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As first day nears, Hillsborough highlights Mort Elementary's new role as a 'community school'

 
Hillsborough County School Superintendent Jeff Eakins, center, hosts an open house at Mort Elementary School for board members, politicians and dignitaries to kick off the 2016-17 school year Monday, Aug. 8, in Tampa.  Afterward, officials held a ribbon cutting to celebrate Mort Elementary's new 'community school' status. [JAMES BORCHUCK   |   Times]

Hillsborough County School Superintendent Jeff Eakins, center, hosts an open house at Mort Elementary School for board members, politicians and dignitaries to kick off the 2016-17 school year Monday, Aug. 8, in Tampa. Afterward, officials held a ribbon cutting to celebrate Mort Elementary's new 'community school' status. [JAMES BORCHUCK | Times]
Published Aug. 9, 2016

TAMPA — Kollin Spain, 14, wants to be a U.S. Navy Seal. Paola Rioja, 17, is on her way to becoming a mechanical engineer.

Giovani Reyes, 12, wants to play middle school soccer. D'Satrius Nelson can recite his alphabet, which is appropriate because, at age 6, he is just entering first grade.

Two days before the start of the school year, Hillsborough County Public Schools superintendent Jeff Eakins introduced these and other students at a news conference with a message to the 27,000 employees now returning to work:

"We have to provide great teachers in our schools no matter where our students land on Wednesday. Every single one of these students have dreams."

The back-to-school news conference is a yearly ritual, typically taking place at a school where the district wants to showcase good news.

Officials held it at Ferrell Girls Preparatory Academy the first year that school was single-gender. They held it at Bailey Elementary the year that school raised its grade from an F to an A.

On Monday Eakins, his lieutenants and most of the School Board were at Mort Elementary, a high-poverty school in the University of South Florida area that has been selected by a state charity to become a full-service "community school."

Plans include health care and mental health counseling for students and parents to strengthen families, and cut down on the high turnover of students at the school.

While some of these services will take months or even years to arrange, the school has a parent center that will begin evening classes later this month. The classes, which will teach parents how to advocate for their children at school, will be taught in Spanish, with child care offered in a room next door.

At a ribbon-cutting for the community school, which followed the news conference, Eakins said the project can "flatten every barrier that exists for our families and our students."

For the district as a whole, Eakins described training and mentoring that teachers can receive at their own schools. And he restated his goal to have a 90 percent graduation rate by 2020.

"We know this is ambitious but certainly achievable," he said. "Why? Because our students deserve the best."

When asked about the bus system — which last year experienced long delays, frustrating parents when they tried to find their children — Eakins said, "it's an imperfect system no matter how you look at it."

But, under director Jim Beekman, he said the department has made improvements in routing, communication and other areas.

"I have tremendous confidence in what they've put in place," Eakins said. In addition to the technical upgrades, he said Beekman "is building 1,600 staff members who are advocating for kids."

Contact Marlene Sokol at (813) 226-3356 or msokol@tampabay.com. Follow @marlenesokol