With the 2025-26 school year having started on Aug. 11 for all Hillsborough County students, Pride Elementary has a new principal who has taken the helm after the retirement of former principal Paulette English.
Kirsten Meyer says it feels like “coming full circle” for her, after starting her career as a second grade teacher at Hunter’s Green Elementary (HGE) in 1998.
In fact, two teachers who are now part of the staff at Pride — Julia McKernan and Lucy Kovach — were once her students at HGE.
“It’s nice to see the growth in the community and see the love and passion that teachers have for their kids,” Meyer says. “There’s an energetic feeling and a love for learning at all of the schools in this area.”
Most recently, Meyer was assistant principal at Mitchell Elementary in South Tampa, where she served for two years. Prior to that, she was the assistant principal at Foster Elementary off of 22nd St. in North Tampa.
At Pride, she leads one of the largest schools in Hillsborough County — about 1,000 students.
“To be a first-time principal and have the responsibility to take on a school that is such a high-performing school is an honor,” Meyer says. “I know the expectation walking in. I know that I have to keep this going.”
In fact, Pride has never received any letter grade other than “A” from the State Dept. of Education in the 23 years it has received one since first opening for the 2001-02 school year.
Meyer says the staff and parents have been welcoming and supportive, and that she is excited to work with the “amazing” staff, including her experienced assistant principal, Heather Moncrief.
She says she recently learned that the school’s namesake, Dr. Richard Ford Pride, is the grandfather of Shaylia McRae, whom Meyer worked under when McRae was a regional superintendent for the county.
“It’s another personal connection,” Meyer says. “I have to live up to her namesake. This school has a tradition of high standards, so I want to make this community proud and make these teachers proud.”
Speaking a few days before school started, she said she couldn’t want for the students to come back and get the year under way.
“Pinch me,” she says. “It’s a dream come true. I couldn’t have wished for anything better.”
New Tampa’s Hillsborough County public schools continue to earn impressive grades from the Florida Department of Education, which released its 2024-25 School Grades Report earlier this month.
All but one of New Tampa’s elementary and middle schools earned an “A” grade, with Tampa Palms earning a “B” for the second year in a row, after many years of consistent A ratings.
Two New Tampa schools improved from a B to an A. Heritage Elementary earned an A after dipping to a B in 2023- 24. Turner Bartels K-8 earned an A after several years of earning Bs.
“We are so proud of everyone’s hard work,” says Heritage Elementary principal Mary Booth. “It’s a true team effort from teachers and staff, plus our students work so hard and our families are supportive.”
The six schools that maintained their A status include Chiles, Clark, Hunter’s Green and Pride elementary schools and both Benito and Liberty middle schools.
Both of New Tampa’s high schools again earned a “C” grade, as both schools have consistently, going back to 2016.
“But, we’re making growth,” says Taryn Anello, the principal at Wharton High. “Across the board, we’ve made gains in every category, and we’re on an upward trend. We’ve improved 22 points over last year.”
She says she hates for teachers, students and families to feel disheartened because the school’s grade did not improve to a B, when the students, teachers and staff are all working so hard to make gains that they hope will show up in the school’s rating.
“With the storms and the chaotic year we had, sometimes it’s a heavy lift to maintain that focus,” Anello says. “It wasn’t just the adults who went through those hardships, but our kids went through that, too.”
Even those schools that earn an A recognize that boiling so many measurements into just one letter can be problematic, and may not be representative of all of the complexities of an entire school and all of the students within it. The letter grades take into account various measurements to represent student achievement, learning gains, graduation, acceleration success and maintaining a focus on students who need the most support.
For example, Heritage lost just a slight percentage in 2023-24 and dipped an entire letter grade. “It depends on the students in front of you and their needs,” explains Booth. “We look at student learning gains, for example, but sometimes the tests don’t accurately measure the gains we’ve seen.”
Hillsborough County received an overall B grade from the state, which Hillsborough Superintendent of Schools Van Ayres said in an email to families was only one percentage point away from an overall A rating for the District.
“These achievements are a result not only of the hard work of our students, teachers, support professionals and school administrators, but also of our laser-like focus on high-quality core instruction in every classroom and intentional progress monitoring to drive these impressive results,” Superintendent Ayres said in a media release.
Congratulations to Hillsborough County, which has now opened the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-compliant outdoor playground at the new Cross Creek Recreation Center, adjacent to Pride Elementary.
Although the 16,000-sq.-ft. indoor rec center, with basketball courts, a fitness room and several multi-purpose classrooms/meeting rooms is not yet under way, the park’s new playground facilities are now open and, as you can see from the faces of the kids who came out after school at Pride ended on the day photographer Charmaine George visited, the new equipment is definitely welcome.
