“I’m in the area that’s being changed, but I’m going to get a special assignment to Durant,” said Mulrennan eighth-grader Lauren Shanks. “I moved here in second grade and it’s where everybody wants to be. It’s the school we all heard about growing up and that’s where I want to be.”
But special assignments will be at a minimum and reserved for hardship cases, said Barbara Franques, area director for Plant City and some Brandon area schools. She said the school district will review those requests on a case- by-case basis
Both Durant and Mulrennan are seriously crowded, even with a new classroom wing expected to open at Durant in August and a new wing expected to open at Mulrennan a year later. Exacerbating the need for classroom space in high-growth areas are the mandates of the Florida Class Size Reduction Amendment approved by voters in 2002.
That measure calls for reducing core high school classes to 25 students by 2010 and to 22 students per class in grades fourth through eighth.
School Board member Jack Lamb gave Mulrennan principal Tim Ducker high marks for posting a large, colorful sign of the boundary changes in the school’s main office.
That came in handy last week when a student entered Ducker’s office to complain about the boundary changes.
“The kids don’t know where they live in the scheme of things,” Ducker said. “He came into my office so upset, his best friend with him. He said he had been going to school with his best friend forever and didn’t want to (leave him behind). I said, ‘Son, you live right next door to him and you’re not going anywhere.’”
But the boundary changes will affect Mulrennan eighth-grader Evan Minuto.
“I think it’s okay,” he said. “Because of the population at Durant the school’s too crowded, so it will be nice to go to Brandon. And I have a friend who goes to Brandon and we’ll be going to school together on the same bus.”
As for Ducker, he said he feels for the kids who don’t want to change schools, but that he is confident they will be okay.
“They’re such great kids and I think they’ll enjoy themselves at Mann,” Ducker said. “It’s an excellent school, an ‘A’ school and they have an excellent principal.”
The kids affected by the change should not take it personal, he added.
“My heart goes out to them, but it’s just an issue where we’re overcrowded,” Ducker said. “We don’t really have any choice in it.”