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Pinellas plans new arts and gifted magnet schools in north county

 
Palm Harbor Elementary, closed since 2009, is now being considered as the site of a new gifted magnet school in north Pinellas County. It's one of two new magnets proposed by the district. [DOUGLAS R. CLIFFOR   |   Times]
Palm Harbor Elementary, closed since 2009, is now being considered as the site of a new gifted magnet school in north Pinellas County. It's one of two new magnets proposed by the district. [DOUGLAS R. CLIFFOR | Times]
Published Aug. 15, 2018

Next school year, if all goes according to plan, two new programs will expand the slate of options for Pinellas County elementary students — a conservatory for the arts in Clearwater and a gifted center in Palm Harbor.

The programs, which will go before the School Board next month, are already in the works. Applications would open in January for the 2019-20 school year.

Sandy Lane Elementary would gain the Conservatory for the Arts, serving all students in the school with an array of dance, music and other arts instruction.

"Everyone, whether they're in the magnet program or not, is still going to get the experience — the dance, the theater," said district application program specialist Ellen Truskowski. "It's really looking at models of teaching and how we can infuse the arts, adding more storytelling, more theater, more movement in each of the classes."

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The arts integration efforts are getting underway this year, with the magnet program to launch next year.

Applications are open to students north of Ulmerton Road. Students at the school, at Sandy Lane and Kings Highway in Clearwater, would get priority to be admitted to the Leadership Conservatory for the Arts with Pre-Cambridge at Tarpon Springs Middle.

District officials also are hammering out details for the North County Center for Gifted Studies, which is taking root at the old Palm Harbor Elementary. The school at 415 15th St. in Palm Harbor closed in 2009 as part of a downsizing initiative by the district.

The idea is to serve about 350 north county students, with three classes per grade level. Students would be given priority to be admitted to the Center for Gifted Studies at Dunedin Highland Middle School.

The new program is part of an effort by the district to ramp up gifted education options, and is expected to be a popular addition. Until recently, Pinellas had just one gifted center, housed at Ridgecrest Elementary in Largo. Then, this year, it added the Midtown Academy Center for Cultural Arts and Gifted Studies in St. Petersburg, which launched on Monday.

If the School Board approves it, the new program in Palm Harbor would mean that north, south and central Pinellas each would have a gifted center for elementary students, to line up with the district's three gifted middle school programs.

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The centers offer immersion in a rigorous curriculum.

"Instead of just having the part-time services where it's only a couple of days, only a couple of hours a week, it's every single day," Truskowski said. "They're really given a more robust experience."

Opening up a north county magnet also means some students will get classes much closer to home, said director of student assignment Bill Lawrence. That will bring a measure of peace to parents who had fretted about putting their 7-year-old on a long bus ride to Ridgecrest, he said.

Contact Claire McNeill at cmcneill@tampabay.com.