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New Pasco school to relieve overcrowding

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By RONNIE BLAIR | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 3, 2009

LAND O' LAKES - Construction is expected to begin this week on a school that will help relieve crowding at Oakstead Elementary and Longleaf Elementary.

The Pasco County School Board approved a $13.7 million contract Tuesday with HCBeck Limited of Tampa for construction of the school, which is to open in 2010.

The school, designed for 762 students, will be off Community Drive, south of State Road 54, in the area between Odessa and Trinity.

School board members haven't yet named the school. Right now it goes by the designation "Elementary S."

The school's design will be a repeat of the design used for Watergrass Elementary, another new school set to open in August in Wesley Chapel. The architectural firm is Holmes Hepner & Associates of Tampa.

Attendance boundaries haven't been set, but Elementary S will draw its students from Longleaf Elementary to the west and Oakstead Elementary to the east. Both are well over capacity and use portable classrooms to handle the student overflow.

Longleaf Elementary, built for 674 students when it opened in 2005, now has 965 students. Oakstead Elementary, built for 762 students in 2006, has 1,100.

Reporter Ronnie Blair can be reached at (813) 259-7065.

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