Wesley Chapel High valedictorian Samantha Politano is congratulated by Pasco County school superintendent Kurt Browning and School Board member Cynthia Armstrong as Politano receives one of several scholarships.
When Samantha Politano steps on to the stage to speak to Wesley Chapel Highâs graduating class of 2017 on May 26, it will be the culmination of a dream sheâs had since the third grade, when the letter âAâ first appeared on her report card.
It was at that time â when she saw not just one, but all As on that report card â that she says she became determined to always get straight As, and to become her class valedictorian. And now, sheâs done it.
With a weighted GPA of 4.77, she has the privilege of the title, and the responsibility of making the speech.
âIâm really excited about it,â Samantha says, âIâve been thinking about it since third grade, so I feel like itâs a lot of pressure.â
At the same time sheâs receiving her high school diploma, sheâs also earning her Associate of Arts (A.A.) degree from Pasco Hernando State College, thanks to dual enrollment classes sheâs been taking for the last three years. Sheâll be recognized as an âhonors graduateâ for maintaining a 4.0 GPA in her college classes when she walks across the stage at that graduation ceremony.
While sheâs been busy studying, doing her homework and keeping her grades up, Samantha also has been committed to extracurricular activities as an officer in seven organizations. Sheâs not only student body president at WCH, sheâs also vice president of the PHSC chapter of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society.
Samantha also received the Girl Scouts Gold Award, the highest award given by that organization. When she earned it in 2016, she was the only Gold Award recipient in Pasco County that year. She says she was an active Girl Scout for 12 years, and the project to earn the award was to make Wells Rd. â where Wesley Chapel Elementary, Weightman Middle and Wesley Chapel High schools are located â safer.
Currently, Samantha is planning to attend Florida State University in Tallahassee, where sheâll be in the Honors College.
âMy parents never went to college, so Iâve always dreamed of going to college,â she says. âWhen I started at Wesley Chapel Elementary, I thought that was college.â
Samantha says her parentsâ story is an inspiration to her. She looks up to her mom, who she says is, âso organized and gets everything done without getting distracted; she motivates me.â
She also says that her dadâs hands are a reminder of why she works so hard to be successful. âDad used to be a gas fitter and he had to work hard, digging deep holes,â she says. âHis hands are so rough. I want to work hard mentally so my family and I donât have to work hard with our hands.â
Samantha is still on the waiting list at both Harvard and Yale, and should find out by the end of May if sheâll be accepted into either of those Ivy League universities. If she does end up at FSU, she has earned so many scholarships that she will have the cost of her education covered, and then some. She earned a prestigious scholarship for students who have overcome significant adversity, called the Horatio Alger Scholarship. She also was named a national semi-finalist from the Elks National Foundation for a âmost valuable studentâ award, plus she was awarded scholarships from the Mary and Bob Sierra Family Foundation, the Florida PTA, Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative and from FSU.
Ultimately, she says she hopes to become a lawyer. âItâs unfair that lawyers charge so much and that low-income families canât afford a lawyer,â Samantha explains. âIâd like to advocate for low-income families and help them.â
Because her scholarships will cover four years of education, âIâll probably take my time,â she says. âBecause I already have my A.A., it would be too easy to just do one major.â Sheâs planning to study both English and Biology, following a track for marine biology, and thinks she might study abroad.
Samantha says that, to apply for law school, she can have any degree, so her choice to study marine biology is purely for fun and the experience of learning more about something she loves. âI wonât be using that as a lawyer,â she says. âIâm just passionate about it. Itâs going to be really enjoyable. I think more people should do things just because they enjoy them.â
Starting next school year, Alex Evison, center, and the other kids in his Cross Creek neighborhood will no longer have a bus to ride to school. His mom, Lisa, says most of these kids’ parents can’t drive their kids to school because the hours fall within the work day and the walk isn’t safe.
In December, the Hillsborough County School Board voted to end what they call âcourtesy busingâ for middle and high school students who live within two miles of their respective schools.
In New Tampa, this will affect nearly 500 students, mostly at Louis Benito Middle School and Paul R. Wharton High School, where more than 400 students will no longer have bus transportation provided (see chart). At other New Tampa schools combined, including Freedom High, Liberty Middle, and Tuner/Bartels K-8, another 50 students are affected.
