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Classes, Mascot Take Shape At Steinbrenner High

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By COURTNEY CAIRNS PASTOR | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 18, 2009

TAMPA - Steinbrenner High School is still working out the courses, clubs and extracurricular activities it will offer when it opens in August, but Principal Brenda Grasso could put to rest one persistent – and odd – rumor.

The school mascot "absolutely will not" be the Sea Turtles.

Parents and students applauded.

Grasso held a town hall meeting Tuesday night at Martinez Middle School, adjacent to the Steinbrenner construction site on Lutz-Lake Fern Road. She introduced herself and Kelly King, the assistant principal for curriculum. Together, they make up the entire Steinbrenner staff for now.

About 60 parents and students attended to ask questions about the bell schedule, student enrollment, available classes and how they could find out more information. Grasso said the Web site is under construction, and King will move into the new building in March. Grasso, now principal at Gaither High School, will soon follow.

The Hillsborough County school district set attendance boundaries last week for Steinbrenner, and students are starting to fill out forms listing classes they would like to take there.

King said she and Grasso will analyze the electives students choose and will offer what they want as long as enough students enroll to justify a class.

Certain classes are a given, King said.

Steinbrenner already has committed to foreign language classes, Advanced Placement and career and technical programs. Veterinary assistant classes are proposed, as are pharmacy, technology and engineering specialties. Freshmen also will be required to take a computer course.

If students want a class Steinbrenner can't offer, Grasso said, the school might provide a classroom with computers where they could take online versions under a teacher's supervision.

Steinbrenner plans to offer every varsity and junior varsity sport other Hillsborough high schools have, as well as a dance squad, cheerleading, band, chorus and orchestra.

It also features all available honor societies. Other clubs and organizations can form if they have a staff sponsor and enough participants.

"I don't want you to think that our students will be short-changed an opportunity," Grasso said.

Grasso and King are visiting feeder middle schools, as well as Sickles and Gaither high schools, where thousands of students are being assigned to Steinbrenner. Grasso talks with students about what to expect with a new school and is urging incoming juniors to assume leadership roles because Steinbrenner will not have a senior class its first year.

Grasso said she and King hope all students help shape the high school's future traditions.

"We both are very much about student input so they feel this is their school," she told the town hall gathering.

Students are voting for a mascot, selecting from options that include the Clippers, Stallions and, yes, Yankees. The school is named for New York Yankees owner and Tampa philanthropist George M. Steinbrenner, who turned over the reins of the storied franchise to his sons in November.

King said students can add mascot suggestions, but some popular ones, like the Spartans, are out if other high schools use them.

One father at the meeting, though, had strong feelings on the subject: "All I can say is I'm begging you, please don't call it the Yankees."

Reporter Courtney Cairns Pastor can be reached at (813) 865-1503.

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