Two schools in the Pinellas County (Florida) district will close at the end of the academic year.
The Tampa Bay Times reports that in the face of declining enrollment and tightening budgets. the school board voted to close Cross Bayou Elementary in Pinellas Park and Disston Academy in St. Petersburg.
Cross Bayou has about 245 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, plus about 30 students in a program for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Disston Academy is an alternative school serving about 50 students.
District officials say more closures or consolidations are expected; the most recent cuts have reduced the district’s 35,000-seat surplus by less than 2,000.
About a third of the system’s schools are operating at less than 60% of capacity.
Along with closing Cross Bayou and Disston, the board also agreed to:
• Merge Bay Point elementary and middle into a K-8 school on the middle school campus. That change would occur in 2027.
• Take two unused buildings at McMullen Booth Elementary and repurpose them for an employee child care service.
• Expand Oldsmar Elementary to a K-8 school, filling many of its empty classrooms with sixth through eighth grades. The shift will be phased in over three years.
The district has been taking steps over the past few years to counteract its population slide. Among its other moves, it has closed Pinellas Gulf Coast Academy; combined Walsingham and Southern Oak elementary schools into a single K-8 campus; and converted Pinellas Secondary into an employee child-care center.
Superintendent Kevin Hendrick has raised the possibility of more cuts later this year, noting that Pinellas has experienced a significant drop in its birth rate as the cost of living has driven away many middle income families.
