Members of the Wharton High “Beautification Club” hope to raise funds to add some green to this serenity garden, which serves as both a memorial and a place of peace and quiet on the school’s campus.
Several years ago, students in Wharton High’s Key Club created a place on campus to remember students and faculty members who had passed away. But, the quiet corner it’s tucked into doesn’t have sprinklers, so grass won’t grow, and plants planted in the “serenity garden” wither.
Over the years, it fell into disrepair. In fact, says Jennifer Bell, an English teacher at the school, “It became a weed-choked barren thing with a picnic table — not the kind of memorial garden we wanted.”
So Wharton’s “Beautification Club,” which Bell co-sponsors with fellow English teacher Lindsey Glenn, went to work.
Back in September, with the help of the school’s head custodian, Junior Cintron, club members completely overhauled the area, adding raised plant beds with drought-friendly plants.
Now it’s much improved, but members of the club think it still has a way to go. While other solutions have been tried, such as mulch (which washed away in heavy rain), it was decided that the best way to improve the space would be with artificial turf, since no water is available to keep grass alive.
The turf is expensive, so the club hopes members of the community might help to make this project happen. The turf is estimated to cost about $1,200.
“We know there are people in our community who have been touched by those who were lost,” says Bell.
She emphasizes that the area is not only a memorial, which is why it was named the serenity garden.
“We want to make it a place that is uplifting and beautiful, as a place of reflection,” she explains. “So, if you need to go and re-center yourself, it’s off the beaten path a little, so you can take a quiet moment to yourself if you’re having a rough day.”
She says that is already happening. “We’ve heard there are definitely students who have noticed the improvement and have been sitting out there if they are upset and need to take a moment to themselves.”
Bell says that the serenity garden isn’t the only project the Beautification Club has undertaken since its inception last year.
“One thing that’s striking at Wharton is that everything at the school is gray,” she says. “We felt like the lack of color and beauty was hurting morale at Wharton.”
She explains that while the club hopes to overcome the gray with some color, it’s about more than that.
“We want to boost morale and improve the overall climate around the school,” she says, explaining that the club takes on a couple of large and a couple of small projects each year. “We’ve placed anonymous Post-It notes to encourage students, we’ve made sensory bottles — also called calm-down bottles — to help autistic students, and painted murals at our on-campus preschool playground.”
To support the Wharton Beautification Club’s efforts to install artificial turf in the school’s serenity garden, contact the club’s sponsors via the school: (813) 631-4710. Checks, made out to “Wharton High School” and designated for the Beautification Club, can be dropped off at the school.
These kids used to ride the bus to Benito, but “courtesy busing” for middle and high school students was eliminated in 2017. Courtesy busing ends for elementary students in 2018. Photo by Lisa Evison.
TOP STORIES OF 2017: One Word For 2017: Change
First, there were changes to the Hillsborough School District’s buses.
Then, it was boundary changes.
Then, bell schedule changes.
Add to that a hurricane that closed schools for eight days and teachers who are unhappy with the school district not giving them the pay raises they were expecting, and it’s easy to see: In recent memory, there hasn’t been a year that was more tumultuous for New Tampa’s public schools than 2017.
While all these changes were announced in 2017, most families will feel the pinch this coming August, when the 2018-19 school year begins.
That’s when boundary changes that were approved by the Hillsborough County School Board on May 16 will be implemented. The plan makes room at Pride Elementary for growth in neighboring K-Bar Ranch, shifting hundreds of students who currently attend Pride, Heritage, Hunter’s Green and Clark elementary schools to other schools.
More than 550 students who live in Arbor Greene and Cory Lake Isles who currently are assigned to Pride will be re-assigned Hunter’s Green.
The district is making room at Hunter’s Green by moving some students (residents of Morgan Creek apartments) to Clark, and moving many students who are currently bused to both Clark and Hunter’s Green from the area surrounding the University of South Florida to schools in their own neighborhoods.
However, because Pride will have some capacity available, many parents who want their children to stay at Pride will be able to do so, for at least a year or two.
Kristin Tonelli is a principal’s coach for Hillsborough County Public Schools who works with all of the New Tampa schools, plus a couple of dozen others. She’s also a New Tampa resident and a former teacher and principal at Hunter’s Green.
“This may be the first shift in boundaries for this generation of parents,” she says, “But, we’ve moved through boundary changes in the past, and we’ve found that students are very resilient and adjust well to new teachers and new schools. And, they take a lot of cues from their parents.”
While many students will change schools — and local traffic patterns will change along with them — more students will find themselves getting to and from school without a bus.
Middle and high school students who used to have “courtesy busing” — if they lived less than two miles from their school — had to find new ways to get to school this year, whether it’s walking, biking, or carpooling.
The School Board is expected to eliminate courtesy busing for elementary students this fall, adding to the challenges some parents already are facing.
And all students who attend public school in New Tampa will be on a new schedule next year, as bell times change at every school. The major change is that high schoolers get to sleep in a bit more — which experts say is good for them — while elementary school students will start and end their school days earlier.
While it does feel like things have calmed down from the craziness of all the announcements — and bell times that changed and changed again before they were finally adopted by the School Board (and then adjusted slightly one more time), parents can now plan for these changes for next school year.
“To move boundaries and line up bell schedules are large shifts that impact numerous families,” says Tonelli. “Those are things that required a high level of communication and community involvement, and we’ve given a lot of leeway and time for families to think through those impacts.”
She says she knows what it’s like, having had three children in New Tampa schools, with many years of one in high school, one in middle, and one in elementary.
“Just remember you’re not in this alone,” Tonelli says. “Across the board, we have nearly all two-income families with both parents out of the home, so we have more options than ever before for care for both before and after school.”
Teachers, Too
While all of these issues impact students and parents, they also certainly impact teachers. And, as the year 2017 came to an end, teachers expressed their disappointment in not receiving the raises they were promised.
They showed up in force at a School Board meeting held Nov. 14, then went to local malls, including the nearby Tampa Premium Outlets, to show the community how much work they do above and beyond their contracts. While the teachers’ union is not allowed (by State law) to go on strike, they did hold a week of what they called “work the contract” to demonstrate what it would be like if teachers only did the work for which they are contractually obligated.
Lisa Mayhugh, a Clark Elementary kindergarten teacher with more than a decade of teaching experience, supported these efforts. “We work so hard and sacrifice our time, our money and even our families to do what’s best for our students,” Mayhugh says. “We need to keep the pressure on to get what we feel we’ve been promised.”
At our press time, contract negotiations were still ongoing for the 2017-18 school year.According to Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association assistant director Paula Haggerty, the CTA has filed for impasse, which would bring in a third party to resolve the issues, but the CTA is hopeful to continue negotiations in the meantime.
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.”
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 betweenTurner/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.
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.
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.”
“We know there are people in our community who have been touched by those who were lost,” says Bell. 
