On the last Saturday of February, Tanika Walton asked the students sitting on the Walton Academy for the Performing Arts dance floor how school was going these days.
Some of the students, who used to go to the now-closed Walton Academy, now go to Shore Elementary Magnet School for the Arts in Ybor. Tanika Walton, previously Walton Academy’s principal, said she talks to their principal about once a week to check in on how they’re doing.
Others went to schools across the district, including the nearby Broward Elementary, after Walton Academy, a charter school that existed in Seminole Heights for 22 years, was shuttered in November.
The Hillsborough County school board voted to close it due to safety concerns that arose from a state inspection, including unmarked shelter areas, an emergency response system that didn’t immediately activate and an open gate. The school, which was founded by Tanika Walton and her husband Sam Walton, largely served minority and low-income families.
A pop-up message on Walton Academy’s website says the school “has temporarily closed, effective immediately, due to circumstances beyond our control.”
Since then, the school has been in a legal battle with the district. A judge sided with the district, which filed an injunction to close the school, but the next steps of the legal case have been at a standstill.
The Waltons said their lawyers are working with the districts to reach a settlement, but said the matter is in the district’s hands. The Waltons expressed frustration with the lack of urgency to move forward with legal proceedings that the district had last fall when closing the school.
A spokesperson for the school district said there was no update on the case.
“The students that transitioned to one of our traditional schools are thriving academically in a safe learning environment, and that is what we are focusing on right now,” spokesperson Tanya Arja said in an email.
Still, Tanika Walton said, she needed to serve her students. She sends resources out to parents on Facebook and by email. She fields calls from former parents who are worried about their kids at their new schools and points them to other resources.
In January, while attending an event at the New Tampa Performing Arts Center, Walton learned that several of her former students were no longer taking dance classes.
“I’m like, ‘Are you serious?’” Walton said. “Especially some of our most talented dancers, I’m like, ‘Parents, you guys gotta find a place for them to dance.’ We were convenient for a lot of our families. So I gotta be able to do something in the meantime, just so that they can dance and can move.”
On the last day of Black History Month, Walton hosted a day of free dance classes, celebrating Black history by teaching genres ranging from praise dance to step and hip hop. Thirteen students signed up. Eight came. Much of the flooring had been replaced, and the exterior of the building, owned by Sam Walton, had been renovated. Many of those plans were already in the works when the school was shut, Sam Walton said.
Walton played videos of dance companies, including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, during breaks and asked students to pick out songs. She asked if anyone had a favorite gospel song.
“‘War Cry’!” one student offered.
Walton began playing the song and then paused.
“This is a good one,” she said. “Let’s talk about it.”
She played the song and asked the students to listen to the lyrics.
“So the song is called ‘War Cry,’” she told the students. “What do you think that it could mean? What could it relate to what’s happening around us? What are some things happening in our world, in our community, in our schools that are troublesome?”
“School shootings,” one student said.
“People being deported.”
“Pollution.”
“People not showing respect for other people.”
Walton agreed.
“Yes, people are not showing respect for other people, right?” she told the students. “People are talking to other people any kind of way. They’re not showing just common decency. What’s the golden rule? Treat others like you want to be treated, right? There’s so many things that’s happening in our world that’s causing people to be upset about it. … The song says, ‘We gotta fight.’ This is a war cry. It’s like a war, because at a war, you don’t give up.”
For Walton and her husband, she said it’s a matter of not falling into sadness.
“Just being honest, some days are just rougher than others,” she said. “Only because this was not just my profession, but my calling, and this has been us for 22 years. It’s just a matter of what God sees is the next for us.”
Tanika Walton said their next steps will be determined after the legal battle with the district.
“This is at the heart of what we do,” Sam Walton said. “We’ll keep finding ways to serve the community.”
Divya Kumar is a reporter covering education as a member of the Tampa Bay Times Education Hub. You can contribute to the hub through our journalism fund by clicking here.
