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School Year Has 'A Very Strange' Beginning

Tribune photo by KATHY MOORE

Tanya McCoy holds the hand of her 8-year-old son, Samuel, while they wait for the school bus at Sulphur Springs Elementary School on Monday morning

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By MARILYN BROWN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 19, 2008

TAMPA - Tropical Storm Fay and confusion over school bus transportation may have left some Hillsborough County classroom seats empty Monday.

Hillsborough's first day of school was about half over Monday when Fay's approach canceled classes for today.

District officials speculated that Fay was partly to blame for 1,428 fewer students showing up Monday compared with the first day in 2007.

"It's going to be a very strange year having the second day of school be no school," said Cindy Wood, the district's director of planning and related services.

Noticeably absent were kindergarten students, with about 2,000 fewer than the 13,875 expected. "Mommies didn't send their babies to school because the hurricane was coming," Wood said.

Kindergarten enrollment has been low all summer, however, so it's hard to predict what the final figure will be.

Some parents called schools, wondering whether Monday's opening day was canceled because of the storm. A decision will be made today whether to reopen schools Wednesday.

Buses Have 'A Successful Day'

Late notice of bus information for families swamped the district's transportation call center last week and throughout the weekend, beginning at 4 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. District workers helped staff the phones until after 10 p.m. Saturday and 9 p.m. Sunday, said John Franklin, the district's transportation chief.

"We did a brisk business," Franklin said, estimating more than 1,200 calls Sunday and at least as many Saturday. Franklin said he also answered hundreds of e-mails and had stacks of parent inquiries yet to answer Monday.

Phones lit up again at 4 a.m. Monday when the call center opened. It remained busy with callers waiting seven minutes or longer throughout the morning. The district had 23 phone lines but just seven or eight people to answer them, said Jack Davis, the district's chief information and technology officer, who was at the center for part of the weekend.

"There were so many calls waiting in the queue that you couldn't call out to return calls," Davis said.

The extra effort made a big difference, officials said.

"The weekend definitely helped," said Lewis Brinson, assistant superintendent for administration.

Drivers came in after their morning run, some having made it to school on time, a feat for the first day.

Still, one eighth-grader at Franklin Middle School used her concern about buses to sign out of school about 9 a.m.

The student arrived in the main office with her mom to sign out for the day. An office worker said the buses would be fine for the afternoon pickup, but the student said she didn't want to stay at school all night waiting for a bus. She had waited for one in the morning that never came.

With the final buses coming in close to 7 p.m., Franklin reported no major problems. It was "a busy day, but a successful day."

The first week of August, district officials said bus stop information notices were sent to about 35,000 homes in four areas where the district has placed bus stops farther apart and eliminating transportation for students who live within two miles of their schools.

Families in the rest of the district were supposed to get bus stop information and other school information a week to 10 days ago, Davis said.

The system broke down on several levels, including a late start in the process of getting the information out.

After-school transportation to most for-profit day care centers was also stopped this year and transportation to parks and recreation centers has been limited to centers within a school's boundary. Those changes, along with requiring students to walk farther to bus stops to make the system more efficient, have been major concerns.

Now that the state publishes the addresses of sexual offenders and predators, more parents want bus stops changed, Davis said. They may fill out a request form online.

"I think more people are looking them up," he said. "That's become a big interest for folks."

Davis said he will recommend changes for next year, including buying software that will allow parents to access bus stops on the district Web site. Davis said he found out about the software last week and that it would cost about $20,000.

He said he will recommend notifying parents of bus routes with a district mailing and in information from the school.

Fewer Students

Hillsborough counted 173,158 students Monday - 1,428 fewer than the first day last year. The district is closed today because of the storm, meaning the next official count of students will not be made until Friday or Monday, Brinson said.

Numbers don't stabilize until about the 20th day of school each year. That count should show how much the economy is affecting whether families leave the area.

Hillsborough grew to become the eighth-largest district in the nation with years of rampant growth, adding between 5,000 and 7,450 additional students a year, but the growth has slowed and enrollment showed a loss last year.

No one was predicting Monday whether the loss will continue. The district projects 191,583 students by the 20th day, just 240 students more than last year's count.

Class size restrictions and growth in certain areas, however, created the need for three new schools, which opened Monday.

Staff at Reddick Elementary in Wimauma found many parents came to the wrong school because their children were still registered at the schools they attended last year.

Construction, bus confusion and an unfamiliar school combined for traffic problems at Smith Middle near Citrus Park. Kimbell Elementary, in North Tampa, had a smooth opening, with 356 students in the school built to accommodate about 600. Both Smith and Reddick had student counts that were closer to capacity.

Reporters Ellen Gedalius, Lois Kindle, Ken Knight and Courtney Cairns Pastor contributed to this report. Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069 or mbrown@tampatrib.com.

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