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Pinellas considers closing schools
Kailey Tracy reports.
LARGO, Fla. - Nearly 4,000 fewer students are enrolled in Pinellas County public schools this year compared to last.
Due to that drop, and the predicted population of school-aged kids in the county remaining flat, school leaders said they’re forced to make long-term changes.
READ: Homeschooling on the rise in Florida as families leave public schools
"Let me be clear, the potential recommendations will involve school closures in all likelihood," Pinellas County Schools Superintendent Kevin Hendrick told the school board at a workshop on Tuesday.
Big picture view:
The recommendations Hendrick is talking about will be shown to the school board in January, and some of the changes could go into effect next school year. Those January recommendations won’t include rezoning.
"Of course, it's unsettling to people, because they're hearing about it for the first time," Laura Hine, the chairperson for the Pinellas County School Board, said. "We are not hearing about it for the first time. Pinellas County Schools has a demographer on staff. These are things that we follow so that we make sure we are meeting the needs of our current community, and our current community’s size is changing, and so, because we know it's here to stay, we have to respond to that change."
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Dig deeper:
Dropping enrollment in public schools is something school leaders said districts across the country are dealing with.
Pinellas County Schools said enrollment in every grade has dropped this school year compared to last, with kindergarten dropping about nine percent. District staff told the school board on Tuesday that one of the reasons is because more families are moving out of the county and fewer are moving in, because the cost of living has increased, and their incomes haven’t.
"Part of it is very likely an increase in the cost of housing in Pinellas County," said Marshall Touchton, the disitrict's planning coordinator. "It has gotten more expensive to live in Pinellas County, but there's not been a corresponding increase in family income to match it."
"Unless income goes up or housing prices go down, that is unlikely to change in the near future, and that's part of why the projections show that not a lot of increase there," Touchton said.
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The birth rate for school-aged kids has decreased too, Touchton noted. It’s also forecast to be flat for the next few decades.
"What we know is that 15 years ago, Pinellas County was having 10,000 babies, and now we're having 6,000 babies. So, you know, fewer children. Now, this is not unique to Pinellas County. This is something we're seeing statewide, we're seeing nationally, just the youth population is getting smaller. People are having fewer children," Hine said. "I think compounding the problem here in Pinellas County is absolutely the raising housing prices and, really, our income is rather stagnant."
"We were a district of 100,000 students, and now we're settling in a district of 65, 70,000. That is a big difference. And so, we do have to look at the brick and mortar, but even if we were to consolidate, maybe and shift those brick and mortars, what I want people to know for sure is that Pinellas County schools will remain about excellence, about student experience, and about opportunity and still the best option for education," Hine said.
The other side:
Unlike other districts in the state, Hine says they haven’t seen a significant impact from families using state vouchers to go to private schools instead of public.
"We actually have a net gain of students coming from private and from home school to our public schools versus the other way around," Hine said. "So, as of right now, we don't see that as the significant impact. It really is both the birth rate, the housing costs and the stagnant income, and young families just not affording to live here."
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What they're saying:
Staff said as they make recommendations, they’ll look at site capacity, building use, improvements a building may need, enrollments at individual schools, community development data in neighborhoods where schools are located and public private partnerships to expand how the buildings are used.
"It has to, as recommendations are brought forward to the board, need to take into consideration that long-term impact of where this county and where this district will be going into the future," said Jennifer Dull, the district's chief operations officer.
"We have excellence in programming across our district, but as we look to in the forward thinking and forward planning, our declining enrollment has to be a part of what we are looking at and how we're strategizing while also ensuring excellent options, excellent programs, schools of excellence all across our district," Dull said. "We want to also ensure that there is access to high quality programs regardless of the zip code or where a student lives."
What's next:
They’re planning focus groups and community meetings for the public to voice their input.
"We're trying to do it in a phased approach, so that people have the time to engage around them and also, just like the communication and transparency, priorities that we hear from stakeholders through engagement over the next, not just in the next several months, but over the time period as recommendations are being made forward for how Pinellas County Schools will move forward," Dull said.
District staff also noted at the workshop on Tuesday that Pasco County had 1,200 fewer students than Pinellas last year, but supports 33 fewer schools. Polk had 28,000 more students than Pinellas last year and has five fewer schools.
Nothing has been decided yet. The board will have to vote on any changes.
The Source: This story was written with information provided by Pinellas County Schools.