5 Things That Have Changed As New Tampa Students Head Back To School

With students throughout Hillsborough County now back to school for the 2018-19 school year the same day this issue is scheduled to arrive in your mailbox, there are many changes that make this school year different from last. Here are five things that are new since your students were on campus last spring:

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office deputies went through intensive “active shooter” training this summer in preparation for the new school year. (HCSO Twitter)

 

1. School Security
In the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High shooting on Valentine’s Day of this year, a new state law requires armed security on every public school campus.

While the law has changed, it won’t appear much different from what’s already been in place on most New Tampa public school campuses.

Freedom and Wharton high schools, Benito and Liberty middle schools and Turner/Bartels K-8 school will continue to have a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) deputy or Tampa Police Department (TPD) officer on campus.

At our area’s six elementary schools, one TPD officer or HCSO deputy will be assigned to each school. Previously, one officer served multiple campuses.

While it is planned to have an armed school security officer at every elementary school, employed by Hillsborough County Public Schools, the school district says it will take time to hire and train the necessary personnel, so elementary school campuses will have law enforcement officers from the local agencies to “fill that temporary gap and ensure the safety of our schools,” according to a statement provided by the Hillsborough School District.

What may be different, though, is the fear felt by parents as they send their kids back to school.

Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) International is a national professional organization for educators that has surveyed attitudes toward public education every year since 1969. This year’s poll finds that one in three parents fear for their child’s physical safety at school. PDK describes that as, “a sharp increase from 2013, when just 12 percent said they were fearful.”

Wendy Arroyo, whose two children attend Wharton and Benito, says she believes the school campuses are safe but, in the back of her mind, “There’s always a little bit of fear that something might happen today,” she says. “Unfortunately, that’s the reality that we live in now.”

Local principals say their campuses are continually monitored for safety and improved as opportunities are recognized, with some improvements being provided by the district and some coming out of school budgets.

“We have always tried to secure our campus in every way, shape and form, from every angle,” says Benito principal John Sanders. He and other local principals say they continue to do that on an ongoing basis.

 

2. Bell Times
Every school in New Tampa has a new schedule this year. Elementary schools start at 7:40 a.m. and finish at 1:55 p.m., middle schools start at 9:25 a.m. and finish at 4:20 p.m., and high schools start at 8:30 a.m. and finish at 3:25 p.m.
The biggest change is at Turner/Bartels K-8 School, which starts at 7:40 a.m. and finishes at 2:35 p.m. this year.
Last year, Turner/Bartels’ school hours were 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“It’s a huge change for our families,” says principal Cindy Land. “It’s bittersweet. Parents are excited because their younger kids will be able to participate in after-school activities, but older kids are used to the later (start and end) times.”

Parents of students at all schools are making changes in their routines to accommodate the new schedules. Elementary and middle schools have before- and after-school care, called HOST (Hillsborough Out of School Time) to help working parents who need to drop off or pick up their children outside of their school’s hours.

“Drop off doesn’t happen until 9 a.m. now,” explains Benito principal Sanders. “HOST starts at 7 a.m., but if you’re not in HOST, you can’t walk in or be dropped off until 9 a.m.”

 

3. Newly Assigned Schools
A major boundary shift has happened, with students living in several New Tampa neighborhoods heading to different schools this fall. Students living in Cory Lake Isles and Arbor Greene who previously attended Pride Elementary have been reassigned to Hunter’s Green Elementary (HGE).

School records show that, as of the end of July, 250 students are now enrolled at HGE who were previously at Pride. Many students who were reassigned from Pride were given the opportunity to stay there using the school district’s “school choice” applications. The number of students who chose to do that will not be available until after school starts.

“People are very excited,” says HGE principal Gaye Holt. “It’s been a very positive transition.”
Meanwhile, residents of the Morgan Creek apartments neat I-75, who were previously assigned to HGE, have been reassigned to Clark, which is a couple of miles closer to Morgan Creek residents.

Residents of K-Bar Ranch and Addison Park apartments in Cross Creek have been moved from Heritage to Pride.
More than 550 students who were bused to Clark and HGE from the area surrounding the University of South Florida now attend schools in their own neighborhoods, which created space at both HGE and Clark to accept students from Pride and make room for the expected growth in K-Bar Ranch.

4. Fewer Buses, More Cars?
Expect to see a few less school buses on the roads in New Tampa for the 2018-19 school year, as many students have been reassigned to schools closer to their homes. Hillsborough County Schools doesn’t provide buses to students who live less than two miles from their assigned school.