According to records made available by the School Board, Benito currently provides bus transportation to 629 of the 1,058 students who attend school there. Of those students, 265 will not have bus transportation starting with the 2017-18 school year, because they live within two miles of the school.
âCourtesy busing was not supposed to be a permanent thing,â explains school district spokesperson Tanya Arja. âIt was designed for temporary uses, such as road hazards during construction, and there should have been a process to remove it when those factors were gone.â
She explains that the majority of students throughout Hillsborough County are responsible for their own transportation to and from school, saying that of 214,000 students countywide, only 90,000 are bused.
Arja also says the decision was made in December to give parents plenty of time to plan for next school year, such as by arranging carpools or their work schedules.
For some local parents, the decision is upsetting. Lisa Evison, who lives in Cross Creek, is trying to rally parents to object to the decision, as other communities â such as Lutz and FishHawk Ranch in south Hillsborough County â have done.
Evison says with the never ending traffic, potential child predators and other dangers, she doesnât feel that itâs safe for her seventh grade son, Alex, to walk to Benito from her neighborhood in Cross Creek, nearly two miles away. âThe Tampa Bay area as a whole has a horrendous â and deserved â reputation for pedestrian fatalities,â she says. âHow many kids have to die walking to school before we say itâs enough?â
Statistics compiled by the Tampa Bay Times show that in 2016, there were 39 pedestrian fatalities in Hillsborough County, and another 12 bicycle fatalities. This is down from a record year in 2015, where there were a combined 59 fatalities.
In 2012, Evison says she was riding a bike in front of Benito and a car made a right turn on red and hit her.
âIâm an adult, I have a light on my bike, and he drove over me and didnât see me. People are distracted, in a rush, and not paying attention. I see it all the time! I donât know why I would expose my children to that â never mind the long walk with his 22-pound backpack.â
The principals at both Benito and Wharton say it remains to be seen exactly what the impact on schools will be.
âWe already have families who have busing available to them who donât take advantage of it because they would rather drop their kid off at 7:00 than have them catch the bus at 6:30,â says Wharton principal Brad Woods. He says heâs in close contact with the county transportation department to closely monitor the construction on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., as the road is being expanded from four to six lanes.
âIf Bruce B. Downs meets the state statutes for hazardous road conditions, they would have to put the transportation back,â he says.
Meanwhile, Benito principal John Sanders says the school is preparing for an increase in the number of students walking and biking to school.
âMy primary concern is the intersection of Kinnan St. and Cross Creek Blvd.,â says Sanders. âWeâll do everything we can to make that intersection safer for our families. Weâve requested a crossing guard, we will ask our school resource officer to be at that intersection and we will educate our kids to cross the road safely.â
Affected students recently received a letter from the school board explaining the cuts and providing a âParent/Guardian Hazardous Walking Concern Review Requestâ for any parent who feels that the walking path for their child is unsafe.
Arja says community meetings will be planned to help connect parents to resources for carpooling and safe walking and biking, including HART, TBARTA, Safe Routes to School, and St. Josephâs Hospital. Woods says one such meeting is expected to be held at Wharton, but no date had been set at our press time.
Evison also has a child at Hunterâs Green Elementary and is concerned about the future, as the School Board is expected to cut courtesy busing to elementary schools for the following school year, 2018-19.
Evison says parents who want to ask the Board to reconsider their decision should join a Facebook group started by FishHawk-area parents called âSafe Bus For Us.â Evison was part of a group of parents who attended the last school board meeting to express their concerns about ending the program.
Carin Hetzler-Nettles, center, is the choice to head up the new high school in Wesley Chapel.
Carin Hetzler-Nettles, who is credited with helping breathe fresh life into Wesley Chapel High (WCH) since taking over as principal in 2009, is moving on to a new challenge: opening a new school right down the road.
Hetzler-Nettles has been appointed the new principal at Cypress Creek Middle-High School (below), which is scheduled to open in time for the 2017-18 school year.
Cypress Creek is located on Old Pasco Rd. The new school will have close to 2,000 students (see page 10) in grades six through 11 next year, with a large portion of those former students at WCH who will be familiar with their new principal.
Hetzler-Nettles, 42, has been a district employee since 1996. She started as a special education teacher at River Ridge Middle School in New Port Richey, taught at East Bay High in Gibsonton and then returned to Pasco County when she took a teaching job at Mitchell before receiving a promotion to assistant principal in 2004.
