A circuit court judge has invalidated school rezoning actions by the Pasco County School Board for some of the district’s west schools, citing violations of a public notice requirement and of the state’s Sunshine Law.
In a ruling dated Jan. 10, Circuit Court Judge Kimberly Sharpe Byrd determined that members of the district’s boundary committee “held discussions on Boundary Committee business outside of a noticed public hearing, and when it held breakout sessions of the middle school and high school groups.”
The school board also violated a section of the state’s public notice requirements, according to the judge.
The judge’s ruling did not affect any zonings involving schools in other parts of the county.
In response to Byrd’s findings, Pasco School Superintendent Kurt Browning held a news conference to discuss the ruling and talk about the district’s next steps.
“Our attorneys are currently determining how to respond to the order,” he said, and It will be up to the Pasco County School Board to decide how to proceed.
Meanwhile, Browning gave parents of all students affected by the invalidated rezoning the opportunity to choose to return to the school they were rezoned from, or stay where they are at, for the rest of the school year.
Parents had the opportunity, before Jan. 20, to indicate their wishes via a form on the district’s website.
“Parents who don’t complete the form will be presumed to want (their student) to stay in their current school,” Browning said.
“We believe it would be entirely disruptive of us to just literally give parents no choice, give students no choice and pick them up out of classrooms, let’s say Friday, and Monday they start back at Seven Springs Middle and J.W. Mitchell (High School),” Browning said.
The vast majority of parents opted to keep their children at the school they had been reassigned to attend.
During the news conference, Browning said the district expects to rezone schools again before the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year, so it is possible that someone could choose to leave River Ridge to go back to J.W. Mitchell, and then be rezoned back into River Ridge again.
“The same thing could be said of Seven Springs Middle and River Ridge Middle, as well,” he said.
It is possible that the upcoming rezoning on the west side of the district will include additional schools, Browning said.
That rezoning will be done using the district’s new rezoning procedure, Browning said.
“I eliminated the boundary committee. The committee was problematic,” Browning said. “I think this order exposed that there were opportunities for possible Sunshine violations, and according to the judge (there were) four Sunshine violations.”
Besides citing communications outside of committee meetings, the judge also had a problem with breakout sessions used.
Individuals could not hear what was going during them, and there were sidebar conversations, Browning said.
“It’s problematic. I think If you are going to be making public decisions, they need to be made in the public, where people can hear them and they can participate at the appropriate time.
“I think this has taught us a lesson. I think it will send a message to school districts and county commissions and local governments across the state,” Browning said.
Under the new rezoning procedure, the superintendent determines a rezoning is needed, has proposed boundaries prepared, takes them to a public workshop and then takes the final recommendation to the school board for action.
“It follows the process that the department of transportation uses when they go to site a road,” Browning said.
Browning said he understands that parents don’t want their children to be rezoned.
“As a parent of two boys that went through this system, I would not want to be told that I’m going to have to take my children out of Pasco High School, where I went to school, where my mother went to school and send them to another school in Pasco County.
“Fundamentally, it’s aggravating,” he said.
However, the district has to accommodate growth and must redraw boundaries to address school crowding, Browning said.
Published January 31, 2018
