The Pasco County School Board is signing off on a plan to combine three of its grade schools on one campus.
Facing declining enrollment at Chasco Elementary, Chasco Middle and Calusa Elementary, the board unanimously voted last week to move the Calusa students to a combined K8 school at the Chasco site.
Assistant superintendent Betsy Kuhn said families’ concerns about increased enrollment and traffic from three schools being combined at one campus are valid.
Combined, the Chasco schools and Calusa elementary are home to just over 1,600 students this school year.
While on paper, it looks like the merger will push the Chasco campus over its capacity of approximately 1,500, Kuhn said the county is “not concerned with it being a really crowded facility.”
Kuhn added that the combined campus has enough space — about 238,000 square feet — with some remodeling planned to get rid of duplicated areas, such as two media centers.
The current Chasco Elementary and Middle Schools are separated by a fence, but the redevelopment will create a better “flow” between the two.
Facing concerns about increased traffic, specifically from daily carlines at the school, Kuhn said they plan to “stack” the cars on the property to keep them from spilling onto Ridge Road.
The plan, Kuhn said, is for Calusa’s teachers to follow their students, but around 20 non-instructional staff positions will be eliminated. However, Kuhn said they will keep their jobs with Pasco County, but will be moved to a different school.
While Pasco County is “definitely growing,” Kuhn said areas like these around the edges of the county are shifting. Instead of seeing the growth the middle of the county is experiencing, they are seeing a decline in enrollment as students graduate.
Instead of waiting and hoping for growth, Kuhn said they saw the area was already built up and there was not enough space to add new communities. This, combined with the already declining enrollment over a long period of time, justified the merger.
“Our job is to try to provide the best education we can provide for kids, but we also are charged with being good stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Kuhn said. “So, when we look at these types of situations, we want to figure out the way we can make the biggest impact educationally, but also making sure we’re spending our limited resources in the best way we can.”
The Chasco site was chosen over the Calusa location, just 1.4 miles away, because the former is a newer facility. Chasco Elementary was built in 2000 and the middle school was built in 2001. Calusa Elementary is much older, having been constructed in 1979.
The exciting part, Kuhn said, is having students transition from elementary and middle school without having to change campuses. She added that Pasco County has successfully executed similar mergers in the past.
"It is a very positive experience and what we've found is that, with our current K8s – we have two current and one being built to open next August – is families are very happy with it,” Kuhn said. “So, we're hoping families will give us a chance with this new K8 as well."
