Two days after a heated rezoning meeting took place on the west side of Pasco County, the first stage of east side of Pasco rezoning that will affect many students in Wesley Chapel kicked off Sept. 16 in the media center at Wesley Chapel High.
With a new grades 6-12 high school — currently referred to as GGG High — on the way, District officials are hoping the new school can alleviate the overcrowding at all of Wesley Chapel’s middle and high schools.
Wiregrass Ranch High (WRH) currently is at 153 percent of its capacity, the most in the county by far. Built for 1,633 students, WRH today has 2,495 students enrolled. It is currently operating on a 10-period school day, adopted for the 2015-16 school year, to ease overcrowding.
WRH’s primary feeder school, Dr. John Long Middle School, was built for 1,327 students but currently enrolls 1,870, or 147 percent of its capacity.
Wesley Chapel High (WCH) was built for 1,506 students, but has 1,669 enrolled, or at 111 percent of capacity, while Thomas E. Weightman Middle School has 1,186 students, or 122 percent of its 975-student capacity.
Pasco’s School Boundary Committee (SBC), with administrative representatives from every school, as well as two parents from each school, met to begin the process of drawing the boundaries for GGG, which will open in time for the 2017-18 school year on Old Pasco Rd., just south of Overpass Rd.
Chris Williams, the director of planning for the Pasco School District, is hoping things don’t become as contentious as they have in the Trinity area, where dozens of parents have railed against the School Board over plans to redraw J.W. Mitchell High’s attendance zone.
“At least here (in Wesley Chapel), (parents) may be concerned but they seem to be willing to wait to see how the process evolves and see what the committee does and evaluate then,” Williams says.
Both the high school committee and middle school committee came to the one preliminary opinion –— it makes sense to start filling in the boundary with students located in Quail Hollow West, Lexington Oaks, Grand Oaks, The Oaks, Cypress Estates, Stage Coach Enclave, Cypress Creek Town Center and Veteran’s East (the area located south of Veterans Elementary School encompassing Tampa Downs Heights, Saddlebrook Village West (Westbrook Estates), Willow Lake and Quail Hollow Village).
That would account for roughly 1,000 of the 1,200 high school students that would attend GGG next year, pulling 650 students from Wesley Chapel and 380 from Wiregrass Ranch, while also taking enough middle schoolers to relieve both John Long and Weightman.
That’s just for starters, though. The committee still has to consider socio-economic balance, maintaining feeder patterns, future growth in certain areas (especially in Wiregrass Ranch), transportation and subdivision integrity.
The committee came up with 3-4 other options, as it also has been tasked with helping to relieve crowding at Sunlake High and Charles S. Rushe Middle School in nearby Land O’Lakes.
GGG is being built at a cost of $65-million on 100 acres of land bought by the county 10-11 years ago., Williams said.
“We receive impact fees for new houses, so for every new regular single family house, that brought the district just under $5,000 (per home),’’ Williams says. “On average, that’s $9.5-million per year, so you can see to get to $65 million takes a few years.”
The School District generally looks for 60-70 acres of land for new schools, so Williams says there is plenty of additional space to build a middle school (and maybe even an elementary school) on the site in the future, although there currently is no timetable for building those schools.
The SBC will hold its next meeting on Thursday, September 29, at WCH’s media center from 10:30-1 p.m., and a third meeting is scheduled for Thursday, October 20.
A meeting for parents to debate the SBC’s recommendations will be held at WCH on Tuesday, November 29, with the SBC meeting on Friday, December 2, to discuss feedback from the parent’s meeting
The SBC will determine if any changes are needed before forwarding the proposed GGG boundaries to the School Board for a January vote.
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