HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — The second round of community meetings begins Monday for the Hillsborough County School District.
This will be another opportunity for families to view the latest information on the attendance boundary analysis and speak to school and project leaders.
There will be five total meetings from 6:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
- Monday, February 20
- King High School, 6815 North 56th St., Tampa
- Mulrennan Middle School, 4215 Durant Rd., Valrico
- Wednesday, February 22
- Webb Middle School, 6035 Hanley Rd., Tampa
- Thursday, February 23
- Madison Middle School, 4444 W. Bay Vista Ave., Tampa
- Chamberlain High School, 9401 N. Blvd., Tampa
These meetings come after Superintendent Addison Davis presented his recommendation to the school board last week.
Now it may be back to the drawing board for Davis, and his staff as Hillsborough County Public Schools looks to adjust its school attendance boundaries in an effort to save money.
In a workshop meeting last Monday, Davis threw his support behind the scenario he thought best when it comes to readjusting schools and those who attend them.
Out of four potential options, he endorsed scenario four. It's an option he said reduces the number of schools that would be impacted, reduces transportation costs, and increases savings within the district of more than $14 million dollars.
Under plan four, beginning in the 2024-2025 school year, Davis said about 15,000 assigned students will be reassigned to a new school boundary. Six schools would be fully repurposed.
After weeks of hearing concerns and complaints from parents about the other three scenarios, scenario four attempted to strike a compromise, but not everyone was satisfied.
“It's not just, 'Oh, I'm upset about a school change. "This is a family legacy that we want to continue,” said Ashley Foxworth, who has a first grader.
Under the new plan, she said her son’s future high school would change.
"Nobody, superintendent or not, should shift that trajectory because of money or under-utilization, whatever you would like to call it. Parent choice in public schools is still parent choice,” said Foxworth.
During a lengthy Monday workshop, board members also expressed various frustrations and concerns with scenario four and the process as a whole.
Board member Jessica Vaughn said scenario four does not do enough to address inequities felt by minority students and said the entire process should be slowed and, at least, partially restarted.
“I don’t know if it has to be brand new, but certainly approaching it from a new angle where we’re open to new ideas, and there’s more engagement," she said in an interview with ABC Action News. “As of today, I would probably vote no to move forward with this plan, personally.”
Board member Karen Perez also expressed a desire for change before the district moves forward.
“For me right now, neither one, two, three, or four scenario is, for me, effective for our students or their parents," she said.
Before it earns her support, she said any new scenario would need to prove equitable for minority students. It would also need to consider the feelings and needs of teachers, account for busing and transportation issues that reassignments could create, include better mental health services for students, and earn buy-in from the parents.
She also said she has outstanding questions that Davis and his staff have yet to answer.
“For me, it’s kind of rushed. Normally, the policy states that we should have a year to accomplish this," she said. “Go back to the drawing board, but also, you know, bring in, you know, valuable voices from the community.”
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Board member Henry "Shake" Washington also spoke against scenario four. While he said the process is moving in the right direction, he, too, voiced concerns about the scenario's perceived inequities.
“I oppose the way it is now," he said.
Other members, including Nadia Combs, suggested the scenario isn't aggressive enough to improve the district's finances as Hillsborough County grows and the district aims to increase its per-pupil funding. While she said she would support scenario four, if necessary, she suggested the district might need a fifth scenario.
"Something must be done," she reminded her colleagues. "It is just not sustainable to do nothing at this time."
To that end, member Lynn Gray said she would like to see a hybrid of scenarios two and four, which would blend the cost-savings sought in two with the school closures/repurposings called for in four. Gray, however, also said more time and deliberation is needed.
“This board is not ready," she said.
Member Patti Rendon, meanwhile, voiced concerns about how scenario four would impact her district, District 4, which includes rapidly-growing communities in eastern Hillsborough County. There, many schools are approaching capacity.
"With any of these scenarios, we are still going to be over capacity on almost all of our schools in District 4," she said. "That's a problem."
Board member Stacy Hahn told Davis she appreciates scenario four, which, unlike previous scenarios, keeps some of her constituents — who waged a fight against scenarios two and three — in the schools they were originally zoned to attend.
While board members reached little consensus in the workshop, they did generally agree on one thing: they want to hear from more parents before making a decision.
Many parents are now left feeling uncertain about the future with all the back and forth.
“It’s just every day we feel like we got a win, and then we feel like we got a loss so. Again, everything is up in the air," said parent Shawn Boyle.
