Turner Elementary & Bartels Middle School aren’t actually this close together, but the Hillsborough School District will combine the two into one K-8 school for the 2014-15 school year.
Turner Elementary & Bartels Middle School aren’t actually this close together, but the Hillsborough School District will combine the two into one K-8 school for the 2014-15 school year.

By Matt Wiley & Gary Nager

New Tampa soon will be the home of the first non-magnet K-8 school in the Hillsborough County School District (HCSD), as Hilda T. Turner Elementary and Nancy Bartels Middle School are set to become one schools, just in time for the beginning of the 2014-15 school year in August.

For the past year, parents and students have gotten a small sense of what a combined campus could feel like, as Turner’s fifth graders began taking classes on the Bartels campus last school year, followed by the school’s fourth graders this school year. The schools are located next to each other off Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. at Imperial Oak Blvd. in Live Oak Preserve and are connected by a frontage road.

The controversial decision, announced to parents in a March 5 letter from Turner principal Rhonda McMahon, has stirred emotions enough that two special meetings were held for concerned parents with the newly announced principal of the future K-8 school, Jonathan Grantham Ed.D. — who will continue to be the principal of the Roland Park K-8 Magnet School for International Studies, located near the Tampa International Airport until June 9, when he takes over the newly renamed Turner-Bartels K-8 School.

However, although there always will be concerned parents, Grantham says that “overwhelming concern” was not the vibe he felt during recent meetings with about 25 parents at the Live Oak clubhouse and with more than 60 parents at Turner the same evening.

“I will start our parent committees my first day,” Grantham explains. “They will have a lot of say in how we develop the school, including helping us pick our school mascot.”

Not having any say in the decision-making process is what most parents seem to be upset about most — a message not lost on HCSD District 3 School Board member Cindy Stuart, who represents the New Tampa area on the Board.

“We’re getting some feedback on both sides – mostly parents who just want more information,” says Stuart, who also attended the meetings. “I think the biggest problem the parents have is the way the information has been disseminated to them…and I agree with them that we (the School Board) haven’t done a good job of it.”

So, why did HCSD see the need to combine the schools?

“The fifth grade at Turner, which is exploding over its capacity, was already at Bartels, which is under capacity,” Stuart explains. “The original plan was to move the 4th grade from Turner to Bartels (for 2014-15). Instead, (the Board) decided to just make it one school, under one principal, and probably five assistant principals.”

She says that if there is anyone qualified to take the top job at the new K-8 school, it’s Grantham, who earned his Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ed.D. degrees from Florida State University in Tallahassee and specializes in personnel, finance, curriculum and instruction within the K-12 environment.

“Jonathan has experience with handling the bus situation (having kindergarten-aged kids on the same buses as 8th graders) at Roland and really wants to involve the community, so I believe that this will be a phenomenal school,” Stuart says.

Meeting Grantham at the meetings has helped quell concerns for some parents.

“Mr. Grantham was very warm and welcoming,” says Diane Levin, who has two children in the second and third grade at Turner. “I felt better after meeting him. He has a clear plan in place and has done this before. If anyone understands the dynamic of running a K-8, he does.”

Grantham notes, “Kindergarten students will technically be on the same campus as 8th graders, but kindergarteners will be on the Turner campus, while the 8th graders have class in the Bartels building, and it’s a huge, spread out campus,. The interaction on campus will be almost nonexistent.

He adds, “The buses present a bigger challenge, although siblings will sit together and the bus drivers will be told to keep younger and older kids separated on the buses. There will be definite rules for where they can sit.”

The school day for all grades at Turner-Bartels will begin at 8:45 a.m. and run until 3:35 p.m.

For more information about the Turner-Bartels K-8 School, please visit SDHC.K12.fl.us. And, stay with the New Tampa Neighborhood News and NTNeighborhoodNews.com as we continue to follow this developing story.

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