By B.C. Manion
The Pasco County School Board is set to take action on school boundary changes aimed at relieving overcrowded conditions at Wiregrass Ranch High and John Long Middle schools.
School board chairwoman Joanne Hurley said she understands that parents care deeply about which schools their children attend, often even choosing where they live based on which schools serve their neighborhood.
However, Hurley said, the school district cannot guarantee that boundaries won’t change because they must be able to respond to an area’s population growth or decline.
Moving boundaries in one direction may please some parents, but may displease others, she said. The board’s final vote will likely leave some parents “intensely satisfied” while leavings others “intensely displeased.”
The proposed boundaries, recommended by a committee of district staff and administrators, school principals and parents, received unanimous first-round approval by the school board on Dec. 21. The school board is set to take its second and final vote at its 6 p.m. meeting on Jan. 18.
Besides relieving overcrowded conditions, the shifts seek to better balance out enrollments, said Chris Williams, director of planning for Pasco County Schools.
In essence, the proposed boundary changes would:
– Shift students in New River, Ashley Pines and an area near Morris Bridge Road from Wiregrass Ranch High to Wesley Chapel High
– Reassign students from New River and Ashley Pines from John Long Middle School into Weightman Middle School
– Shift students living in neighborhoods west of Morris Bridge Road into Stewart Middle School
– Assign students attending Cox Elementary in Dade City to Pasco Middle and Pasco High schools, instead of Weightman Middle and Wesley Chapel High.
Wiregrass Ranch High, at 2909 Mansfield Blvd., has 2,132 students, representing 127 percent of the school’s permanent capacity. It has 18 portable classrooms.
John Long Middle, at 2025 Mansfield Blvd., has an enrollment of 1,784 students, which represents 134 percent of the school’s permanent capacity. It has 23 portable classrooms.
The proposal to assign Cox Elementary students to Pasco Middle and Pasco High would keep those students much closer to home for their middle and high school years.
The students have been bused out of their community to Wesley Chapel for the past decade to help diversify Weightman Middle and Wesley Chapel High.
The committee said that busing is no longer needed because the demographics in Wesley Chapel have changed.
In proposing the new boundaries, the committee considered such things as impacts to the district’s transportation and special education services, as well as the socioeconomic makeup of the schools, Williams said.
It also attempted to avoid splitting neighborhoods and considered such things as school feeder patterns and future growth, Williams said.
“We try to be as objective as possible,” Williams said. “We don’t want to shift too many kids. We try to disrupt as few as possible.”
The proposed boundary changes do not affect Zephyrhills High or Centennial Middle.
The boundary changes will not affect incoming seniors at Wiregrass Ranch High.
It will, however, affect all school choice students who attend a school affected by a boundary change, Williams said.
All of those students will have to reapply for the choice assignment, Hurley said. Even incoming seniors at Wiregrass will have to reapply for a choice assignment, she said.
The district has less flexibility in choice assignments because of the state’s class size limits, Hurley said.