Hunter’s Green has prepared for the change – with just four school buses on campus this year, compared to 10 last year – by doing some construction to accommodate the expected increase in car traffic and those students who will be walking and biking.

Drop-off and pick-up car line traffic will now enter HGE via Cross Creek Blvd. A new roadway circle that accommodates cars two-deep was constructed to aid in the lineup of traffic, especially for the afternoon pick-up line.
Designed to minimize traffic impacts along Cross Creek Blvd., Principal Gaye Holt says the new path is expected to accommodate 110 vehicles in the car line at once.

 

5. Wharton’s “New” Principal
A new principal who is a familiar face to many locals has taken the helm at Wharton High, which suffered some negative publicity last year about student safety at the school.

Mike Rowan was the principal at King High on N. 56th St. until he officially became the principal at Wharton on July 1.

Rowan is a resident of Pebble Creek and a parent of a student who graduated from Wharton this past spring. When the school first opened in 1997, becoming New Tampa’s first high school, Rowan was a social studies teacher and soccer coach. In 2006, he was named assistant principal for administration (APA) at Wharton. He served in that capacity for five years before being named the principal at King.

Six New Tampa Public Schools Earns ‘A’ Grades For The Second Straight Year

School grades for the 2017-18 school year were released by the Florida Department of Education on June 27, and New Tampa’s schools continue to perform well.
Considering just the letter grades, all of the schools in New Tampa received the exact same grade as the previous year.

“The grades remained as they were,” says Anna Brown, Ph.D., the area superintendent for Hillsborough County Public Schools. Dr. Brown, who oversees all of New Tampa’s public schools, says, “We had no declines, but, within those grades, many schools actually increased their grade point, turning out an even stronger A.”
One such school was Chiles Elementary in Tampa Palms, which has had an A rating every year since opening in 2001. Principal Terri Evans says this year’s scores may be the highest ever achieved at the school.

“We have 32 points more than we had last year,” says Evans. “We had a big jump in learning gains and in the bottom quartile, and we’re especially excited about that.”

School letter grades are based on the compilation of individual scores on statewide tests, called Florida Standards Assessments (FSAs), at each grade level.
Learning gains describe how much each individual student gained from one year’s test to the next, and the bottom quartile describes the students who scored the lowest on their FSAs at the school.

“I think a letter grade is a bit of an overgeneralization,” Evans continues, “but I also think that to maintain that A every year, we have to be a really great school in a lot of ways. I’m hopeful that it reflects all that we do — that we have that kind of a school where kids want to go to school and learn and families want to be involved.”

The area’s other A schools are Clark, Pride and Tampa Palms elementary schools, and Benito and Liberty middle schools.
Turner/Bartels K-8 School earned a B, while four schools earned a C: Heritage and Hunter’s Green (HGE) elementary schools, as well as both of our area’s high schools, Freedom and Wharton.

While the consistency in grades is encouraging for the schools that continue to earn As, those that earned Cs are once again disappointed.

“For as hard as we work and what a wonderful school we have,” says HGE principal Gaye Holt proudly, “the letter grade doesn’t show what everyone expects of us.”
Dr. Brown agrees. “School grades are created by the state, with their definition of one way to categorize schools,” she says. “When you walk on the campuses, the grade of C is not reflective of the quality of teaching in each classroom or the quality of the relationships we have with our students and families.”

Despite some high-profile challenges at Wharton High, Dr. Brown says she is encouraged that its letter grade did remain the same, and didn’t drop.
She says that all of the schools in New Tampa have many very high-achieving students and excellent teaching and that all of our area schools are positioned well to provide excellent service to the students of New Tampa.

“The bottom line is, this is how we’re measured,” says Dr. Brown, “so we need to dig in and make sure we’re meeting every student’s needs at their individual level.”

Parents of Hillsborough County public school students who want to view their child’s FSA scores, including FSA End of Course exams, can view them at https://testscores.sdhc.k12.fl.us.

The complete DOE report is online at FLDOE.org/accountability/accountability-reporting/school-grades/.

563 Pride Students To Move To Hunter’s Green

The School District plans to move students who live in Arbor Greene & Cory Lake Isles to Hunter’s Green Elem. for 2018-19 school year 

**Please note — This story had to be updated after we went to press (on March 17) with our March 24 New Tampa issue. The information about which students the Hillsborough County School District planned to move wasn’t made available to the public or the media until March 21st.

