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Tampa’s Just Elementary, hurt by school choice, could close in August

Hillsborough school board members will consider the move Tuesday, along with a plan to make Carrollwood Elementary a K-8 school.
 
Students work at a laptop at Just Elementary in West Tampa, which is being considered for closure by the Hillsborough County School Board.
Students work at a laptop at Just Elementary in West Tampa, which is being considered for closure by the Hillsborough County School Board. [ Hillsborough County Public Schools ]
Published April 12, 2023

Amid delays and disagreement over its proposal to change attendance boundaries, the Hillsborough County school district wants to move ahead with two parts of the plan: starting a K-8 school in Original Carrollwood and closing West Tampa’s Just Elementary.

Just, which serves fewer than 300 students and is the district’s only F-graded school, would be “repurposed,” according to a proposal scheduled for the first of two school board votes on Tuesday.

Children who had been assigned to Just based on their addresses would attend Booker T. Washington Elementary or Tampa Bay Boulevard Elementary.

It is not clear what would become of the building that was recently rebranded “Riverwalk STEM Academy at Just Elementary” in an attempt to attract more students.

In contrast, officials have a well-defined plan, led by parents, to add a new grade every year at Carrollwood Elementary, ending with eighth grade in August 2025.

Both situations reflect the unintended consequences of school choice, which seeks to provide families with alternatives to meet their children’s needs.

At Just, about half the assigned students opt for a variety of schools that include Dunbar Magnet Elementary and the Channelside Academy of Arts and Science charter school. The school also lost much of its population with the closing of the North Boulevard Homes public housing complex.

In Carrollwood, nearly all students of middle school age avoid Adams Middle, the D-graded school to which they are assigned. Instead they attend magnet, choice, charter or private schools, a trend that prompted the idea to keep them on the Carrollwood campus through eighth grade.

While the Carrollwood proposal has strong support in the community, there is some opposition to closing urban schools such as Just, which is 83% Black.

In past discussions, school board members Henry “Shake” Washington and Karen Perez have cited national trends of closing schools in minority communities, thereby weakening those communities and educating children farther from their homes.

The NAACP, meanwhile, has raised a number of objections to Hillsborough’s broader plans to redraw school boundaries and, in the process, close several under-enrolled schools. When asked Wednesday about the Just proposal, NAACP branch president Yvette Lewis said, “We don’t know why there is a rush to close it.”

Yvette Lewis [Times (2019)]

Superintendent Addison Davis has argued for closing Just ahead of the others because its enrollment and staffing levels are too low to meet student needs. Teachers are hard to hire despite financial incentives that the district has offered, and the half-empty building designed for up to 600 students is an inefficient use of scarce resources, according to the board proposal.

“Repurposing Just Elementary will provide a better education for those students that currently attend Just by providing the students with a full teaching staff at the surrounding schools,” the document says.

To that, Lewis said, “If they want to make Just a priority to help the students, then they can.” She also said that by busing children away from their homes, the district will make it more difficult for parents to be involved in their education.

The school is named for early 20th century biologist and science writer Ernest Everett Just, who recognized the fundamental role of the cell surface in the development of organisms. The school served as a junior high, preschool and sixth grade center before it reopened as a K-5 school in 2004.

Addison Davis [ DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD | Times ]

“The teachers and staff at Just Elementary School have been nothing short of heroic for their care and dedication to your children,” Davis wrote in a letter Tuesday to parents. “Please know, all staff will remain employed, moving to open positions at other schools or district offices.”

At least four members of the school board would have to approve the plans for Just and Carrollwood. On Wednesday, three members — Perez, Washington and Jessica Vaughn — expressed reservations about the plan for Just.

However, Vaughn said she is waiting to learn more about the proposal. And Washington, although concerned about the disruption to students, said he was reassured that there are no plans to sell the building.

With so much redevelopment in West Tampa, Washington said, “they’re going to have to come back and do something else in the next few years. A lot of people are moving in.”

Perez said the development reports she has seen show the area will soon have a far greater number of homes than it lost when North Boulevard Homes closed.

“We’re growing,” Perez said. “So why is it that we’re closing down schools?”