HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — By Monday morning, thousands of students across Hillsborough County will fill hallways and classrooms, eager like Noel Cardentey to kick off a new school year.
“Looking at it from the outside, it’s a huge school,” said Cardentey.
He’ll be a junior at the new Aquilla J. Morgan High School in Wimauma, switching schools halfway through his high school career and ready to lead.
WATCH: Hillsborough School leaders gear up to welcome students back to school
“I know a lot of freshmen, they’re normally scared to present themselves and to speak up to make new friends, so I will be that one upperclassman that is going to speak to them and be like hey it’s okay, like welcome to high school,” said Cardentey.
Hillsborough school leaders are looking to build on their recent success, pointing out that with 2024-2025 school grades, 98 percent of their schools earned an A, B, or C.
The district is also continuing its focus on literacy.
“Our literacy scores improved across all grade levels, and many schools saw double-digit gains in their proficiency,” said Hillsborough County Schools Superintendent Van Ayres. “Important to note that every cohort across all grade levels saw improvement, and all had proficiency above 50 percent for the first time in five years.”
While students were away, the district said they finished nearly 60 summer construction projects.
Superintendent Ayres also shared that they’ve made strides in staffing.
“We had over 600 classroom vacancies and 150 bus driver vacancies last year at this time,” said Ayres. “Right now, as I sit today, we have about approximately 50 bus driver vacancies, so down 100. Still got work to do, but we’re seeing great improvement in the number of vacancies we have, and also approximately 200 fewer instructional vacancies.”
Book removals and reviews continue to catch headlines.
Florida’s Education Commissioner called out the district on social media over a book this week. The Superintendent addressed the issue while explaining that they always work with the Department of Education.
“That was just in the last 24 hours that came to our attention. Anytime something like that, we’ll go in and review that,” said Ayres. “Just know, with that particular book, that book was not on the initial 55. That book has not been objected to, the 600 that we’ve heard about, the objected and removed. That book was not part of that, but any time, I think in that tweet it talked about being inappropriate material, we’ll review it.”
Corporation for Public Broadcasting shutdown will impact Tampa's PBS and NPR stations
From Mr. Rogers to Sesame Street. From Downton Abbey to the documentaries of filmmaker Ken Burns. They’re shows so many Americans love and grew up on, and they were broadcast on local PBS stations thanks to funding from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting.
