HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — At Tuesday’s Hillsborough County school board meeting, leaders discussed the district’s latest growth management plan.
“I think it’s so important that we look at the growth,” said board member Nadia Combs at Tuesday’s meeting.
This information helps determine future school site locations, the timing of building those new schools and general future district needs.
The report highlighted South County as having the fastest-growing communities in areas like Wimauma, Apollo Beach, Lithia and Plant City.
“South County, Southeast County is dramatically changing,” said school board member Lynn Gray at Tuesday’s meeting.
“It’s showing us that there’s an offset, and things are changing in the urban core,” said Combs.
The growth management plan shows that overall enrollment in non-charter schools has increased.
According to the data, four elementary schools, two middle schools and six high schools were reported as operating at or over capacity this school year.
The district’s five-year work plan includes $74,765,794 earmarked for new student capacity.
Staff continues to identify new school sites and acquire property to meet future growth needs. Multiple properties have been purchased since 2020.
But now, board members want to see even more data moving forward with a district-by-district breakdown, detailing which areas aren’t growing as quickly and seeing if that could lead to under-enrollment.
“In District 1, there are pockets where when I go out there and I talk to principals, they worry because the cost is so expensive. Are young families able to move in there and actually send their children to the elementary schools?” said Combs.
“The number of students and kids that are in houses in Fishhawk are not the same as in urban cores, as it is in Westshore,” said Deputy Superintendent of Operations Chris Farkas at Tuesday’s meeting.
Leaders discussed the fact that they may have to get creative in the future to address the uneven growth areas, which could include closing more schools, repurposing schools and more boundary changes down the line.
“What does that projection look like in five years, and how are we going to react to that? We definitely are going to close schools, repurpose schools, change things, do things differently,” said Combs. "We keep talking about it, but if we really look at it district by district, I think it’s going to give us the better accurate idea of what the growth looks like and where we need to build schools and where we need to start thinking outside the box of schools and kind of getting ahead of that."
In the meantime, officials are waiting to see how the most recent boundary changes impact students as they go into effect this upcoming school year.
“What are the schools going to look like in August, in September? We’ve talked about it. The enigma that goes in with the boundary changes, where are those kids going to go? Are they going to go to their assigned school? Are they going to choose to go to a charter?” said Farkas.
“Did it work to move those boundary shifts? What can we learn from that?” he added.