While at WCH, Hetzler-Nettles was named the Secondary Principal of the Year in Pasco County for 2012.
Pasco County Superintendent of Schools Kurt Browning knew heading into a months-long school rezoning process in Wesley Chapel â which was going to move students to the new Cypress Creek Middle/High School on Old Pasco Rd., as well as relieve overcrowding elsewhere â that he was going to be facing some upset parents.
He expected a few emails, some phone calls, maybe even a jeer or two at some of the public meetings. What he didnât expect, however, was the intensity of the vitriol directed his way. âI think the personal attacks are tough,â Browning says. âIâm a pretty thick-skinned kind of guy, but still, itâs hard to read.â
Browning doesnât read a lot of the things written about him on Facebook, and when an email turns sour with profanity, he immediately discards it.
âIâm okay with harsh words, Iâm okay with tough facts, and people being unhappy with me, I get that,ââ he says. âBut when you start using profane language and start personally attacking me based on things that have nothing to do with rezoning, (thatâs where I draw the line).â
In the Wesley Chapel process, Browningâs decision to step in and recommend Option 13 over Option 20, which was selected after months of meetings of the School Boundary Committee (SBC) as well as parents, has only intensified the hard feelings towards him.
âI have a hard time with (Option) 20, because it moves more students and it moves them multiple times,ââ Browning said.
How seriously are parents in Wesley Chapel taking the boundary process and Browningâs entry into it?
One emailer wrote, âMay God have mercy on your souls.â
âThe level to which it has escalated is surprising,ââ Browning says.
On Dec. 20, the School Board tentatively approved Option 13 for the 2017-18 school year, which moves students from Country Walk and parts of Meadow Pointe IV from Dr. John Long Middle School and Wiregrass Ranch High (WRH) to a zone where they will now attend Thomas E. Weightman Middle School and Wesley Chapel High (WCH).
On Tuesday, January 17, the last public hearing will be held at the county School District office before the final vote takes place.
Though once a seemingly smooth process, the shifting opinions and recommendations, as well as the high-running emotions of parents, has thrown it into disarray.
Originally, the School Boundary Committee (SBC) had selected Option 12. That triggered a large protest in the form of a parentâs town hall that drew more than 1,000 Wesley Chapel residents â many of them wearing anti-12 shirts and lobbying hard for Option 20, which rezoned all of Seven Oaks for Weightman and WCH but preserved the current zones for Union Park, Country Walk and Meadow Pointe III & IV.
On Dec. 2, the SBC ditched Option 12 and settled on a final recommendation of Option 20, setting off more fiery responses in Wesley Chapel, as we reported in our Dec. 16 issue.
âThatâs when I came in and started looking with the staff at the number of times students would have to move,ââ Browning says, adding that he was concerned that, under Option 20, some students could end up rezoned three different times as the Wesley Chapel area continues to expand.
âThatâs when I made the recommendation to the School Board that we go back to the middle ground and Option 13, which keeps Seven Oaks at Wiregrass Ranch,ââ Browning says. âBut, the line has to go someplace.â
Browningâs decision to step into the process was met with still more anger from people. Many parents were incensed that after a long process involving a committee of school principals, parents and county administrators, Browning intervened and essentially overruled all of their work.
The Conspiracy Theories
Although they existed before, Browningâs involvement has only heightened the number of conspiracies floating around the boundary process, including one alleging special relationships between Browning and Pasco County commissioner Mike Moore, who lives in Seven Oaks and has children attending Pasco public schools.
âIâve been accused of all kinds of things,ââ Browning says, adding that he has, ânever had a private meeting or a private conversation with anyone from Seven Oaks, or Country Walk, or Union Park, or anywhere else when it comes to rezoning.â
Browning calls Moore a friend, but adds that they donât socialize. He says he has discussed impact fees with the commissioner, because eventually the decision will come before the BCC, which Moore chairs, but nothing about rezoning.
Moore, whose wife Lauren works at WCH, said that any claims that he interfered with the process are ludicrous. âI have no problem sending my kids to any school in Wesley Chapel,ââ Moore says. âOther than that, I havenât been involved at all.â
Browning says that he injected himself into the process only after the SBC changed their mind twice. He said he reached out to the Districtâs director of planning Chris Williams, and asked him to explain why the committee went from Option 12 to 20.
