came together to create something they weren’t required to do as a class assignment. He noticed their hard work, and it paid off for them.

“It was surreal when we won and they called our name,” says Josh. “It took a minute for it to process in my brain. It was a dream for me to be able to win such a big competition.”

Drumline Wharton

Liberty’s Angela Brown Named Top AP In Hillsborough!

Angela Brown is escorted into the Liberty Middle School media center by principal Frank Diaz, where she is surprised by a band and Hillsborough Superintendent of Schools Addison Davis (photo on next page), who announced that she has been named the Hillsborough County Assistant Principal of the Year for 2022-23. ***(Photos: Hillsborough Schools)***

It began as just another ordinary day for Angela Brown.

The Liberty Middle School assistant principal showed up for work in the morning, helped make sure all of the students were off to class and, after that was done, she headed to the testing room to get things ready for her day.

But then, the day took an extraordinary and unexpected turn. She got a call from Liberty principal Frank Diaz asking her to report to the media center with literacy coach Corissa Russell, who was with her.

When they had just about reached the media center, Russell handed Brown off to Diaz, who led her inside. A band started playing.

“The first person I noticed was (Hillsborough County Public Schools Superintendent of Schools) Addison Davis, then I saw my boyfriend (Ben Gainer),” Brown said. “Imagine a person who doesn’t like surprises, and likes being in full control all the time. I turned to Mr. Diaz and asked, “What’s going on here?”

What was going on was this: Davis was there to congratulate Brown for being named Hillsborough’s Assistant Principal of the Year for 2022-23.

“It was definitely a surprise,” she says. “A nice surprise.”

Brown has been at Liberty since the school opened in 2002, and the award is a testament to her skills as assistant principal of curriculum.

*The school district’s Assistant Principal of the Year Angela Brown receives a gift basket from Hillsborough’s Superintendent of Schools Addison Davis.*

Diaz has only been at Liberty for three months, but it was apparent from his first day that Brown was a gem.

“She’s been a rock here for quite some time,” Diaz says. “Her attention to detail is spectacular. She assures that students are placed in the right classes with the right teachers. She really looks at the students as individuals and on the basis of what they need.”

Brown’s responsibilities include student safety, overseeing the curriculum for the school, student schedules, assessments and testing, to name a few.

“A lot of it is just making sure that instruction is happening and our teachers are equipped with the tools they need to deliver excellent instruction to the students,” Brown says.

And, it often goes beyond that. While being an innovative scheduler, it’s the extra things not in her job description that makes Brown special. That includes sometimes driving kids home, visiting family homes to make that needed connection and mentoring other assistant principals who are just starting out.

“The one thing I pride myself on is building relationships,” she says. “It’s all about navigating the world of school every day and keeping a smile on my face, because it definitely is hard work. But every day, I find something to laugh and smile about, and I try to instill that to everyone on campus.”

Brown, who recently turned 52, is a graduate of Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD, which she attended on a track scholarship.

She got her Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Education degree, with a concentration in sports administration, but thought she would some day be working for a sports organization.

But, her old principal at East Bay High talked Brown into filling in as a substitute teacher for someone out on maternity leave.

“I was so in love with teaching, from that point on I did everything necessary to be a certified teacher,” Brown said, which included earning her Master of Science (M.S.) degree in Educational Leadership from Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale.

Brown started her teaching career at Greco Middle School in 1996, and moved to Liberty in 2002 as a Success Coach, which back then was called Student Intervention Specialist. In 2013, she became an assistant principal.

“I’m so blessed to be able to stay and see all the different families come, all of the siblings of siblings, students who are now parents and have kids at Liberty,” Brown says. “It’s definitely been amazing.”

Diaz says students continuously come back to the school to talk to her.

“She remembers the names of students from 10-12 years ago,” an impressed Diaz says. “That’s nice.”

Brown says it’s all about changing lives and providing direction. She recalls one of her students, back in 2006, having a tough time of it. Brown had to continually suspend him, and told him, “If I have to keep suspending you for you to get it, that’s what I’m going to do.”

