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Officials explain, and hear about, proposed school rezoning plans in Hernando

 
Published Aug. 2, 2015

BROOKSVILLE — The eight glossy, color-coded maps handed out to parents all had the same basic goal, said Tony Akers.

They all represented strategies to put more schoolchildren into the many empty seats at Pine Grove Elementary School, West Hernando Middle School and Central High School — three schools that sit side by side in central Hernando County.

Thursday night's meeting at Central was the first chance for members of the Hernando County School District's rezoning committee, in several separate classrooms, to explain options to residents and listen to their suggestions.

"The elephant in the room is this room. You're sitting in it," said Akers, a retired police officer, a parent and a member of the rezoning committee. "We're trying to fill this building."

"But that's going to empty my gas tank," said Sharony Sheldon, 36.

The exchange demonstrated the typical conflict when school boundaries are redrawn, pitting the district's need to distribute students evenly among schools against families' firm ideas about the schools they do — or don't — want their children to attend.

For example, Sheldon's son and daughter now both attend Winding Waters K-8 School, north of Weeki Wachee.

By the time the new zones are due to go into place, at the start of the 2016-17 school year, Sheldon's daughter will be entering high school — specifically, according to the map under discussion, Central High School. And not Weeki Wachee High, which is next door to Winding Waters.

That not only would force Sheldon to repeatedly make the long drive back and forth between Central and Winding Waters, but also would interfere with her daughter's plan to help out at Winding Waters after school and come home with her younger brother.

"My daughter would lose the volunteer hours she needs to go to college," Sheldon said.

Dennis Symbal, 74, said his grandson is starting his sophomore year at Nature Coast Technical High School, where's he's enrolled in several strong programs, including engineering.

Symbal asked whether his grandson would be "grandfathered in" and allowed to stay at Nature Coast. (The answer: Nobody knows yet.)

"Where else is he going to get engineering?" asked Symbal, a retired engineer and part-time substitute teacher.

Jennifer Tontini, 37, was one of several parents who attended to speak against the most controversial plan, moving the magnet programs from Challenger K-8 School of Science and Mathematics and Chocachatti Elementary School to West Hernando and Pine Grove.

West Hernando and Pine Grove, as well as Central High, all were less than 60 percent full last school year.

Chocachatti and Challenger, on the other hand, were both over capacity, and both are in the middle of dense populations of students, meaning short drives and bus rides if they served as zoned schools.

Akers explained that the magnet programs would remain unchanged and that the same students would be allowed to attend.

But Tontini, who moved to the Sterling Hill subdivision from Pinellas County two years ago so her children could attend Challenger, said the program would not be the same in a different building.

"It's not just ... a magnet program. It's a synergy between the educators, the administrators, the facilities and the families who are all dedicated that makes it a magnet program," she said.

Committee members will take this and other suggestions and include them in the options that they present to the School Board during an Aug. 11 workshop.

Sophia Watson, the district's supervisor of adult and technical education, and one of the leaders of the committee, said resident should not be too worried about maps they saw.

The boundaries of each school's zones were outlined by solid lines, but they are far from "set in stone," Watson told the group of residents in the classroom with Akers.

"Pretend they're dotted," she said.

But the lines, which need final approval by the School Board, will firm up within a few months, said Deborah Pfenning, the district's supervisor of school choice.

For the district to inform parents and allow schools to adjust to any changes, especially if any programs are moved, the plan should be approved by fall.

Contact Dan DeWitt at ddewitt@tampabay.com; follow @ddewitttimes.