They met, looked over numbers and maps, and Browning says that he felt strongly that Option 13 met more of the goals of drawing new boundaries.
âI knew as soon as I made that decision, that there was going to be a lot of backlash to it,ââ Browning says. âI am very respectful of the committees that do the work for the DistrictâŠvery respectful of that process. But also, thereâs a law out there that says the superintendent is responsible for the efficient operation of the school district. Efficiency is everything anymore because of the dollars that we get or donât get from Tallahassee to operate a district as large as the one we operate.â
That efficiency includes keeping costs down. With the county already strapped for cash, moving school portables, which currently house the overflow of students at many schools, can leave a financial mark.
âUnder my recommendation, Option 13, we donât have to move as many portables as under 20,ââ Browning says. âThatâs a huge factor. It costs us $30,000 a portable just to move them.â
Another consideration by Browning was ending the 10-day school periods WRH students have been operating on since 2015.
Option 13, Browning says, eases overcrowding at WRH, which is currently operating at 168 percent capacity, or 1,025 students over itâs original cap of 1,633.
âI will tell you, Wiregrass Ranch is not going to be on a 10-period day next year, or the next year,ââ Browning says. âWeâve got enough students out of Wiregrass Ranch this coming year, a drop of 450-500 kids, to get it off the 10-period day.â
The Impact Fee Solution?
The bigger problem for Browning and students in Wesley Chapel, however, is the rapid growth of the area. Put simply, there are too many students for the number of middle and high schools in Wesley Chapel, so building another one â a new middle school on the current Cypress Creek Middle/High School campus â is paramount.
But , Browning says the funds arenât there for the likely cost of roughly $70-million. The School Board has decided to ask the Pasco Board of County Commissioners to double the countyâs school impact fees, which are charged on newly built homes to pay for new classrooms, from the current $4,800 to $9,174 per single family home.
The impact fee started out as a $1,651 charge in 2001 and has been adjusted twice. It now stands at $4,800 per single-family home, and hasnât changed since 2008. An attempt to lower that figure in 2011 was defeated by a 3-2 vote by the BCC.
âIt needs to double,ââ Browning said, citing a recent study by the countyâs consultants. âIâm saying we need the $9,000.â
Browning says there is no capital money to put into new school construction. The Penny for Pasco tax voters approved only allows that money to be spent for technology enhancements, renovations and remodeling. âSo, weâre kind of hogtied a little bit,ââ Browning adds.
If doubled, the impact fees could generate another $125 million over the next 10 years for new schools, including the construction of Cypress Creek Middle School. The best-case scenario would mean a new school could be built in four years.
âIf we are successful in getting the impact fees increased to the level that will generate enough dollars quickly enough, the first school that we will probably want to look at would be the new Cypress Creek Middle School,ââ Browning says. âAnd, what that will allow us to do is literally open up 1,000 seats at Cypress Creek Middle/High.â
That would trigger another rezoning, and students living in Seven Oaks would attend the new schools.
âI think Seven Oaks is put on notice that when we open that middle school, theyâre going to be rezoned to Cypress Creek,â Browning says.
Rezoning is the nature of the beast in high development areas. Browning hears from a lot of out-of-state transplants who have never been through a rezoning process. He says many of them attended the same schools their parents and grandparents did.
âI tell them thatâs because they lived in a neighborhood that was built out or not growing,ââ Browning says. âIn Florida, when you look at the vast expanse of space, and Pasco County is right in the crosshairs of development, thatâs (not going to happen).â
There are no easy answers, and no way to make everyone happy, Browning says. But the questions â he says he sees those every day as he drives from Meadow Pointe Blvd. to Little Rd. on the other side of the county â in the form of new rooftops.
âI jokingly tell people I drive that stretch of road with my eyes closed, because I donât want to see all the rooftops, knowing thereâs going to be kids under many of those rooftops. My question is, rhetorically, where am I going to put them?â
Many readers will be getting their Wesley Chapel edition of the Neighborhood News today, and will see a story on the front page about the School Boundary Committee (SBC) choosing Option 20 for the new school zones for Wesley Chapel.
Option 20
Well…things have changed since our deadline.
