Parents to weigh in on transferring students

Parents can soon weigh in on district officials' process of selecting which teenagers will be transferred from Central and Springstead high schools to attend the new school being constructed along U.S. 19 in the northwest part of the county.

With a principal and two assistant principals having been selected for the new school - all from Central High School - Jim Knight, director of student services, said he and other staff members from his office will be presenting proposed tenant zones to school board members to include the new high school that is for now being called High School EEE. That meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 17.

Following that meeting, he said parents and others from the community will be urged to attend at least two public meetings with him and other committee members studying the matter to discuss the impact of about 600 students from Central and Springstead transferring to the new school and from where they will be chosen.

"We're hoping to make this an easy process so that there is no big public outcry," Knight said. "We already know students who live west of U.S. 19 will be going to the new school, but the question is right now who from the eastern side will be going."

So far, he said the plan is to phase in only ninth- and 10th-graders at the school. That way juniors and seniors won't be disrupted after having already attended their school for two to three years.

Knight said each year a new batch of freshmen would be added so that by 2012 the new school would have all grade levels represented.

However, plans to merge the schools have not been finalized and Knight said there are still many details to work out.

"One big unknown is how many students from Central and Springstead will instead go to Nature Coast (Technical School)," Knight said. "So some might be told their child is going to the new school only to then have them accepted to the technical school later on."

Dennis McGeehan, principal of Central High School, was recently chosen as principal of the new school and will start his new job there in January. He's also chosen Central High School assistant principals Sue Lisk and Troy LaBarbara as his assistant principals at the new school. He said officials haven't approved to advertise for an athletic director.

As to who will run Central High School after McGeehan's departure, he said he didn't know and Hernando Today would have to ask interim Superintendent Sonya Jackson.

Despite phone calls to her office Wednesday, Jackson did not return messages left by press deadline. A secretary at her office said Jackson would be out of the office most of the day for meetings.