Pinellas School Board Cements Closure Plan With Unanimous Policy Vote as Sunset Hills Parents Keep Up Pushback

The Pinellas County School Board on Tuesday, Nov. 10, unanimously approved revisions to its fundamental schools and magnet programs policy that lock in the school closures and consolidations it adopted in October, despite another round of objections from Tarpon Springs parents still fighting the decision to shut Sunset Hills Elementary. The vote sets the menu of choice programs families will see when the district's application window opens Jan. 5.

Board members thanked the parents who spoke and made no comments of their own before voting, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

What the board approved Tuesday

The policy revisions carry out the program changes tied to October's closure plan. According to the Times, the updated policy:

• Expands Tarpon Springs Fundamental Elementary into a K-8 school, using the Sunset Hills Elementary site.
• Moves the Cambridge Conservatory for Academics and Arts to a newly formed Tarpon Springs K-8 on the Tarpon Springs Middle campus.
• Closes the magnet programs at Kings Highway Elementary.
• Opens a fundamental elementary school on the Pinellas Park Elementary campus.
• Discontinues, for students entering in 2027 and later, the Civil Air Patrol Cadet Academy at Azalea Middle, Marine Mechanics at Jacobson Technical, Spanish magnet courses at Bay Point K-8 and fundamental offerings at Boca Ciega High.

The revisions also raise the share of choice seats set aside for children of district employees, restrict taking choice program courses through virtual school, clarify sibling priority rules for admission and redraw transportation zones for students attending Gulf Beaches Elementary Magnet and the BETA program at Gibbs High, the Times reported.

Parents say the process failed

A group of Tarpon Springs parents has spent weeks urging the board to reverse its decision on Sunset Hills. On Tuesday they asked for more transparency about how officials reached it and pressed the board to reject the policy revisions outright.

"We still want answers," parent Christopher Bannon told the board, according to the Times. "This process has failed." Bannon argued that moves such as closing Sunset Hills so Tarpon Springs Fundamental can expand on its site show why families are leaving the district.

How the closure plan took shape

The underlying decisions came on Oct. 13, when the board voted 6-1 to move forward with closures and consolidations after more than three hours of public comment from more than 60 speakers, WUSF reported. Board member Lisa Cane cast the lone vote against and had moved unsuccessfully to postpone the decision.

Sunset Hills was not in Superintendent Kevin Hendrick's original recommendations. The district's first proposal would have closed Tarpon Springs Fundamental and moved it to the Tarpon Springs Middle campus as a K-8 fundamental. After residents objected to losing Tarpon Springs Middle, the area's only zoned traditional neighborhood middle school, the plan was revised about a week before the vote: Sunset Hills students would move to the middle school campus to form a neighborhood K-8, and Tarpon Springs Fundamental would take over the Sunset Hills campus. WUSF reported that the fundamental school has fewer than 300 students and long waiting lists, and that district leaders said the move would add about 200 seats there.

Hendrick told FOX 13 that Sunset Hills might have closed anyway. "Had we gone forward with the first plan, we would be talking about closing Sunset Hills just by attrition a year or two from now," he said.

Outlets counted the closures differently because several campuses are being converted or relocated rather than simply shuttered. Based on FOX 13's account of the Oct. 13 vote, these are the main changes:

WUSF described the vote as closing six schools, counting Tarpon Springs Fundamental and Azalea Elementary among them. FOX 13 reported that several closures take effect at the end of the 2026-27 school year, while the Sunset Hills and Tarpon Springs K-8 changes begin in 2027-28. John M. Sexton Elementary was removed from the closure list after parent pushback, including a petition with more than 1,200 signatures, and the district is still reevaluating its future. A separate plan to convert Boca Ciega High into a technical school, targeted for 2028-29, was not part of the October vote, Spectrum Bay News 9 reported.

Why the district is shrinking

District leaders say the closures are driven by a long decline in the number of school-age children in Pinellas. The county averaged about 10,000 births a year in the 1990s, compared with fewer than 7,000 now, according to district figures reported by FOX 13. The district has about 85,800 students, and Hendrick has said research indicates enrollment will eventually level off around 60,000, WUSF reported.

Hendrick said 45 district schools sit below 60% of capacity. That threshold matters in Florida: under the state's Schools of Hope program, charter operators, which WUSF described as for-profit, can request space inside underused public schools. The district says the full plan would eliminate nearly 5,000 unused seats and save about $25 million a year.

This fall's vote was the district's second round of cuts under its "Planning for Progress" effort. Earlier in 2026, the board voted to close Cross Bayou Elementary in Pinellas Park and Disston Academy in Gulfport at the end of the 2025-26 school year, combine Bay Point Elementary and Bay Point Middle into a K-8 starting in 2027-28 and expand Oldsmar Elementary into a K-8, FOX 13 reported. District leaders have said no school-based employees will lose their jobs as a result of the changes and that affected staff will be offered placements elsewhere.

What it means for families

For many Pinellas families, the practical effect of Tuesday's vote shows up in the choice application process. District discovery nights for choice programs are already under way, and the policy approved Tuesday determines which fundamental and magnet programs are available, which ones are being phased out for students entering in 2027 and later and how seats are prioritized. One Tarpon Springs parent told FOX 13 that because Tarpon Springs Fundamental is a choice school, neighborhood families will have to enter a lottery to attend school on the Sunset Hills campus.

What's next

The District Application Program window opens Jan. 5. Closures of the affected campuses are scheduled to take effect at the end of the 2026-27 school year, with the new Tarpon Springs K-8 configurations opening in 2027-28. The district has not finalized plans for all of the closed properties, and the Sexton Elementary review and the Boca Ciega High conversion remain to be decided.