Overcrowding is currently being felt by several schools in the Hernando County School District. In the recent past, several new schools were built which had to be filled with students. When they first opened the schools, the district boundaries covered a large area. Now, some of these new schools are feeling the effects of a large district boundary. Shrinking these boundaries to a reasonable size will ease overcrowding.
The Hernando County School Board has been considering redistricting in order to alleviate overcrowding at Winding Waters K-8, Weeki Wachee High School and Suncoast Elementary School while maximizing capacity at Pine Grove Elementary, West Hernando Middle School and Central High School. The Board recently directed a team to evaluate overcrowding and possible solutions. After listening to the team’s presentation and considering their options at the March 17th Workshop, the Board decided to hold off on any redistricting for another year. They will look at the issue again at the end of the 2015-2016 school year. The Board felt that a broader redistricting plan was necessary in order to work out busing inefficiencies as well as take into account potential growth on the east side of the County.
Debbie Pfenning, Supervisor of School Choice, told the Board that Winding Waters K-8, Suncoast Elementary and Weeki Wachee High School are filled to over 95% capacity without portables. Central High School, Pine Grove Elementary and West Hernando Middle are at under 60% capacity.
She explained that overcrowded schools are experiencing problems such as having to create overflow classes, storage rooms converted to office space and lack of space for computer based testing labs. Also a third student pick-up areas have been created through staff parking lots.
At Weeki Wachee High School, drop off lines back up onto US 19, creating an unsafe situation. Long lunch lines often cause students to miss out on class-time. There is a lack of supervision in general as well as a lack of computers for testing. They also experience too many buses in the bus loop.
At Suncoast Elementary, there are only 2 computer labs for 52 classes to share. They have a limited special education staff that is having difficulty in accommodating the greater number of students.
At Weeki Wachee, Suncoast and Winding Waters, school choice has been terminated but previously enrolled school choice students are allowed to continue at the school. However 27 students at Suncoast who enrolled through No Child Left Behind Act will not be able to continue their education at Suncoast Elementary.
Using Hernando County growth and birth rates, J. Lisle Bozeman,Manager of Planning and Grant Development predicts that Weeki Wachee High School, Winding Waters K-8, and Suncoast Elementary School could experience over 100% capacity by the year 2020.
Sean Arnold director of Maintenance, Facilities and Security says portables is not the most viable solution to the overcrowding situation. The cost of installing 2 portables at Winding Waters K-8, Weeki Wachee High School and Suncoast Elementary would be roughly $371,000. Infrastructure needs to be put in place which is very costly. Space is a limiting factor at these schools and there is a possibility that they would have to take up a portion of the playfield area at one location. At another school they would have to utilize a drainage retention area, which would have to be raised above the water level.
Several potential redistricting options were presented to the school board which took into consideration the least impact to students, surrounding school boundaries and proximity to receiving schools.
Transportation Director, Doug Compton indicated that between 2 and 4 additional bus routes would have been required with costs between $80,000 and $160,000.
School Board Members were sympathetic to the problems that schools are facing with overcrowding. However, all expressed their desire to create a more comprehensive solution to the problem.
School Board Member Beth Naverud pointed out that the number of Full Time Equivalent (FTE) students is currently falling and is projected to continue to drop even though several schools are reaching capacity. She questioned whether they would be putting a bandaid on a situation that needs a more complete redisticting plan.
Dave Dannemiller, Principal of Winding Waters K-8 responded stating that he understands that with an overall FTE that is expected to drop yet schools that are close to full capacity, they are in a difficult situation. Addressing the Board Mr. Dannemiller stated, “I can assure you that at Winding Waters K-8, we and our staff and our students have to deal with a capacity issue that honestly is not as I see an equitable opportunity that other children and other families might receive in a school that has the space to do things. Why continue dealng with the numbers they have when…neighboring schools have space available.” When he was Principal at Pinegrove Elementary, he had to deal with overcrowding, but overcrowding was across the board at the time.
Mr. Johnson stated that according to Future Land Use Map and projections from the County presented to them, growth in next 5 years would be occurring in the Spring Hill Area as well as the east side of the County. He questioned if it would it make more sense to look at the district as a whole in considering a redistricting plan.
Vice Chairman of the School Board Matt Foreman realizes that everybody wants continuity for their child and believes that is completely understandable. However he further explained, “I start with the premise that we are 8 million dollars short and I look at what we are talking about, at potential cost increases…if we are looking at impacting as many schools as we are and as many students, I would want to look at redistricting on a larger scale. He explained that “micro-districting” would hurt students in the long run since it is costly and they would be forced to eliminate programs. He pointed out that any redistricting plan should start out examining how to minimize transportation costs throughout the whole district.
“For a long time we’ve never been able to just do a redistricting, we carve out partial solutions to partial problems. We really need to get away from that” stated School Board Member Susan Duval. However she realizes it is easier said than done, continueing, “At the same time it’s easy to say let’s look at the entire school district and just start over again, but it’s going to be most difficult because instead of irritating 50 people, we’ll irritate 5000 people by doing this potentially.” Despite this, her goal is for parents and students to be confident in any Hernando County School. “I want parents to believe in all of our schools. We should be proud of all of them. I look at this as a long term opportunity to perhaps set things straight and do the very best that we can to guide this district not only now, but into the future.”
Ms. Naverud cited schools in Pasco County which are currently operating at over 100%. Since they are navigating through this problem, she believes Hernando County schools can operate slightly under full capacity for another year until they are able to get a more comprehensive redistricting underway.
The School Board directed Dr. Lori Romano, Superintendent of Schools to further investigate an overall long term comprehensive redistricting plan. She emphasized the importance of teamwork in tackling the continued high capacity in certain schools for the next year. She stated, “What I would like to do is for our team to get back together to talk about how to handle this issue for the 2015-2016 school year. The principals are going to need help and support in making it through this upcoming year…As we go forward in this process we are going to need all of the help and support we can get.”