He got it. In 2008, that student, Nelson Agholor, was named Hillsborough County’s Turnaround Student of the Year and went on to earn a football scholarship to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, won a Super Bowl with the Philadelphia Eagles and is currently a wide receiver with the New England Patriots who still visits Liberty and “Auntie Angela” each year.

“It’s very rewarding when you see certain kids (who) always seem to find me or always seem to reach out to me and stop by the school,” Brown says. “One of the good things about being at same school is they always know how to find you 15 years later, just to say thank you and tell you how grateful they are. Honestly, that’s what keeps me going from year to year, knowing that somehow I made a difference with someone.”

Judging by her recent accolades, Brown’s efforts haven’t gone unnoticed.

Angela brown liberty middle

Celebrating The 25th Anniversary Of Paul R. Wharton High School!

Darren Glover made the move in 1997 from Eisenhower Middle School in Gibsonton to a brand new high school opening in New Tampa.

A quarter of a century later, he’s still a Wharton Wildcat and has no plans to ever leave. He was one of more than 200 current and former Wildcats who gathered Nov. 5 in the school’s cafeteria to celebrate the school’s 25th anniversary.

Glover is one of just five teachers at the school that opened the school and has remained there, along with paraprofessional Sherry Hargin, guidance counselor Cindy Rogers and English teacher Merrill Connor.

Others, like current principal Mike Rowan, assistant principal Eddie Henderson and guidance counselor Tommy Tonelli, were at Wharton in 1997, but left for other jobs before coming back to stay at the school.

While Glover may not have expected to spend the next two-plus decades at Wharton, he confesses to having loved every minute of it.

He met his wife Elizabeth, a social studies teacher, at the school (well, technically, at happy hour at Durango Steak House, which is now Hungry Crab Juicy Seafood). They had two sons – Riley, who graduated from Wharton in 2021, and Aubrey, who is currently a senior.

“I built a family here. It has been really great,” says Glover, a driver’s education teacher and athletic department business manager. When the school organized the 25th anniversary gathering, he was eager to reconnect with past Wildcats.

The celebration included the school’s first principal Mitch Muley and assistant principal (AP) Carmen Aguero (top left photo on next page), plus the four other principals who have led the school — George Gaffney, Brad Woods, Scott Fritz and current principal Mike Rowan, who was an original teacher at the school (all of whom are shown on page 1).

Also on hand were original staffers and athletic coaches Marcie Scholl, David Mitchell (2nd photo from left on next page), Henderson and Tonelli (both in far right pics on next page). The celebration was held prior to Wharton’s football game against Hillsborough High, and many of the dignitaries stuck around for the 27-7 win, as the ‘Cats head into the playoffs. Many of the original staffers were recognized on the field during halftime.

“I was really looking forward to seeing everyone,” Glover said.. “They weren’t coming back for a free hamburger (or, in this case, Mediterranean food from The Little Greek); they were coming back for a reason. — to see their old high school, to be a part of it again. It’s a great thing.”

During the pre-game meal, not only did the 200+ people in attendance hear from Muley and Rowan, but current Wharton math teacher Carlos Rosaly read a number of recollections of the early days of the school written by those original staffers:

“From Carmen Aguero,” Rosaly read, “one day there was a huge squirrel that climbed up the building outside the cafeteria and Mitch yelled to Junior (former head custodian Tirso ‘Junior’ Cintron), ‘Get the pressure washer and shoot that thing. So, Junior did exactly that. Meanwhile, the bell rang and out from the cafeteria came 200 children who all of a sudden were getting showered on.”

Rosaly also read an anecdote from former Wharton AP Pam Peralta, “Some of Pam’s favorite memories are coaching swim team with Marcie Scholl and winning Districts in our first year, and attending sporting events and watching Wharton’s finest cheerleaders at the spring pep rally that first year.”