On Thursday, March 30, 6 p.m., officials from Hillsborough County Public Schools will meet with parents at Benito Middle School (10101 Cross Creek Blvd.) to discuss proposed changes to attendance boundaries.

The affected schools will include Pride, Heritage, Hunter’s Green and Clark elementaries. These changes will not take effect for next school year (2017-18), but the following year, starting in August 2018.

Plans outlining the proposed new boundaries were released on the school district’s website on March 21 and are now available at http://www.sdhc.k12.fl.us/doc/251/growth-management/resources/boundary/.

The biggest change in the proposed boundaries is that the students from the University area who currently are being bused into Hunter’s Green and Clark are being reassigned to neighborhood schools closer to their residences to make room for expected growth – about 1,500 homes – in K-Bar Ranch.

Then, the boundaries of the four schools along Cross Creek/New Tampa Blvd., are being adjusted to balance attendance at those schools.

In the proposal, 563 students who live in Arbor Greene and Cory Lake Isles who currently are assigned to Pride will be re-assigned Hunter’s Green, says Lorraine Duffy Suarez, Hillsborough County Public Schools’ general manager for growth management. “We’re changing a lot of students, and I understand that,” Duffy Suarez says. “They have a lot of pride in their Pride, but Pride can’t hold all the students who are going to come there.”

She says moving so many students should give the affected students a measure of reassurance. “The whole neighborhood is moving,” she explains. “You’re going to a different school, but you’re taking 562 of your friends with you. It’s like a big chunk of Pride is now going to be called Hunter’s Green.”

She explains that, while it may be uncomfortable for those who are affected, the change is needed. “We monitor growth, and we know how much growth is coming, and we have to accommodate it,” she says. “Pride was built on land that we bought from K-Bar Ranch. The school was sited there because we knew that development was coming. Now is the time.”

School grades for last year, which are based on test scores, rank Pride and Clark as A schools, Heritage as a B, and Hunter’s Green as a C. For those families moving from Pride to Hunter’s Green, Duffy Suarez says, “You’re not moving from an A school to a C school, you’re taking your A school with you.”

Another proposed change is that students who are residents of the Morgan Creek apartments, just north of the Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. exit off I-75 will move from Hunter’s Green to Clark, which affects assignments for 187 students.

Students who live in most of K-Bar Ranch, who currently are assigned to attend Heritage, will move to Pride. This affects 154 students. Some students who move into areas of K-Bar Ranch that are not yet built, along with students in Easton Park, will remain at Heritage.

Duffy Suarez explains these numbers are not exact. “These are the numbers of students who are assigned to (those) schools,” she says. “Not every kid we assign to a school actually goes there.” Some students attend magnet, charter, or private schools, or are homeschooled.

Jason Pepe, chief community relations officer for Hillsborough County Public Schools, encourages all parents and interested community members to visit a special webpage that’s been set up with frequently asked questions regarding the changes that are happening in New Tampa and surrounding areas. It is available at sdhc.k12.fl.us/doc/1831/universityfaqs.

“The purpose of the FAQs is to be transparent,” says Pepe. “We have shared everything we know at this point and we really want to get this information to as many people as possible.”

Comments from parents and the community will be accepted at the meeting on March 30, as well as via email.

Duffy Suarez explains that the meeting will be “open house” style. “We have tables and stations set up for people to ask questions,” she says. “For example, if you’re being changed, you can go talk to the principal of the school you’re moving to.”

She says they’ll have maps set up, and she and her colleagues will be there to explain the maps to those who attend.

There also will be staffers on hand at the meeting who can answer questions about the process for choosing a different school, rather than their assigned neighborhood school.

“Our purpose in this meeting is to hear from (people who are affected by the changes),” Duffy Suarez says. “We will take written comments, and then we (will) come back and sort through it. We can’t make everyone who doesn’t want to move not move, but we will review comments and rationale and can make changes to the proposals.”

Plans outlining the new proposed school boundaries were released on the school district’s website at sdhc.k12.fl.us on March 21 (after we went to press with our latest issue, hitting mailboxes Friday).

These proposed changes will not take effect for next (the 2017-18) school year, but the following year, starting in August 2018.

“It’s important to recognize that these changes are (only) proposed,” says Pepe. “All boundary changes have to be approved by the School Board.”

Comments from parents and the community will be accepted at the meeting on March 30, as well as via email. Changes may be made based on that input before a final recommendation is made by school superintendent Jeff Eakins to the seven-member School Board.

The School Board is expected to consider the proposed recommendation – including any changes made as a result of comments from the community – at its meeting on Tuesday, May 16.