After months of meetings by the SBC, including a parent townhall where more than 1,000 residents showed up to have  their voices heard, and a reversal by the SBC in choose Option 20 instead of it’s original choice of Option 12, Pasco County Superintendent Kurt Browning has stepped in and said nope, we’re going with Option 13.
Option 13
According to Browning, the SBC did not meet the most important goals of easing overcrowding at Wiregrass Ranch in the least disruptive way.
So now, the Pasco County School Board meeting on Tuesday will be, most likely, craaaazzzyyy.
The meeting starts at 6 p.m., and usually takes an hour. But Tuesday, there will be parents from three different rezoning groups from different parts of the county speaking, and each group gets an hour. Each speaker is allotted two minutes, maybe three.
Those with interest in the Wesley Chapel rezoning will speak second, or around 7 p.m.
Another meeting is scheduled for Jan. 17, where the School Board will again hear from parents, and then vote on the new school boundaries immediately afterwards.
For Wesley Chapel, that will essentially be a vote between the Browning-recommended Option 13, and the SBC-recommended Option 20. (Option 12, the original SBC choice, remains off the table).
Option 20 would have rezoned Seven Oaks, which would have been on the block again for rezoning once Cypress Creek Middle School is built, anywhere from 4-7 years from now.
“I donât want to rezone Seven Oaks twice in as few as four years,” Browning wrote in a letter to parents. “If we adopted map proposal 20, some students could attend four different schools in their secondary years. They could conceivably start 6th grade at John Long Middle School, move to Weightman Middle School by 8th grade, start 9th grade at Wesley Chapel High School, and be moved to Cypress Creek High School before graduation.”
Browning also wrote that with the “least disruption in mind”, he decided to overrule the SBC and instead recommend Option 13 to the school board. Option 13 does not rezone Seven Oaks, but does move students in Meadow Pointe IV and Country Walk from their current schools of John Long Middle and Wiregrass Ranch High to Weightman Middle and Wesley Chapel High.
“Under option 13, the projected average daily membership for Wiregrass Ranch High School will decrease after the seniors graduate in 2017,” Browning wrote. “Projected enrollment goes down to 2,124 in 2018 and 1,956 in 2019.”
Wiregrass Ranch currently has 2,495 enrolled students, and 2,658 boundary students, and is at 163 percent of capacity.
“We are committed to getting the Cypress Creek middle school built as soon as possible, hopefully in five years,” Browning continued in his letter. “If we are successful convincing the county commission to increase impact fees on new homes for schools, we believe weâre in a very good position to be able to fund the middle school and build it within five years; without it, we will have more difficult decisions to make in the near future.”
So to summarize: Option 12 was chosen, then discarded for Option 20, which was then shelved for Option 13.
The parents in support of Option 20, the final choice by SBC, were large in number and have lit up Facebook with plenty of anger.
They will have an opportunity to persuade the board to ignore Browning’s recommendation.
Normally, there we’d say chances are slim.
But the way this process has played out, we’ll pass.
John C. Cotey can be reached at john@ntneighborhoodnews.com.
Here’s the story that appears in the current Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News:
School Boundary Committeeâs About-Face Sets Wesley Chapel Ablaze…Again
With a smattering of black shirts with the crossed out number 12 â representing Option 12 â serving as a backdrop, the Pasco School Boundary Committee (SBC) surprised many in attendance and changed course on Dec. 2.
The SBC unanimously rejected its initial recommendation of Option 12 for new school zones for all three Wesley Chapel high schools in order to populate Cypress Creek Middle & High School off Old Pasco Rd., choosing instead Option 20 to pass on to the Pasco County School Board for final approval.
The vote wasnât close, with 16 of the 21 voting members raising their hand for Option 20. Option 13 received five votes from the committee comprised of school principals, parents and county administrators, while Option 12 didnât receive any.
While Option 12 didnât rezone the Seven Oaks community, the SBCâs new option (20) did, leaving dozens of residents of Seven Oaks as incensed as the residents of Meadow Pointe and Union Park were about Option 12.
Option 20 will now be passed on to Superintendent Kurt Browning and his staff, and then to the School Board for public hearings at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, December 20, and Tuesday, January 17.
