HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Spend just seconds with Annelisa Damian and you’ll know the fourth grader is destined for big things.
Wednesday afternoon, the bright 10-year-old flipped through a bright red folder filled with page after page of bar graphs and charts as she worked on a school science project.
“I’m researching if different kinds of music affects your heart rate,” she said as she jotted down her hypothesis on notebook paper.
The bright 10-year-old attends Grady Elementary School in Tampa and to Annelisa, school is like family.
School is not only a place for Annelisa, the daughter of Romanian immigrants, to make friends, but it’s also a place for her to prepare for a bright future.
“I really want to be a doctor when I grow up, so I’m thinking to be a kids’ doctor,” she said.
Right now, however, she feels that goal is on shaky ground because of an effort that could shift attendance boundaries across Hillsborough County Public Schools.
“I overheard my parents talking about this boundary change, and at first, I didn’t really think much of it until my mom was stressed out,” she said.
She did her research and learned the district hopes to save money by better utilizing its campuses.
According to Superintendent Addison Davis, right now, the campuses are not in perfect balance: 24% are overcrowded, but 44% are under-enrolled.
Three separate scenarios would try to strike a better balance — in varied capacities — by sending students from the overcrowded schools to the under-enrolled campuses.
Depending on the scenario, some schools could be closed altogether to free up space for other district uses.
Others could be partially repurposed once their student counts have been reduced.
You can use this map to see how each scenario would impact each school and its enrollment.
In the most impactful scenario, known as scenario three, the district would close seven schools and send 24,000 kids to different schools. It would save the district an estimated $163 million.
Two of the three scenarios worry Annelisa and her parents.
They live near Westshore in the Westshore Palms neighbors just south of I-275.
Right now, the home falls within the boundary lines of three Grade A-rated schools: Grady Elementary, Coleman Middle School and Plant High School.
Two scenarios the district is considering would send her to lower-performing schools in the area.
All three scenarios would keep her within Grady Elementary’s boundary, but Scenario 2 would send her to Pierce Middle School and Jefferson High School.
Scenario 3 would keep her at Grady and Coleman but send her to Jefferson High.
“My mom paid this house for a specific reason — the schools. It’s a nice house too, but mostly schools, because you can’t find any house and just say, ‘This is a good house.’ You have to look at the schools, and she worked hard for that,” the 10-year-old said.
She felt she had to do something.
After learning of the district’s plans — unbeknownst to her parents — she used her iPad to email district leaders.
In that email, she made the case against the possible changes.
“All my other friends are going to stay here and go to better schools if this happens,” she said.
Wednesday night, she took things a step further.
She sat front and center at a public input session at Plant High School, where she and dozens of others held signs opposing the most impactful boundary scenarios.
Annelisa hopes the superintendent and other district leaders will keep students like her in mind.
“I hope they’ll really take it into consideration of their choice,” she said.
Though a decision is expected to be made in the coming weeks, district leaders have stressed that they are still listening and keeping their minds open.
“No minds have been made up," Superintendent Davis said after a previous public session. "We want to listen, learn, and grow to make the best decisions possible.”
Davis said the ultimate goal is improving the district and students' experiences.
He said he and other administrators could make changes to the plans based on what they hear from parents and students in the meetings.
