‘Ridiculous’: Pasco County School Board approves combining three schools, some parents frustrated

LAND O’ LAKES, Fla. (WFLA) — Classes may already be in session this school year, but a new proposal passed Tuesday will change the entire experience for parents and children at three Pasco County schools.

The plan will consolidate Chasco Elementary School, Chasco Middle School, and Calusa Elementary School into one K-8 campus.

It is set to go into effect next school year.

“We were notified via a robocall,” Wyatt Grinage said.

Eleven days ago, parents like Grinage got the news that kids at Calusa Elementary School might soon be combining with two other schools.

Monday, a week and a half later, the school board turned that ‘what if’ into a reality.

It’s a plan superintendent Kurt Browning said has been in the works for over a year.

“Whether it was 11 days or 111 days, the concerns would’ve been the same,” Browning said.

Let’s break down the numbers.

On paper, the current Chasco campus only has room for another 278 students and this plan would add almost 430 kids.

“There’s too many what if’s, as far as being a parent, having a child that may or may not go to this school in the future, I wonder if she’s going to be in a shed in the courtyard,” Grinage said.

But the school district is focusing more on the space, comparing other K-8 schools’ enrollment and square footage with the new proposed school.

“We’re going to ensure our classrooms are not crowded or overcrowded,” Browning said. “There’s some classrooms that are not being used as classrooms right now that would go back to being classrooms.”

“That would help pick up that extra slack,” he said.

Parents also took issue with safety concerns.

Grinage’s daughter, for example, is in second grade.

In Pasco County, students have to live more than 2 miles from a school to take the bus.

Grinage would now live just one tenth of a mile short of that.

“It would be different if she was middle school, but for an elementary school child to walk 1.9 miles on a main highway to and from school is ridiculous,” Grinage said.

The superintendent sympathized with Grinage, but said that issue all comes down to a shortage of bus drivers.

“The two mile restriction is problematic across the district,” he said. “But we’re not able to transport those kids because we just don’t have the drivers to drive those kids.”

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