HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Population growth continues to boom across Tampa Bay.
With more people moving here, the Hillsborough County School District has been trying to keep up, especially with the growth in south county.
The recently named Aquilla J. Morgan High School is the largest school ever built in the district. It opens in August.
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“3,400 student stations. It’s right in Wimauma,” said Chris Farkas, Deputy Superintendent of Operations for Hillsborough County Schools.
Even with that new school in Wimauma, according to the district, current projections show a significant school capacity shortfall in southern Hillsborough County over the next 15 years.
The same concerns apply to Plant City.
“Plant City is growing at such an alarming rate. In a positive way, the growth and industry that’s happening in Plant City is amazing. So we’re excited about what that looks like, but all the kids that are, and all the new homes they’re building out there, they need schools to go to,” said Farkas.
The district is trying to plan ahead to meet the demand.
“When we had this conversation about three years ago, we needed to build 17 schools in 15 years. Three years, four years later, we’re now in a spot where we’ve built four more schools, but as you can do with some of the math on that, we’ve got 13 more to build,” said Farkas.
Rising construction costs, interest rates, and land-use constraints have started to limit the district’s capacity to meet population demands with current planning.
That’s why the board is having a growth management workshop on Tuesday, to try to figure out a solution, and make a long-range plan to support the construction of new schools, meet growth demands, improve staff retention, and explore affordable housing solutions.
“The finances on what that looks like are going to be our next step and what we’re going to talk about during our conversation,” said Farkas.
The workshop begins at 10 a.m.