County officials say that up next for the outdoor portion of the new $8.7-million rec center is some much-needed shade as we head into the scorching heat of Florida’s always-early summer season.
In addition to the coverage of the playground area, Phase II of the park also will include rest rooms, a walking path, a covered pavilion and improvements to the outdoor basketball court.
At our press time, we had not heard back from the county about when the indoor rec center will begin going vertical, but the last we heard, it was expected to open this fall. — Gary Nager
Pride Elementary principal Paulette English (left) with Pride media specialist and 2024 Hillsborough County Public Schools’ Ida S. Baker Diversity Educator of the Year award finalist Suzy Tkacik in the school’s Media Center. (Photo provided by Hillsborough County Public Schools)
Among more than 200 nominations for the 2024 Hillsborough County Ida S. Baker Diversity Educator of the Year award, just four finalists were selected.
And, although she didn’t end up winning the award, one of those four standout District-wide educators/finalists was Pride Elementary media specialist Suzy Tkacik.
“Mrs. Tkacik is deserving of this recognition because she positively influences every student, teacher, support person, district worker, and visitor who comes our way,” says Pride principal Paulette English. “She is enthusiastic, creative, motivating, and kind. Because of her leadership and love for students, our Media Center is a cheerful, well-organized, welcoming environment, and always buzzing with happy students, teachers and volunteers.”
The Ida S. Baker Diversity Educator of the Year is one of three awards given out each year by the Hillsborough Education Foundation, in partnership with Hillsborough County Public Schools.
According to the Foundation’s website, the award is named after Ida S. Baker, who became the first African-American to serve as Deputy Superintendent for the Florida Department of Education (DoE), after she also was the founding principal of Cape Coral High and the first-ever Black high school principal in Lee County. Baker was known for her efforts to support diverse students and encourage academic success. After her passing in 1992, the DoE created this statewide award in her honor.
Each school in Hillsborough County may nominate one teacher who, “embodies the pioneering spirit of Ida S. Baker by going above and beyond to meet the needs of our diverse student population.”
Suzy says she loves being the media specialist at Pride, where most of the school’s families come from other countries.
“About 60 percent of our families are from India, and then we have students from China, South America, Africa, Europe, Eastern Europe and others,” she says. “I’ve gotten to meet students from all around the world.”
She says that once she meets a student, she tries very hard to remember his or her name. “We have students who have more than 20 characters in their first name alone,” she says. “I take a lot of time to learn their names and learn how to pronounce them. It matters a great deal to me.”
And then, she also makes sure that every student is represented in the Media Center’s library by the books and materials that are available to them.
She says she recently had a seven-year-old ask for a book about her home country of Jordan. Since there wasn’t one already in the library, Suzy found one to be added to the collection. When it arrived in the Media Center last week, Suzy says the girl’s eyes just lit up.
“That’s Amman!,” she says the girl exclaimed as she flipped through the pages. “That’s my city!”
Suzy says the wonderful diversity of her school has had a deep impact on her.
She thinks back to last fall, when she challenged her students to share information about the Hindu festival of Diwali on the school’s morning show. Suzy says she learned about the ways Diwali is celebrated by many of the school’s families who are from India. While it’s a common holiday to celebrate, each family has different traditions and some even have different beliefs about the origin of Diwali.
“When I get to hear their stories of their rich backgrounds, I want to soak it all in,” Suzy says. “They teach me more than anything.”
Suzy has been the media specialist at Pride since she launched her second career 15 years ago. Before that, she earned a degree in public relations and journalism. She says once her children — who are now 28, 25, and 22 — started school, she “discovered school libraries and what cool places they are” and returned to college to earn a Master of Arts (M.S.) degree in Library Information science from University of South Florida (USF).
For the last 15 years, she says she has been surrounded by fantastic educators who do an amazing job of maintaining Pride’s “A” rating year after year.
“I don’t have a degree in education,” Suzy says, “so everything I’ve learned about being an educator has been from watching my great colleagues. It’s a team effort.”
Unfortunately for the timing of our Feb. 6 New Tampa issue, Hillsborough County’s 2024 Excellence in Education Awards Gala was held on Feb. 1, after that issue went to press. The Ida S. Baker Award winner this year was Dr. Ilfaut Joseph of Jennings Middle School. The other two annual awards announced at the Excellence in Education program on Feb. 1 were the 2024 Teacher of the Year Dr. Clayton Nylund of Blake High and Instructional Support Employee of the Year Maria Ortiz of Temple Terrace Elementary
All 11 schools in New Tampa submitted a nominee in each of the three categories. But this year, Suzy was the only New Tampa nominee to be chosen as a finalist in any category. “Our amazing Mrs. Tkacik wears lots of hats and is many things to many people,” English says. “She makes every child feel special and makes everyone she works with feel valued and appreciated.”