âOur neighborhood was saved,ââ said Union Park representative Tom McClanahan, who was supporting Options 13 or 20, neither of which rezoned his community and kept their kids going to John Long Middle School and Wiregrass Ranch High (WRH).
McClanahan had formed an alliance with Seven Oaks, as Option 13 didnât rezone either of their neighborhoods. âWe just wanted to come out against Option 12, that was the biggest issue,ââ he said. âI still think Option 13 makes more sense for the community, but 20 still makes sense for us.â
Parents can attend and mount a challenge to Option 20 with the upcoming board members, which Seven Oaks intends on doing. But Linda Cobbe, the District spokesperson, said Browning told her âhe doesnât have any intention of changing any decisions made by the committees on the new boundaries.â
The SBCâs 16-5-0 vote caused muffled rejoicing and a few silent high-fives from many of the 80 or so parents in attendance at the Wesley Chapel High (WCH) gymnasium.
Option 20 will keep Meadow Pointe III and IV, Country Walk and Union Park in their current feeder zone (Double Branch Elementary to John Long Middle to Wiregrass). While none of the SBC members said it had anything to do with their vote, the selection alleviates many parentsâ fears of their kids being transported to school via Meadow Pointe Blvd. and S.R. 54, which was a prevalent theme of the Nov. 29 parent town hall that was attended by more than 1,000 people at WCH (photo above).
âIâm glad the feeder patterns stay the way they are,ââ said Michael Degennaro, who has a 9th grade daughter at WRH. âEvery other option broke them up. This keeps the communities intact. Really was no reason to take (us out). Thereâs 1,600 of us vs. 700 (in Seven Oaks). You displace too many students (with Option 12).â
Residents of the Seven Oaks community, some of whom were in attendance, were not as happy. Students will now be zoned to attend Thomas E. Weightman Middle School and WCH, except for current juniors at WRH, who will be grandfathered in to graduate at the school they attended for three years.
Seven Oaks Voice, the group that has been representing the community during the process, immediately scheduled a number of meetings to formulate a response, including one on Dec. 15 (a week after we went to press with this issue), where local media were invited to attend. Weâll update you on that meeting in our next issue.
Option 20 was originally among the final three choices for the SBC, but was the first one dismissed for two reasons â it didnât provide as much relief to the overcrowded schools as did Option 12, and it rezoned Seven Oaks, which could need to be rezoned again in four years.
But, some eagle-eyed Meadow Pointe residents disputed the attendance numbers. Kevin Croswell, representing Meadow Pointe III, spoke at a School Board meeting on Nov. 15, saying the original enrollment numbers presented by the county to the SBC in Option 20 were incorrect. Their numbers â which turned out to be the correct numbers and were later adjusted by the district staff â showed that Option 20 offered almost the same relief as Option 12.
âI think certainly the numbers helped,ââ said Chris Williams, the school districtâs director of planning. âWe corrected those numbers…and basically 20 became comparable to 12.â
The possibility of rezoning Seven Oaks again in four years when a new middle school is built on Old Pasco Rd. next to the new Cypress Creek Middle & High School, seemed to be less of a sticking point.
The new middle school also could be built 6-7 years or longer down the road, said Williams, depending upon how quickly the money, raised from impact fees, becomes available. That longer timeline seemed to cause a few SBC members to have less of a concern about âdouble-dippingâ Seven Oaks in the rezoning pool, and to take a closer look at Option 20.
âItâs not about the community (of Seven Oaks), itâs about keeping the schools together and keeping the integrity of the feeder pattern schools together, thatâs the most important thing,ââ said SBC member and Seven Oaks resident Denise Nicholas, who also is the Pasco County Council PTA (PCCPTA) president.
âI did not vote for 20, because I truly donât believe in rezoning twice,ââ Nicholas added. âI donât think itâs fair for any community, whether it be Seven Oaks, Meadow Pointe, Union Park, Stagecoach, whoever, to be double-dipped and to have to be moved twice.â
Many SBC members attended the Nov. 29 town hall meeting at WCH, where the large crowd made clear its disdain for Option 12.
WCH, a C-rated school in 2015 after four straight years as a B school, also took a bit of a beating throughout the town hall, as did Weightman, which is a B school, while WRH is a B and Long MS is an A.
Most in attendance at the town hall meeting seemed to favor Option 20, with one parent telling the panel that a petition with more than 1,100 signatures backing that option already had been sent to the School Board.
