HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — The Hillsborough County School District says it’s moving ahead with plans to change school boundaries.
But, instead of choosing from the three scenarios that parents have been talking about for weeks now, Superintendent Addison Davis says he’s come up with his own fourth option of his own that he'll recommend to board members on Monday.
“This is a four-year rollout. A multi-year, multi-phase process,” said Davis, adding a surprise fourth scenario for redrawing school boundaries.
“Taking a number of pages from all three plans and building a hybrid model just really shows caring and understanding of who we are as Hillsborough County."
Davis says he came up with option four after listening to input from parents and students who said they wanted to slow things down.
So, none of the boundary changes will take effect until the 2023-24 school year. That, he said, gives people time to explore their options.
“We’ve got one full calendar year that our parents can take advantage of engaging in school-based tours, they can engage in school-based events. Engage in the administration and teachers to have conversations over the next year about what educational opportunity may be best for them,” Davis said.
With scenario four, rather than impacting as many as 24,000 students, “Now we will impact a little over 15,000,” the superintendent said.
The proposal still calls for repurposing some schools and shifting students to others that are underutilized.
But rising fifth, eighth graders, juniors and seniors will be grandfathered in, Davis said and given the option to stay at their current schools as long as they provide their own transportation.
The whole idea behind the boundary changes is to save the school district money. This option still does that, Davis said.
“It saves us $12.8 million annually, and it also serves as inclusive of that, or better than that it’s over $5 million in transportation,” he said.
The superintendent says there were other influences, like a steep increase in immigration from Cuba and Venezuela impacting schools in Tampa and Town n Country.
Parents can review this fourth plan on the district’s website. But many agree with Davis that the outside consultant’s options needed adjustments.
“They had not even contemplated some of these ideas,” said Christina Mattassini, a parent who spoke at Thursday’s board meeting. “Because they don’t know our district. They don’t know our schools. They don’t know our neighborhoods.”
“It’s a very important initiative that we have to take on as a school district, but I also know that there has to be sensitivity with this process because we are moving students and we are somewhat creating an internal disruption for families,” said Davis.
The superintendent plans to make his recommendation for his hybrid scenario during a school board workshop on Monday.
It’s possible, he said, that board members could come up with a fifth scenario or even revert back to one of their previous proposals.
There will be five community meetings scheduled over the next couple of weeks for parents to learn more and give their input.
Then the board is slated to make its final decision on March 9th.