At a June 7 meeting at Pride Elementary, (l.-r.) Pride principal Paulette English, Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera, Hillsborough School Board member Jessica Vaughn and School District director of operations Chris Farkas discussed transportation issues at Pride with about 30 concerned parents. (All Photos by Charmaine George).
District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera takes pride in his ability to organize public town hall-style meetings and bring folks together, apparently even when the city isn’t the primary focus of the meeting.
Case in point: Viera contacted District 3 Hillsborough School Board member Jessica Vaughn because a number of residents of K-Bar Ranch had contacted him about transportation issues at Pride Elementary and he felt a public meeting would help at least shed light on some of the concerns of these local residents (including some who live in the Hillsborough County-based developments of Cross Creek and Live Oak Preserve) to work on issues like buses, long pick-up and drop-off queues at Pride and the safety of the students, parents and staff at the school.
Vaughn agreed, and on June 7, about 30 Pride parents and local residents attended a meeting at the school hosted by Viera, Vaughn, Pride principal Paulette English and the director of operations for the Hillsborough School District Chris Farkas. Also on hand were Rich Reedy, the legislative aide to Hillsborough County District 2 commissioner (and Board chair) Ken Hagan, as well as the School District’s general manager for transportation Laura Hill.
The residents in attendance were mainly from a group of at least 45 Pride parents who live in the Andover Place apartments, which are located just under two miles from Pride and who had emailed Farkas because they all have to drive their children who attend Pride to school. The reason? As Vaughn explained during her opening comments, a new law passed by the state legislature dictates that students who live closer than two miles to their school are not eligible to be bused.
Vaughn also explained that the issue these parents have been experiencing is common throughout the District at many other schools. Meanwhile, Farkas said that although it is possible for the District to “charter” a bus for a specific group, “there is a huge shortage of bus drivers throughout the District. We’re about 275 drivers short right now, and we only receive about $30 million of the $64 million the District spends on transportation from the state, or about 41 cents of every dollar. The rest has to come from the District’s general fund, which is the same pot of money used to pay teachers, aides and staff.”
Farkas also noted that hiring additional drivers has been a priority for the District, but “when Pinellas County Schools pays their drivers about $4 more per hour than we do, it’s hard to attract more.”
He added, “If enough parents are willing to share the cost of that additional bus, it is possible we could at least look into it.”
Farkas also noted that Hill is responsible for the plan of how to get all bused students to and from school on time, “and we already have to drop kids off at Pride and then the driver has to go right back out and pick up the second group of kids and drop off again.” The buses also have to drop off the first set of kids at home and return to school to then drop off the second group in the afternoon, too.
“That creates another problem,” Farkas said. “If we have to have a third set of kids picked up and dropped off by that same bus, how early in the morning would the first set of kids have to be dropped off at Pride in order for all three busloads get to school on time each day?”
Parents who are driving their kids to school are not allowed to leave them there until 7 a.m., English said. And, Farkas added, “if a bus had to drop off the first ‘load’ of kids at 6:30, we would have to make sure that there was proper supervision for those kids to keep them safe. So, as you can see, it’s a logistical problem for us. It’s not an impossible one to work out, but it is an issue.”
Rec Center To Help?
County Commissioner Ken Hagan’s legislative aide Rich Reedy (far left) discusses transportation issues at Pride Elementary with members of the community at the June 7 meeting.
Reedy mentioned that he believes the new indoor county recreation center now in the planning stages adjacent to Pride would actually help with the number of parents currently queuing in line at the end of each school day once it opens — in 2024 — “because we will have additional parking over what currently is available (on a gravel parking area at Kinnan Park) at that site.” English said that the parking lot for that new rec center also would need to be available for Pride parents in the morning, or the parent queue would be even worse before school starts.
Reedy said he didn’t see why that would be a problem for the county.
“We already do a lot of co-locating with the School District at other locations,” he said. “Plus, the rec center would not be in use during school hours, so I can’t imagine that would be an issue.”
Others in attendance also wanted the panel to find ways for the county, city and school district to address speeding on KInnan St., including adding more street lights, cameras and even, possibly, a roundabout where Kinnan meets Bassett Creek Dr.
The panel also said that local residents should write to their elected state legislators — State Senator Danny Burgess and State Rep. Fentrice Driskell — to help address the two-mile-radius law and the lack of proper state funding for public schools. Viera said he feels that because of Florida’s private school voucher system, “public education has been abandoned by our state legislature.”