The biggest loser at the town hall? S.R. 54.
âItâs horrible. Itâs horrendous. Itâs dangerous,ââ said one speaker.
A large majority of the supporters cited traffic as their main concern, since Option 20 will keep their students from having to be transported up Meadow Pointe Blvd., and then across S.R. 54, in order to get to WCH.
No one wants to travel on S.R. 54, especially considering a widening project right in front where 54 crosses Meadow Pointe Blvd. begins in 2017.
Supporters of Options 13 and 20 were emboldened by a Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) review by Joel Provenzano.
A permits review manager and traffic engineering specialist for FDOT, Provenzano concluded that, âthe best traffic pattern for the state roads (by far) is Option 20.â
Provenzanoâs professional opinion was debated at the town hall, with some suggesting it was just that â an opinion. No official study (Provenzanoâs study was considered a courtesy) has been completed by FDOT concerning the school options and the traffic patterns.
Some Seven Oaks parents said their path to WCH, north on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. and east of S.R. 54, also would be fraught with danger. Nicholas claims the intersection of BBD and S.R. 54 has proven more dangerous than the one at Meadow Pointe Blvd. and S.R. 54.
Williams said the county typically doesnât consult with FDOT â or the Pasco Fire Department or Sheriffâs Office â when drawing its school zones.
The Multi-Student Issue
Another concern voiced at the town hall came from parents with two children in the same school. One parent who has two children in the band at WRH said the rezoning would be a logistical nightmare, since her senior-to-be would allowed to stay under grandfathering rules but her junior-to-be would be moved to WCH under Option 12.
This is a legitimate concern echoed by a number of parents during the night. Students who will be seniors next year donât have to change schools, but their siblings who are incoming freshman or rising sophomores or juniors will have to.
âFriday night is going to be very hard,ââ the mom said, as she will have one student performing in band at WRH while the other is performing at the same time at WCH.
Williams suggested at the Dec. 2 meeting that parents use school choice as the best option to keep their kids together, although there are no guarantees.
A number of band and athletic parents, as well as a few band members themselves, werenât happy about the possibility of changing schools.
Citing scholarship offers and exposure, they argued that leaving a band at WRH that finished 4th in the state for a new band that likely will not be as good was detrimental to their college hopes.
One parent was distraught that her daughter had taken all of the prerequisites for WRHâs culinary program, and now would have to attend a school that didnât have one. A WCH student was concerned that the sign language courses she had been hoping to take would not be offered at Cypress Creek. Both were also told to look into school choice.
Eva Cooper of Meadow Pointe III, who has a sophomore and a senior at WRH, lobbied for Option 20 because she claims Option 12 only kept six communities together, while Option 20 didnât split up any.
She asked why the SBC had originally decided to keep the Seven Oaks community intact at WRH, where 19 percent of the schoolâs students live, while splitting up Meadow Pointe, which has 46 percent of WRHâs students.
âWhy are we accommodating so few, and affecting so many?,ââ she asked.
Another Option 20 supporter and Country Walk resident, Tina Dosal, submitted a proposal based on maintaining the Double Branch Elementary feeder pattern. Maintaining feeder programs is one of the considerations the SBC was tasked with, but Dosal was one of the few to actually make the feeder argument.
The panel at the town hall was comprised of Williams (the director of planning), WCH principal Carin Hetzler-Nettles, area superintendent for east county Dr. Monica Isle, Ed.D, strategic initiatives and allocations program manager Kimberly Poe, area superintendent for central county Dr. David Scanga, Ed.D., assistant superintendent for support services Elizabeth Kuhn, director of transportation Gary Sawyer and county athletic director Matt Wicks.
Samantha also received the Girl Scouts Gold Award, the highest award given by that organization. When she earned it in 2016, she was the only Gold Award recipient in Pasco County that year. She says she was an active Girl Scout for 12 years, and the project to earn the award was to make Wells Rd. â where Wesley Chapel Elementary, Weightman Middle and Wesley Chapel High schools are located â safer.
Statistics compiled by the Tampa Bay Times show that in 2016, there were 39 pedestrian fatalities in Hillsborough County, and another 12 bicycle fatalities. This is down from a record year in 2015, where there were a combined 59 fatalities.
