Joy and Tears on the Last Day

GIBSONTON - The students were reluctant to leave. After spending the entire year dreaming about the last day of school and the beginning of the forever summer, the students simply milled around outside of Eisenhower Middle School on that day. School staff tried to herd them on to the waiting buses but there was no rushing them. It was time to say good-bye to friends, to teachers, in some cases they were one and the same.

At Apollo Beach Elementary School, the special education teachers gathered to wave good-bye to the departing buses. They used tissues as flags for their waves. The tissues served a dual purpose - they came in handy for the occasional tear that came with the good-byes.

The school year has been over for only a week but activity around the schools has yet to let up. Around the state, the last minute addition of the FCAT reading camps will send some third graders back to school for a short period of intensive reading - and for another chance to pass the test required to earn admission to the fourth grade. Nearly 43,000 students statewide failed the test in March.

At Eisenhower Middle School the teachers are rushing to finish their work for the year as demolition and construction are scheduled to begin immediately after their departure.

Once started, construction at Eisenhower will continue through the next school year. Coupled with that, the student population is expected to increase dramatically next year. Relief will be a year away as a new middle school is expected to open near Ruskin in 2004.

At East Bay High School, rows and rows of newly added portable classrooms will be outfitted to meet the needs of an ever expanding south county population.

The portables will be in service for a while. A new high school, planned to be built between Ruskin and Apollo Beach, isn’t scheduled to open until 2005.

Despite the continued activity and the reading camps, for the kids one week of summer vacation has already elapsed. Summer is a time to let kids be kids, to make new friends and create new memories. Unfortunately, they have to hurry. There are only eight weeks left before school begins again.

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