St. Petersburg Collegiate High School had 324 applicants, winnowed by the luck of the draw.
By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published March 24, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - By this time next week, 150 letters will be in the mail welcoming the inaugural class of the district's first charter high school.
The letters will go to 65 freshmen, 65 sophomores and 20 juniors across the county who were selected last week in a random computer lottery for the new St. Petersburg Collegiate High School. There were two applicants for every seat.
Students who receive invitations will have until April 12 to return a postcard included with their letter to reserve their seat. Principal Linda Benware will then begin calling names from the waiting list to fill any open seats left by students who do not respond. She expects there will be few.
The charter school, an effort between the Pinellas County School District and St. Petersburg College, attracted 324 applicants before the March 1 deadline. Nearly half of those who applied are incoming 11th-graders, but a substantial number - 130 - applied for 10th-grade seats, and 20 applied for 12th-grade seats.
Benware had suspected since January that a random lottery would be necessary to determine who would be invited to the school, which opens in August on SPC's Gibbs-St. Petersburg campus, 6605 Fifth Ave. N. Students will be able to earn a standard diploma and a two-year associate's degree in the time it would take to graduate from high school. Because St. Petersburg Collegiate High is a public school, there will be no charge for tuition or books.
Numbers released by Benware indicate that the invitees represent a cross section of the county.
- One in four is black.
- Ninety-five currently attend public high schools south of Ulmerton Road, and 37 are from schools north of Ulmerton.
- One is a homeschool student and 17 attend private schools.
- Twenty-three are magnet students.
Benware was pleased with the mix.
"All 16 high schools have at least one student who was invited," she said. "I was happy with the level of academic achievement of these scholars and how many of them were interested in a program that will expect them to achieve on an even higher level."
Before the 324 applications were fed to the district's computer for the random selection, Benware met with Jim Madden, the district's director of unitary status. Relying on district demographics, they concluded that a 23 percent African-American population would be a fair representation of black students at the school. The percentage is close to the population of African-American students in middle schools in attendance area A and also is similar to the overall percentage of African-Americans in St. Petersburg.
District officials have told Benware that if the 115 nonblack students who receive invitations choose to leave their current schools, the schools will still be in compliance with a federal court order in effect until 2007 that puts a 42 percent cap on black enrollment at each school.
Benware sees no danger to the magnet programs if the 23 magnet students selected in the lottery accept the offer to come to St. Petersburg Collegiate High School.
"The number of magnet students who will be invited ends up being approximately 15 percent," she said. "I don't feel that number is going to cause any significant damage to any of the magnet programs."
The district had originally told magnet students who had applied to the charter school that they would lose their seats in the coveted programs whether they were selected for St. Petersburg Collegiate High School or not. A School Board vote reversed the decision, allowing magnet students to apply with no penalty, at least for the coming year.
Benware said district officials have assured her that magnet students who choose to remain on the wait list for the charter school can do so without risking their seats.
At the district's request, the charter school will align future application periods with the district's application period for magnet schools, which means the school will accept applications for 2004-05 in the fall. The School Board will review its policies for magnet students who wish to apply to the charter school.
In the meantime, Benware will begin purchasing furniture and classroom supplies for the new school with funds from a $250,000 startup grant. She plans to post job openings for a full-time English teacher and a full-time math teacher in mid April.
