Pasco County school district leaders are focusing on a single west-county ZIP code for the next step in their efforts to reimagine education amid declining enrollment.
They’re calling the initiative Elevate 34668.
It centers on the economically struggling area near Port Richey, bound by Ridge Road to the south and State Road 52 to the north, west of Little Road to the Gulf of Mexico.
The three elementary schools there — Fox Hollow, Gulf Highlands and Schrader — combined have received six F’s, nine D’s and 24 C’s in state grading over the past 14 years. Fox Hollow sits at about 56% capacity, with Gulf Highlands at 67% and Schrader at 66%. They’ve each lost about 30 to 50 students annually over a number of years.
“We want to to address academics and enrollment at the same time,” Superintendent John Legg said. “We have an opportunity here.”
His proposal, which was unveiled to school staff members and parents Thursday afternoon, includes:
• Closing Fox Hollow and rezoning its students to Gulf Highlands, Schrader or Chasco K-8, where some of the children already attend for middle grades. Fox Hollow is the oldest of the schools in the ZIP code and most in need of building improvements, Legg said.
• Converting Schrader to a science, technology, engineering arts and math centered program aligned to the curriculum of similarly focused Bayonet Point Middle next door.
• Creating a career exploration program at Gulf Highlands, which would be renamed Highlands Exploratory Academy. The concept would include adoption of a curriculum that gives students more exposure to career and technical options in addition to their core academics.
“I’m optimistic about what we will be able to do for these schools,” Legg said. “We can’t do the same thing we’ve been doing there for 14 years and expect different results.”
The district also took steps in 2019 to improve academic offerings in west Pasco, but those efforts sputtered in part because of a reticence at the time to shutter schools that have since closed.
In related moves, Legg is suggesting the board move the West Pasco Education Academy, currently at the old Hudson Elementary campus, to the former Calusa Elementary site on Orchid Lake Road.
The district then would issue an invitation to negotiate for leasing, purchasing or otherwise using its empty buildings. This would be a non-binding process, Legg said, with a goal of having a group of community members review the ideas and make recommendations.
School board members, who are scheduled to discuss the proposal Tuesday, said they don’t want to close neighborhood schools. But they also acknowledged the situation that Pasco, like many other districts, is confronting.
The Pinellas County school district, for one, earlier this week approved closing six schools to deal with its decreased student population. Officials there also cited the statewide climate as a contributing factor.
In addition to shrinking enrollment for a variety of reasons, including expanded vouchers, districts face the possibility of Schools of Hope charters seeking to co-locate in under-enrolled campuses. Lawmakers also have talked about requiring districts to give unused property to charter schools.
“We have the financial responsibility to ensure we’re using every campus to its greatest potential,” board member Jessica Wright said. “We have to make difficult decisions.”
Wright said she has several questions that need answers before she can bless the proposal. So, too, did board member Megan Harding, who taught at Fox Hollow before winning the election.
“That community means so much to me,” Harding said. “I want to make sure whatever decisions we make, whatever opportunities we give them, are the right ones.”
The board can take a targeted approach to closing and consolidating schools because it has in past years taken other steps toward more efficient operations, Legg said.
He noted the closures of Hudson Elementary in 2020, Locke Elementary in 2023, Calusa Elementary in 2025 and Gulfside Elementary this year.
If trends continue, more actions are likely in future years.
“We’ll probably be here in another year,” Legg said, “looking at another ZIP code.”
