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3 Hillsborough Schools Don't Make Grade, Risk Closure

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By MARILYN BROWN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 29, 2008

TAMPA - Three Hillsborough County schools are among 13 targeted for possible closing a year from now because their students have been the lowest performing in the state.

Middleton High, Franklin Middle and Sulphur Springs Elementary schools are the only schools in the Tampa Bay area among state schools slated for the toughest intervention. Superintendents have been given five options to prepare for in the coming year, Commissioner of Education Eric Smith said today.

•The school can be closed and students dispersed to other schools.

•The school can be closed and reopened under district management with dramatic changes.

•The school can be closed and reorganized as a charter school with a performance contract.

•The school can be closed and reopened with an outside management company with a performance contract.

•In the coming school year, if the school improves enough with new strategies, closing could be aborted.

To make the list, schools had to be among the state's lowest performers since 2003. The criteria are: The schools were graded D or F in 2008 or earned two F grades in four years. In addition, they did not meet criteria in math and reading of having more than 65 percent or more proficiency on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

A school graded F four of the past six years that also is a repeating F school this year also would qualify.

Middleton has been graded D the past five years. Franklin got a D the past two years and in 2005, with C's in 2003, 2004 and 2006. Sulphur Springs has been an F school the past two years, with C's the previous four years.

All three are schools with high percentages of students from low-income families, qualifying them to receive extra federal money under the federal Title I program.

With extra help, the schools already are improving, Superintendent of Schools MaryEllen Elia said today. She said she will step up efforts and has no plans to close the schools or turn them over to a charter or outside contractor.

"It is a year for the program to improve, and we're going to do that," Elia said.

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069 or mbrown@tampatrib.com.

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