LARGO — For Pinellas County Schools Superintendent Kevin Hendrick, Walsingham Elementary has always held special meaning. The Pennsylvania native began attending the school at 9099 Walsingham Road in Largo shortly after moving to the Tampa Bay area in the mid-1980s.
So it was fitting that Hendrick was on hand Aug. 8 to introduce Pinellas County’s latest “neighborhood” school: Walsingham Oaks K-8, a reconfigured facility that combines the adjacent Walsingham and Southern Oak elementary schools into one campus serving kindergarten through eighth grade.
During his remarks to the crowded room, Hendrick took a trip down memory lane, describing how the school — and its teachers in particular — profoundly shaped his young life.
“My deep roots in Pinellas County started right here at Walsingham Elementary,” Hendrick said, pointing to his old third-grade classroom around the corner. “This school shaped the fabric of who I am. It was so fun, and it was the teachers who made it that way.”
Hendrick recalled watching the space shuttle Challenger disaster in January 1986, a dispiriting moment when “it was the teachers at our school who taught us what loss means and how to get through it. This school taught us so many parts of growing up.”
The merger creates Pinellas County’s third K-8 model school and 24th middle school. Principal Jodi Leichman, dressed in the new school’s signature light purple colors, provided historical context for the 40-acre site.
“On Aug. 23, 1976, Walsingham Elementary opened its doors,” Leichman said. “And the plan was to build two elementary schools on the same site with a common cafeteria. And now we’re bringing that to life.”
After Southern Oak opened in January 1988, the twin elementary schools “shared a campus and a cafeteria and over the years, both schools grew into vibrant school communities,” she said.
In 2024, the district decided to combine the schools into one K-8 facility. Much like Walsingham’s original design incorporated staff and community input, officials “reached out to the community to help us create our new brand and logo and to identify a new mascot, the Wolves,” Leichman said.
The school starts this year with grades K-6, adding one grade each subsequent year.
School Board Chair Laura Hine, elected to the board in 2020, explained the renovation process during the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“The renovations included transforming the Walsingham administrative suites into four classrooms and a teacher planning room,” she said. “The cafeteria was remodeled to allow for larger separate spaces for elementary and middle school students.”
The project represents “a meaningful investment in our community to create a new K-8 school that will build on the legacies of both of these schools while creating a community fabric that will bind this community together well into the future,” Hine said.
Hendrick sees the K-8 model as attractive to parents in a competitive school choice environment, despite some disadvantages such as the lack of athletic fields.
“But some people like that they only have 100 kids in their grade level,” he said. When Walsingham Oaks reaches full capacity, it will serve roughly 1,400 students while reducing costs.
The superintendent suggested similar neighborhood K-8 schools could expand countywide.
“One of the things we’re looking at in the next three to five years is — are there any properties where we could do something similar to this?” Hendrick said. “We have some thoughts and ideas but nothing in stone yet. But I think you will see it in other places in our district. Because we believe these schools make the community more vibrant.”
Local parents are embracing the change. Ashlei Hendricks, whose 10-year-old son Bentlei will attend Walsingham Oaks, called combining the schools “absolutely wonderful.”
“I love the idea of a bigger campus, and it’s very convenient when you live in the neighborhood knowing you don’t have to worry about taking your kid to a middle school that’s far away,” said Hendricks, whose 15-year-old daughter Baylei attended Southern Oak before moving to middle school.
Baylei, now at Pinellas Preparatory Academy, praised her elementary experience. “The teachers are very hands-on and really interact with the students, and they actually teach them. It makes for a better environment to learn.”