Land O’ Lakes High School will remain open during a massive renovation project that is scheduled to begin next June.
Superintendent Kurt Browning had planned to shift the Land O’ Lakes High students to a new high school, known as “GGG”, being built on Old Pasco Road.
(B.C. Manion/Staff Photos)
But, he changed his mind after opening-day enrollment figures at Wiregrass Ranch High School revealed that 2,478 students showed up to a school built for 1,633 students. John Long Middle School’s opening enrollment was 1,810 students, at a school built for 1,327. Both school’s opening day enrollments exceeded district projections for the entire year.
Other schools in Land O’ Lakes and Wesley Chapel also exceeded projections, Browning said, in an Aug. 16 letter sent to parents of Land O’ Lakes High and Pine View Middle students.
The district had been considering three options relating to the Land O’ Lakes makeover.
One option was for students to stay at Land O’ Lakes High, the second was to put Sunlake High School on double sessions and the third was to send the students to “GGG.”
Browning said he now believes “that the least disruptive solution is to keep students at Land O’ Lakes High School during the renovations.”
That being said, Browning noted “it still will not be ideal.”
Keeping Land O’ Lakes High open during renovations will delay the project’s completion by a year and will reduce the scope of work to account for the added cost of extending the length of the project by a year, Browning wrote.
“The school will be a construction zone, and we will have to place dozens of portable classrooms on and around the campus. We won’t have practice fields and will reduce the number of parking spaces. There will be utility disruptions and construction dust,” Browning added.
There are some bright spots, though, the superintendent noted.
The school’s students will stay together on one campus, culinary students will be able to use their culinary academy and agriculture students will be on the same campus as their animals, Browning wrote.
He also noted that sporting events will take place at the school.
Browning said the district “will take every precaution to ensure that the construction project does not impact student safety.”
The superintendent also assured parents “this decision was not made lightly and was not made without significant input from staff.”
Pasco County school board member Cynthia Armstrong said the decision to keep the students at Land O’ Lakes High School during construction is the best choice available to the district at this time.
“It’s not the ideal situation, but it seems like with the choices we had, it was just the best solution that we could come up with,” Armstrong said.
Wiregrass Ranch High School needs relief, and double sessions at Sunlake High was not a good option because the school day would have to start too early and end too late.
Armstrong also noted: “I think the community, the parents and the students are going to be happy with this solution.
“The Land O’ Lakes students are going to get to stay together as an intact unit. They’re going to get to be Gators their senior year. They are going to get to play in their own stadium. It’s not going to disrupt the culinary arts,” she said.
Plus, the school’s agriculture and child care programs will be able to continue, she noted.
To accommodate construction, half of the school will be in portables one year, and then half will be in portables the next year.
“That, at first was not a preferred method because essentially it was going to cost more money and more time. That wasn’t one that we were really excited about,” Armstrong said.
A parent meeting will be set this fall to discuss the details of the plan. Meanwhile, the district also will post updates at Pasco.k12.fl.us/renovations and on the district’s social media sites, and Land O’ Lakes High School will keep parents informed on its website and social media sites.
Published August 24, 2016
