Pinellas pulls Sexton Elementary from closure list as six schools face Oct. 13 vote

Pinellas County Schools has pulled Sexton Elementary off its list of campuses slated to close, leaving six schools facing a School Board vote on Oct. 13 after weeks of pushback from parents across the county. At a board workshop on Tuesday, Oct. 6, Superintendent Kevin Hendrick withdrew his recommendation to close the St. Petersburg school after board members questioned it, and said he would return with a different approach for Sexton and two nearby elementary schools.

The remaining proposal would still close Blanton Elementary, Bear Creek Elementary, Tarpon Springs Fundamental Elementary, Kings Highway Elementary, Azalea Elementary and Lealman Innovation Academy after the 2026-27 school year. District leaders say the full package would eliminate nearly 5,000 unused seats and save about $25 million a year, and Hendrick has said the district does not expect job losses from the closures.

Sexton gets a reprieve, Woodlawn and Lynch enter the conversation

Sexton had become the focal point of the opposition. An online petition to keep the school open drew more than 1,000 signatures, and parents at a Sept. 23 board meeting questioned whether interest from the YMCA in the property had influenced the recommendation, WUSF reported. The district had previously said the Sexton campus could be reused through a possible lease with the YMCA.

Under the original plan, Sexton students would have been rezoned to Woodlawn or Lynch elementary schools. But board members pointed out that Woodlawn is running at about 25% of capacity, compared with roughly 47% at Sexton, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Board Chair Caprice Edmond suggested that, based on enrollment, Woodlawn would be the more logical school to close.

Hendrick told the board he would step back. "I will pull back that recommendation and bring back to the board a different look," he said, according to the Times. He is expected to bring an alternative plan for the three schools in about two weeks.

Edmond framed the decision as more than a budget calculation. "At the end of the day, this is not solely a financial decision. It's impacting lives, students, teachers, and the community," she said, according to WFLA. Vice Chair Dawn Peters said no one on the board wanted to shutter a school only to have it sit vacant. "None of us want to close a campus that is going to sit empty with a fence around it for years," she said, as reported by the Times.

Tarpon Springs plan rewritten after protests

The Sexton reversal followed another change the superintendent made a day earlier. On Oct. 5, Hendrick revised his proposal for Tarpon Springs after parents of Tarpon Springs Fundamental Elementary objected to moving their school into Tarpon Springs Middle as a K-8.

Parents had argued that the move would change nearly everything about a program that works, and that fundamental schools, which require more parent involvement and do not offer district busing, would be a poor fit for middle school students who never chose that model. "We are being asked to believe we can dramatically change nearly every single ingredient of this program and somehow still guarantee the same result," parent Megan Delgado told the board in September, according to WUSF.

Under the revised plan, Tarpon Springs Fundamental would expand into a fundamental K-8 at the Sunset Hills Elementary campus, while Sunset Hills would become a traditional K-8 at Tarpon Springs Middle. The small Tarpon Springs Fundamental campus would still close. Asked about the parents' concerns over forcing middle schoolers into the fundamental model, Hendrick said, "I think that is a valid concern," according to the Times.

Where students would go

The district has published rezoning recommendations for each affected campus. The table below summarizes the current proposal, based on district presentations as reported by the Tampa Bay Times, WUSF, Bay News 9, WFLA and FOX 13.

Several of the closing schools are small. Bear Creek has shrunk to about 189 students, and Kings Highway has about 168, according to reports on the district's plan. Lealman Innovation Academy, a grade 6 to 12 school that the district describes as a dropout prevention program, enrolls about 200 students in a building with room for more than 1,000, WFLA reported.

The plan also reaches beyond closures. The district has proposed converting Pinellas Park Elementary into a fundamental school, with Pinellas Park students who do not want the fundamental model reassigned to Skyview or Lealman Avenue elementary schools. Boca Ciega High School would shift to a technical high school with six career tracks, Bay News 9 reported. Hendrick has said families affected by the changes would get first right of refusal for the district's choice programs.

Why the district says it must shrink

District officials tie the plan to a long decline in the number of school-age children in Pinellas. The county averaged about 10,000 births a year in the 1990s and now records fewer than 7,000, according to the district, a drop of more than 25% over roughly 35 years. Florida Department of Health figures cited by WUSF show live births in the county falling from 9,541 in 2006 to 7,010 in 2024.

Fewer of those children are enrolling in district schools. Only 68% of children born in Pinellas in 2020 enrolled in the district last year, Bay News 9 reported. District enrollment has fallen from more than 100,000 students to slightly above 70,000, according to the Times.

The result is a district with far more classrooms than students. Pinellas has more than 45,000 empty seats. Hendrick told the board in September that 45 schools operate below 60% of capacity and that 41 elementary schools serve fewer than 300 students, according to WUSF.

"No one in the school district or the school board wants to close a school. However, we do have an obligation to balance the budget," Hendrick said when he unveiled the plan, according to WUSF. He has said the roughly $25 million in recurring savings would be steered toward teacher and staff raises and program improvements.

Parents and teachers raise concerns

More than 30 speakers addressed the board at its Sept. 23 meeting, many of them opposed to the closures or mergers. Beyond Tarpon Springs and Sexton, families at community meetings asked how children would get to new schools and whether familiar teachers would follow them.

Some parents warned the changes could push families out of the district entirely. "Without that continuity of care, I don't know if we'll stay in public schools," parent Sarah Henley told FOX 13. After Tuesday's workshop, Henley told WFLA she was hopeful the board would listen and offer a long-term plan rather than "a temporary Band-Aid."

Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association President Tracey McConnell has noted that fundamental schools do not provide district transportation, which could force families who cannot drive their children to transfer elsewhere. A parent of a Lealman Innovation Academy student told WFLA the school had helped keep her child focused and that she hoped traditional schools would offer comparable support.

What's next

The district is holding a final round of community meetings at affected campuses this week, all in school cafeterias, according to Bay News 9:

• Blanton and Pinellas Park elementary schools: Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 6 p.m.
• Bear Creek and Kings Highway elementary schools: Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 6 p.m.
• Lealman Innovation Academy: Thursday, Oct. 8, at 3 p.m.

The School Board is scheduled to vote on the six remaining closures and related rezoning at its Oct. 13 meeting. A decision on Sexton, Woodlawn and Lynch will come later, after Hendrick presents his revised proposal. If approved, the closures would take effect after the 2026-27 school year, giving families one more year at their current campuses, while the Azalea K-8 would open in 2028-29.