The recommendation to the school board was prompted by declining enrollment, with staff citing lower birth rates and migration to charter schools<\/p>\n
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Several parents showed up in Pinellas County Wednesday night to learn about the school district’s plan to merge some schools and close others. The reason, school leaders say, \u00a0is that there simply aren’t enough children being born here or moving into the county.<\/p>\n
For decades it seemed like all we talked about was overcrowded classrooms; now the reverse is happening. And it’s not just a Pinellas County or state issue but a national one as more families have fewer children.<\/p>\n
There weren’t that many parents tonight at Bay Point Elementary, but then again, there aren’t that many students left at the magnet school.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re getting to the point where some of our schools are so small, it’s hard to staff them,\u201d deputy superintendent Stephanie Woodford said to the parents.<\/p>\n
Central office staff want to merge the school with Bay Point Middle and make one K-8 school.<\/p>\n
\u201cBaypoint Elementary has 302 students, and this school site\u2026 can house 646 students,\u201d said PCPS chief operating officer Jennifer Dull.<\/p>\n
Both schools, and several others in the county aren’t even half full anymore as the population grows older.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the next 24, 25 years, that population decline is still set to go for the age of 5 to 17, while at the same time in Pinellas County, 80+ is set to double,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Large financial incentives to take children from public to private schools, many of which are already K-8.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re very popular,\u201d she said. \u201cThat is a way that we’re looking at making sure that the young people that live in Pinellas County have the option, the families have the option of that K-8 model so that they stay here in Pinellas County schools.<\/p>\n
Also keep in mind this is just the first round of proposed mergers and closings which the school board will approve or reject next month. But a larger number of schools will be targeted in the next round and will be announced later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The recommendation to the school board was prompted by declining enrollment, with staff citing lower birth rates and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-136070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}