Inside:
Volume 22 Issue 9
See Neighborhood Magazine!
April 26, 2014
We Win The Rotary Spelling Bee!
The Direct - Mail News Magazines Serving New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Since 1993! THIS INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY NEWS MAGAZINE IS DIRECTLY MAILED TO: NEW TAMPA: Arbor Greene • Cory Lake Isles • Cross Creek • Easton Park • Grand Hampton • Heritage Isles • Hunter’s Green • Hunter’s Key • K-Bar Ranch Lake Forest • Live Oak Preserve • Pebble Creek • Richmond Place • Tampa Palms • The Hammocks • West Meadows WESLEY CHAPEL: Aberdeen • Belle Chase • Bridgewater • Brookside • Chapel Pines • Country Walk • Lexington Oaks • Meadow Pointe • New River • Northwood • Pinewalk • Pine Ridge Saddlebrook • Saddleridge Estates • Saddlewood • Seven Oaks • The Lakes at Northwood • The Villages of Wesley Chapel • Watergrass • Wesley Pointe • Westbrook Estates • Williamsburg
Turner Elementary & Bartels Middle School To Become K-8 Center By Matt Wiley & Gary Nager
New Tampa soon will be the home of the first non-magnet K-8 school in the Hillsborough County School District (HCSD), as Hilda T. Turner Elementary and Nancy Bartels Middle School are set to become one schools, just in time for the beginning of the 2014-15 school year in August. For the past year, parents and students have gotten a small sense of what a combined campus could feel like, as Turner’s fifth graders began taking classes on the Bartels campus, for the 2013-14 school year. The schools are located next to each other off Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. at Imperial Oak Blvd. in Live Oak Preserve and are connected by a frontage road. The controversial decision, announced to parents in a March 5 letter from Turner principal Rhonda McMahon, has stirred emotions enough that two special meetings were held for concerned parents with the newly announced principal of the future K-8 school, Jonathan Grantham Ed.D. — who will continue to be the principal of the Roland Park K-8 Magnet School for International Studies, located near the Tampa International Airport until June 9, when he takes over the newly renamed Turner-Bartels K-8 School. However, although there always will be concerned parents, although Grantham says that “overwhelming concern” was not
the vibe he felt during recent meetings with about 25 parents at the Live Oak clubhouse and with more than 60 parents at Turner the same evening. “I will start our parent committees my first day,” Grantham explains. “They will have a lot of say in how we develop the school, including helping us pick our school mascot.” Not having any say in the decisionmaking process is what most parents seem to be upset about most — a message not lost on HCSD District 3 School Board member Cindy Stuart, who represents the New Tampa area on the Board. “We’re getting some feedback on both sides – mostly parents who just want more information,” says Stuart, who also attended the meetings. “I think the biggest problem the parents have is the way the information has been disseminated to them…and I agree with them that we (the School Board) haven’t done a good job of it.” So, why did HCSD see the need to combine the schools? “The fifth grade at Turner, which is exploding over its capacity, was already at Bartels, which is under capacity,” Stuart explains. “The original plan was to move the 4th grade from Turner to Bartels (for 2014-15). Instead, (the Board) decided to just make it one school, under one principal, and probably five assistant principals.”
Turner Elementary & Bartels Middle School aren’t actually this close together, but the Hillsborough School District will combine the two into one K-8 school for the 2014-15 school year. Grantham notes, “Kindergarten stuShe says that if there is anyone qualified to take the top job at the new K-8 school, dents will technically be on the same campus it’s Grantham, who earned his Bachelor’s, as 8th graders, but kindergarteners will be Master’s, and Ed.D. degrees from Florida on the Turner campus, while the 8th gradState University in Tallahassee and special- ers have class in the Bartels building, and it’s izes in personnel, finance, curriculum and a huge, spread out campus,. The interaction on campus will be almost nonexistent. instruction within the K-12 environment. He adds, “The buses present a bigger “Jonathan has experience with handling the bus situation (having kindergar- challenge, although siblings will sit togethten-aged kids on the same buses as 8th er and the bus drivers will be told to keep graders) at Roland and really wants to in- younger and older kids separated on the volve the community, so I believe that this buses. There will be definite rules for where they can sit.” will be a phenomenal school,” Stuart says. The school day for all grades at TurnerMeeting Grantham at the meetings has Bartels will begin at 8:45 a.m. and run until helped quell concerns for some parents. “Mr. Grantham was very warm and 3:35 p.m. For more information about the welcoming,” says Diane Levin, who has two children in the second and third grade at Turner-Bartels K-8 School, please visit Turner. “I felt better after meeting him. He SDHC.K12.fl.us. And, stay with the has a clear plan in place and has done this New Tampa Neighborhood News and NTbefore. If anyone understands the dynamic NeighborhoodNews.com as we continue to follow this developing story. of running a K-8, he does.”
Broadway Comes Back To Tampa; Cultural Center Public Meeting May 5 Now celebrating its 15th year, the New Tampa Players (NTP) acting troupe’s annual “Broadway Comes To Tampa” (BCTT) fund raiser once again is returning to nearby Wesley Chapel. On Saturday, May 10, at Saddlebrook Resort Tampa (located off S.R. 54), attendees will enjoy an upscale meal and an intimate concert of familiar stage numbers
from five major Broadway stars, including the likes of Rita Harvey, Ron Bohmer, Marc Kudhish, Jeannette Bayardelle and Kate Shindle, as well as BCTT staples Greg Wall and Neil Berg (more info below). BCTT is the biggest fund-raiser of the year for the acting troupe and last year’s event was attended by more than 300 and raised more than $20,000, which NTP’s management hopes will one day, go toward the construction of the troupe’s own thea-
News, Business, Sports & Education Updates
Neighborhood Magazine
By Matt Wiley
Also Inside This Issue!
Mayor Buckhorn Talks New Tampa At New Tampa Chamber Meeting, Schenecker Double Murder Trial Set To Begin, Plus Lots Of Local Business Features & More!
Neighborhood News Team Dominates Rotary Spelling Bee, Ciccio Cali Brings New Concept To Tampa Palms, Plus More Neighborhood Nibbles & Biz Bytes!
Pages 1-44
Pages 45-64
tre near the geographic center of New Tampa — on the land across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from Hunter’s Green, which has been owned for years by Hillsborough County. And, that theatre can become a reality if District 2 county commissioner Ken Hagan has his way. Hagan says that he has been helping with the effort to create a cultural center at the location that would include a performing arts hall, as well as park elements — walking trails, a dog park and more — for nearly a decade. He adds that he recently has gotten the support of fellow commissioners to consider a public-private-partnership, or a P3, for the cultural center project. “A (P3) is a creative way to pay for a park and other amenities that local governments can’t afford to construct and maintain,” Hagan explains. He says that he is awaiting proposals
from county staffers about how best to entice the private sector to consider partnering with the county. A public meeting is scheduled for Monday, May 5, 6:30 p.m., at the New Tampa Regional Library (10001 Cross Creek Blvd.), to hear the community’s desires for the property.
‘Broadway’...Again
“This year is exciting because three of the five performers have never been a part of BCTT before,” says NTP president Doug Wall. “And (Bohmer) was last here eight years ago.” Ron Bohmer, who played the Phantom See “Broadway” on page 46!