Shortly before school opened, James Hammond arrived at the new elementary that bears his name to help stamp books for the media center.

Hammond.

Hammond.

Hammond.

Thousands of books, all stamped with his moniker.

“I’ve never seen my name in so many places,” he said, laughing.

A retired businessman and community activist, Hammond hopes to remain involved at Hammond Elementary. He attended the open house last week and met children at the school for the first day today.

First period at Brooks-DeBartolo charter high was delayed thanks to a classic freshman faux pas. It seems a group of ninth-graders forgot to bring their schedules so staff was scrambling to print new ones so they wouldn’t get lost.

But the small school environment at Brooks-DeBartolo doesn’t eliminate those first-day-of-high school jitters for ninth-grader Courtney Rogers. Although the charter high is opening with just 200 students, much smaller than the 2,000 students found at a traditional high, Rogers said she still has butterflies. “It’s still scary starting at a new place,” she said.

Name recognition does make a difference.

Valrico resident Candi Lee drove her ninth-grader all the way to north Tampa so she could attend the new Brooks DeBartolo charter high.

Lee said she decided on the school when she heard Tampa Bay Buccaneer Derrick Brooks co-founded the school.

“He does so much good in the community, I knew this would be a great school,” Lee said.

BRANDON - On Monday morning, Tina Blount drove her son, Bailey, to his bus stop less than a mile from her home. His mom said the sixth-grade Burns Middle School student is responsible enough to make the trek himself, but Blount said the new stop, on John Moore Road at Hidden Lake Drive, is dangerous.

“It’s totally unsafe. There are no sidewalks, there’s no place to stand, and it’s right off a major road with traffic speeding by. It’s not safe for him to walk alone, and I’m not walking. It’s too hot and sweaty.”

Bailey Blount and about a dozen other students at the stop Monday morning are among hundreds of Hillsborough County public school students assigned to new stops this year.

The district intends to streamline bus transportation for its Area 5 schools this year and the entire district by the start of the 2008-09 school year.

The transportation improvement plan calls for fewer bus stops, a minimum of 500 feet between stops instead of the 250 feet now permitted, more stops at intersections and fewer in the middle of blocks, no fewer than two or more than 20 students assigned to each stop, and no routes on narrow, dead-end or one-way streets.

Blount and other students in the Hidden Forest subdivision previously caught the bus to Burns at their neighborhood entrance, on Holland Drive at Hidden Lake Drive. Now they’ll walk an extra three-quarters of a mile to the stop down Hidden Lake, a narrow road with speed bumps and no sidewalks, to the corner of John Moore Road.

Several parents walked their children to the stop Monday. A half-dozen or so drove their cars and parked along a soggy roadside swale to wait.

Bob Mautino drove his son, sixth-grader Tyler Mautino, to the stop.

“It used to be 300 feet from our house. Now it’s about a mile,” Mautino said.

“There’s a lot of traffic, and it’s a narrow road. Plus, with the thunderstorms and lightning in the afternoon, I’ll be driving him.”

Hidden Forest resident Kenny Hawkins attended a public meeting in August to discuss bus stop changes. He disagrees with school transportation officials who told him his son’s stop was changed to speed up the route by avoiding speed humps on Hidden Lake.

“I drove my pickup truck on both routes,” Hawkins said.

“The new route saves about 35 seconds. We’re not asking for a less direct route or a longer route. We just want it to be safe. Look at this traffic.”

Boys at the stop commented on the cars, trucks and buses flying by just a few yards away from their stop.

Cautiously backing away from the speeding traffic, one boy said, “Man, we used to bring a ball and a Frisbee to the bus stop, we can’t do that anymore.”

Hawkins said, “When we told the school district we were concerned about the traffic, they told us not to worry because it quiets down after 8:30 a.m.”

Monday morning, when the 8:37 scheduled bus arrived at 8:50 a.m., 19 cars were backed up behind it, and another 7 cut through nearby Windy Cir. to avoid the wait.

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