Pinellas County school leaders took another hard look Tuesday at a controversial plan to close two campuses, merge others into K‑8 schools and expand an employee child‑care program, all under the districtwide “Planning for Progress” banner. The proposals are designed to tackle years of declining enrollment and rising facility costs that have left some schools with a lot more open seats than students. Parents who turned out at recent community meetings countered that the changes would uproot kids, splinter tight‑knit school communities and leave families scrambling for new options.
What the District Is Proposing
According to Pinellas County Schools, Superintendent Kevin K. Hendrick has recommended a sweeping set of changes. Bay Point Elementary and Bay Point Middle would be combined into a single K‑8 school on the current middle school campus. Oldsmar Elementary would expand into a K‑8 as well. The district’s employee child‑care program would be added at McMullen‑Booth. Cross Bayou Elementary and Disston Academy would close at the end of the 2025‑26 school year. District officials say the moves are intended to make better use of underfilled buildings that could be repurposed or sold, while preserving comparable programs for students who are displaced.
Numbers Behind the Move
Briefings and local reporting show that Pinellas is carrying a lot of extra space. The district has roughly 35,000 more seats than enrolled students, leaving many campuses operating far below capacity, according to the Tampa Bay Times. That review reports that the first round of recommended changes would remove about 1,781 student seats and could trim roughly $7.7 million in ongoing personnel costs plus about $7 million in planned capital spending.
Capacity and Repair Costs
Some schools highlighted in the proposal are using only a fraction of the space they have. Bay Point Elementary was reported at about 47 percent capacity, Bay Point Middle around 35 percent, and Disston Academy at roughly 17 percent, Fox 13 notes. Officials told the board that several sites also need millions of dollars in repairs, a combination that pushed them toward recommending consolidation or closure.
Parents Push Back
Families who showed up to site meetings said the timeline feels rushed and that the plan would fracture small school communities and threaten specialized services, particularly for students with special needs, according to local coverage. “It’s a smaller school, but it’s great. It’s family-oriented,” one parent told Bay News 9, adding that they worry what will happen to those supports if campuses are closed or combined.
Why Now and the Wider Context
District leaders say the recommendations are rooted in a long slide in the county’s school‑age population, as well as shifting family choices. Planning for Progress materials point to lower birth rates along with more families choosing homeschooling, charter schools or private schools. That pressure is intensified by state policy and the growth of charter programs that can seek to move into unused district buildings, a trend explored in coverage by WUSF.
The school board took up the recommendations again at a Feb. 17 workshop and is set to vote on them at its Feb. 24 meeting, with site‑based community sessions held in late January, according to local reporting. If the board signs off, the district says students would be rezoned or moved into other programs and that school‑based employees would be offered jobs elsewhere in the system, Bay News 9 reports…