LITHIA, Fla. - The overcrowding at Barrington Middle School cannot be ignored any longer, school officials decided. On Tuesday, the Hillsborough County School Board is scheduled to make their final decision on how they plan to handle the situation.
There are currently 1,550 students at Barrington, putting it over-capacity by 134 students. The plan favored by board members is to move 223 students to Rodgers Middle School, leaving Barrington at 97-percent capacity.
"We want to make certain that learning is continuous and we want to make that students are attending schools with their neighborhood friends and their families and it's not really disruptive," said Addison Davis, the district's incoming superintendent.
In December, parents piled into a meeting to express their concerns and frustrations over the possibility of their students being reassigned to other schools in the district to help with overcrowding issues.
District leaders had originally proposed a plan that would move 1,400 students in eight neighborhoods to relieve overcrowding at Barrington Middle School and Randall Middle School. The proposal also impacts Mann, Rodgers, Guinta and Mulrennan middle schools, however, there were parents at Barrington who were not happy and those plans were scrapped.
“We wanted to be out here for the schools. We specifically purchased in the neighborhood that we did so that we could go to the schools that we wanted,” said Crystal Lewis, a Barrington parent, back in December.
The board is also expected to require 12 months' notice for any potential re-zoning decisions, instead of six. Some parents, in this case, said they received only 13 days' notice.
"Barrington is an overcrowded school, no question. My son has experienced it for the past three years," said Lori Themar. "I understand needing to be re-zoned. I understand the growth in the area. I just think it should be fair across the board."
The school board is expected to have to re-zone Barrington's boundaries again no later than February 2021. A new middle school is also under construction and expected to open in 2021.