Pasco County Schools has taken on an ambitious construction schedule that will result in significant changes for thousands of students across Central and East Pasco County in the next few years.
Projects now underway will result in reopening Quail Hollow Elementary School in Wesley Chapel and Sanders Memorial Elementary School in Land O’ Lakes next year.
(B.C. Manion/Staff Photo)
Quail Hollow will have enclosed classrooms, updated building systems and new technology, said John Petrashek, director of construction services for Pasco County Schools. The technology will be the same as any new elementary school in the district.
Quail Hollow also will be larger.
The district is adding eight classrooms there to accommodate 160 additional students, increasing the total capacity to 800.
The additional space at Quail Hollow will result in a boundary change to bring more students there, said Chris Williams, director of planning for Pasco County Schools. Sanders will be a magnet school for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.
The school will not have boundaries and it will enroll its students through the district’s School Choice program.
The district does want to reduce crowding at Oakstead and Connerton elementary schools, so students from those schools likely will be given a higher priority for admission to Sanders.
The district has been working for months on the design for High School GGG, which is slated to open in August 2017 on the west side of Old Pasco Road near Overpass Road. The school will have a capacity of 1,900 students.
“It’s going to be built as a high school,” Petrashek said, but it will open serving students beginning in sixth grade.
The new school will affect existing boundaries for Wiregrass Ranch and Wesley Chapel high schools, as well as Weightman and Long middle schools, Williams said.
“We don’t have the money to build the full middle school and the full high school. This will provide us relief,” he said. “Then, as the population continues to grow, and the demand is there, we’ll build a full-blown middle school next door to it.”
“We have it master planned and master designed for both,” Petrashek said.
The site is a couple hundred acres, so it can easily accommodate a high school and a middle school, Williams said. And the district also is planning to add some other district facilities there as well.
Middle School HH, which will eventually be built there, is not yet included on a district timetable because no funding is yet available, Petrashek said. The school is being designed with two large classroom buildings, with one to be used by middle school students, and the other to be used by high school students.
They’ll share the cafeteria and athletic facilities, but there will be separate locker rooms for the younger and older students, Petrashek said.
The school will operate much like a school within a school, with one principal overseeing assistant principals who specialize in high school and middle school students.
The district also is planning to add an elementary school, known as Elementary School B, on land within a new residential development, Bexley Ranch, now beginning to take shape near State Road 54 and the Suncoast Parkway in Land O’ Lakes, Williams said.
“That’s going to be a huge reliever for Oakstead and Odessa elementary,” Williams said.
Unlike other district elementary schools, which have been designed for 762 students, Elementary School B could be built to accommodate nearly 1,000 students, he said, although that approach is still in the discussion phase.
The district is looking at opening that school in 2017.
Elementary W, another school planned to open in August 2016, would be built next to Long Middle not far from which is next to Wiregrass Ranch High, and Pasco-Hernando State College’s Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch. The school aims to reduce crowding at Double Branch and Sand Pine elementary schools, as well as provide some relief for Seven Oaks Elementary School, Williams said.
“Seven Oaks really popped this year,” he said.
The relief for Seven Oaks may involve sending some of those students to Sand Pine or shifting them to Elementary W, Williams said, noting its not yet clear what path officials will take.
“In the future we’ll have a school in the Northwood development,” he said. “That’s south of Seven Oaks. Ultimately, that’s going to provide the relief for Seven Oaks.”
While the district looks ahead to these projects, it also has completed work on a number of improvements in other schools.
The new gym at Stewart Middle School in Zephyrhills was finished at the end of last school year just in time for the eighth-grade graduation exercises, Petrashek said. But students are just now getting full use of the new facility.
“It’s still brand new,” Petrashek said.
The renovation of the weight room and locker rooms at Zephyrhills High School also is now complete, Petrashek said. Crews completed the renovation of the school clinic at Cox Elementary School in Dade City over the summer.
“It was simply outdated. It wasn’t functioning, so we redid that,” Petrashek said.
Now, the district is working on the design for a $5 million construction project at Cox that will add a new cafeteria and improve parking and the drop-off loop, Petrashek said, which could be completed by August 2016.
The district also is at the design stage of a campus renovation project at Pasco Elementary School in Dade City. The project, expected to be completed by August 2016, involves renovating classrooms, which will include infrastructure upgrades, new technology and fire sprinklers.
Portable classrooms will be brought in to enable construction work to be done while the campus is occupied.
Published September 3, 2014
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