PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Following controversial school closure decisions in Pinellas County, a local parent-teacher organization is calling for changes to how those decisions are made.<\/p>\n
The Pinellas County Council PTA\/PTSA has sent a letter to Superintendent Kevin Hendrick and school board members asking the district to establish committees that would give families and community members a greater voice before future school closures and consolidations are recommended.<\/p>\n
The proposal comes after some families say they were blindsided by decisions made through the district\u2019s Planning for Progress initiative.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest theme I feel is that we were blindsided, especially our school,\u201d said Melissa Torres, a parent at Sunset Hills Elementary School in Tarpon Springs.<\/p>\n
Sunset Hills was a late addition to the district\u2019s Planning for Progress recommendations. School board members voted to move its students to Tarpon Springs Middle School, creating a K-8 school.<\/p>\n
Torres, whose daughter attends Sunset Hills, says families were left wondering who was representing them during the decision-making process.<\/p>\n
\u201cParents didn\u2019t even know who was speaking for them. Was it our PTA, was it one person talking for us? Who was involved in these decisions?\u201d Torres said. \u201cThey say that the community was involved, but yet we didn\u2019t hear anything, and we still don\u2019t hear anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pinellas County Council PTA says it has heard similar concerns from families across the district.<\/p>\n
Raegan Miller, the organization\u2019s vice president of leadership, says the group is proposing three regional committees \u2014 one each for North, Mid-County and South Pinellas.<\/p>\n
The committees would include parents, educators, PTA representatives and other community stakeholders, giving them an opportunity to review potential changes and provide input before recommendations reach the school board.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy hope is that there would be additional information provided up front,\u201d Miller said. \u201cI know that we saw all of the meetings happen over the summer but I don\u2019t feel like a lot of specific information was given.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller says the district discussed declining birth rates, underutilized school facilities and enrollment challenges during its community meetings, but families weren\u2019t told which specific schools could be affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey talked about low utilization, and declining birth rates, and what things look like, but they never talked about specific schools or potential alternatives,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n
She believes the proposed committees could help identify other options before decisions reach the school board and generate opposition from families.<\/p>\n
The organization points to Miami-Dade County Public Schools, which has an established attendance boundary committee process that allows for community participation when changes are being considered.<\/p>\n
In its letter, the Pinellas County Council PTA argues that a similar approach could improve transparency and help rebuild trust between the district and families.<\/p>\n
For Torres, the proposal represents a step toward giving parents a stronger voice in decisions affecting their children\u2019s education.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel there needs to be oversight on this, it\u2019s a huge budget, a huge amount of our taxpayer dollars, and these are our children, this is our community,\u201d Torres said. \u201cSomebody needs to be looking out for us, hearing us.\u201d<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s too late to change how the decision about Sunset Hills was made, Torres hopes other families won\u2019t have to feel as blindsided as hers did.<\/p>\n
The Pinellas County Council PTA says it has not received a response from the superintendent or school board members since sending its letter.<\/p>\n
Spectrum Bay News 9 also reached out to Pinellas County Schools for comment, but no one was available to respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Following controversial school closure decisions in Pinellas County, a local parent-teacher organization is calling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[4996,113,5711,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,835],"class_list":["post-440922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-education","tag-education","tag-fallon-silcox","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440922","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=440922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}