The Hillsborough County school board voted Tuesday to close three schools and convert a fourth one from a K-8 to a more traditional elementary.
The district will close Graham Elementary and Madison Middle after next school year, both of which have low enrollment and are under capacity.
And despite emotional pleas from students, teachers, parents and community members, it will also close Pizzo K-8 and convert Sulphur Springs K-8 to a kindergarten through fifth-grade school beginning in the 2027-28 school year. It also made several other changes to schools’ boundaries.
The board said it was closing Pizzo K-8, which sits on the University of South Florida’s campus and is at nearly full capacity, after USF’s board of trustees opted to raise the rent.
The district originally paid $10 a year for the space beginning in 1997. In 2008, the lease rose to $60,000.
But in 2024, the USF board approved a lease that would start at $550,000 a year and increase each year, totaling more than $8 million over 10 years.
Members of the Pizzo community, many of whom left Tuesday’s school board meeting in tears, asked the board to ask USF’s new president, Moez Limayem, to reconsider what one teacher called “an economic eviction.”
Veteran teachers spoke of how working at Pizzo helped them rediscover their joy in teaching again. Some spoke of buying students snacks, sneakers, even underwear. Some attended quinceañeras and sweet 16s of former students. High school students told the board about how former teachers became mentors who still call to check in on them.
“Is closing Pizzo the right thing to do or the easiest thing to do?” teacher Joy Brasher, who has taught for 21 years at Pizzo, asked the board.
Rhonda Donovan, an art teacher at Pizzo, said her job was to help students tap into their creative potential. She urged the board to think of other options.
“Our goals and (USF’s) goals don’t align and I get that,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do about that. But there is something we can do about this Pizzo situation.”
Some asked the board if they would consider keeping their school community together, transferring them to Adams Middle School, which has capacity for 1,500 students and closed in 2024.
District staff said they did not recommend moving students to Adams because of the costs and distance involved. With Pizzo only serving 900 students, that would also open up the possibility of charter school operators requesting to co-locate at an underused facility under the Schools of Hope law that took effect last year.
Instead, the district reassigned Pizzo’s kindergarten through fifth-grade students to Mort, Witter, Tampa Palms, Lewis and Temple Terrace elementary schools and sixth- through eighth-grade students to their zoned middle schools.
Board member Jessica Vaughn called the process rushed and expressed concerns over the lack of support the new schools would get to accommodate new students.
“If I’m feeling that this, as a board member with access to information, is being rushed and we haven’t explored all of our possibilities, I can only imagine what the community and the people who show up every day to teach in that school feel like,” she said.
Vaughn and board chairperson Karen Perez voted against the boundary changes at Pizzo, but others voted in favor.
Board member Stacy Hahn said the decision was difficult, but even at the $60,000 lease rate, Pizzo would have become unaffordable at some point because of the headwinds the district faces.
The board also voted to turn Sulphur Springs K-8 to a K-5 and move students in sixth through eighth grades, where enrollment is lower, to surrounding middle schools.
Still, community members expressed some concerns, particularly around safety for students who live within a 2-mile radius of their new school who would be expected to walk.
PTSA president Joanna Cade said some students faced 45 mph traffic and a walk along the river without sidewalks and “predators in the community” to get to neighborhood middle schools.
“Community members are not resisting change,” she said. “We are asking to be a part of the conversation. The community is asking for a pause, not to delay progress, but to make sure that plan is complete and safe.”
Jacqueline Coffie-Leeks, a community member running for state House in District 63, also asked the board to slow its process and consider the stability schools bring to students.
“We understand the intent behind the effort; addressing declining enrollment, improving operational efficiency and maximizing resources are all necessary and responsible goals, but how we move forward matters just as much as why,” she said. “It’s about more than a building and a budget, it’s about equity and the day-to-day safety of our children.”
The board unanimously voted in favor of the plan after district staff said they would guarantee transportation for the current cohort of sixth through eighth graders to their new middle schools and work with city officials on possibly bringing sidewalks to the area.
The board also unanimously voted to reassign all students at Graham Elementary to Broward Elementary, both of which were operating at 40% capacity. They also voted to move some students at Madison Middle School back to Monroe Middle School. Monroe was closed in 2024, and at that time, those students were moved to Madison. The district still owns the building. Other Madison students will be moved to the new Stewart Middle Magnet School.
The board also voted to move some students at Jennings, Greco, Sligh and Stewart middle schools to Young Middle Magnet School, which is operating under 30% capacity.
The southern part of the county faced the opposite issue with overcrowded schools; board members voted to move some students at Shields, Barrington, Eisenhower and Turkey Creek middle schools to attend a new middle school being built in Wimauma.
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