Rosaly said Aguero also recalled when interviews were being conducted in the trailers on BBD and Muley was upset about something and “started spewing profanities…in front of a visiting parent. Carmen said to the parent about Muley, ‘Man, you never know what you’re getting into with these construction workers.’”

Starting Out…

In December 1996, Mitchell Muley was named Wharton’s first principal. He had already opened Ben Hill Junior High on Ehrlich Rd. 10 years earlier, and he had a good relationship with long-time Hillsborough County Schools administrator Paul R. Wharton, for whom the school was named. Muley, then 49, was the perfect fit.

Mitch Muley, the school’s first principal.

He worked out of a trailer on Bruce B. Downs Blvd. near where the school was being built.

Muley spent his first six months ordering equipment, interviewing potential teachers and visiting potential students at junior high/middle schools like Van Buren and Buchanan that weren’t really close (Benito Middle School, which also opened in ‘97, provided a much closer option for New Tampa kids, too), and King, Chamberlain and Hillsborough high schools.

He put together a committee of those students who, in March, picked a school mascot — as the Wildcats beat out the Wolves.

In April, the school’s colors were selected – navy blue and white, with black trim – and the school hired its first head football coach, Dan Acosta.

The first football team had to practice that spring at Greco Middle School on Fowler Ave. They had to practice without equipment.

That was followed by selecting cheerleaders, a band director, a fight song and an alma mater song, as well as more coaches and teachers.

On August 17, 1997, Paul R. Wharton High swung its doors open for the first time. The traffic light on BBD across from the entrance to what is now Live Oak Preserve hadn’t yet been installed. Fences and walkways weren’t quite completed. Some painting still had to be done. The auditorium wouldn’t be ready until Oct. 1.

“We were still trying to get our certificate of occupancy two days before opening,” Muley recalls. “Just trying to get everything ready, to get it open, is what I’ll remember from that first year.”

Wharton is now the neighborhood school, but communities like West Meadows and Cross Creek were fairly new, so many of its original 1,400 students were driven or bused in from previously attended far-away schools like Hillsborough and Chamberlain.

“What I remember was the diversity,” says Kedric Harris, currently an assistant principal at Gaither who attended Wharton that first year. “It was the first time being at a school that had a real world atmosphere. We had no seniors, but it was an interesting mix of white, Black and Hispanic students.”

Harris dove right in. He loved being at a new school. He ran for, and was elected, treasurer of the student government, and played on the basketball team that won 20 games.

What he remembers most is that while the school’s colors were blue, white and black, the school itself looked lavender and purple when he first arrived.

Harris was likely the first Wharton student to ever return to the school as a teacher. After graduating from Florida A&M, he became an English teacher at Wharton from 2004-11, and then an administrative resource teacher before moving to Gaither.

Tonelli, who retired as the super-successful boys basketball coach but continues as a guidance counselor at Wharton, says there is always something special about a new school, and you could feel it in 1997.

“It’s the excitement of everything being the first,” Tonelli says. “You are helping to establish the tradition, helping set the pride and create the enthusiasm for the school. That was an exciting time.”

Tough Times, Too…

There were tough times early. More than $19,000 of video equipment (76 VCRs and 14 camcorders) were stolen the weekend before the school opened, and a fight between students the first semester captured a significant amount of media attention.

The fight helped tarnish Wharton’s image, and other similar issues over the years have helped prevent the school from shaking it.

“Wharton, from the beginning, because of some of the fights, got a bad rap and a bad name,” Tonelli says. “But, a lot of really good things have gone on at Wharton the last 25 years. It has been unbelievable, really — really successful in so many areas. Academically, we’ve had some unbelievable kids that have gone on to do great things. From the school paper, the culinary program, the yearbook, the athletics, we’ve had a lot of really good things happen and a lot of good things continue to happen.”

Glover agrees, which is why it meant a lot for the past students, teachers and administrators to gather to celebrate 25 years of wonderful moments, he says

“I think Wharton bound the (New Tampa) area together,” he says. “We’ve had some bumpy times, but it’s a great school. We have some great families here, and there are some great things always happening. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”