Floaters at two overcrowded schools have adapted to not having a classroom to call their own.
By RODNEY THRASH
Published August 30, 2004
NEW TAMPA - These days, eighth-grade algebra teacher Ernesto Zota pushes a Lexus.
Not down the street, but down the hallways of Benito Middle School.
Zota is a floater. He doesn't have a classroom to call his own; he roams between six classrooms - 208, 210, 623, 630, 639 and 604. But no matter where Zota goes, there is always one constant: "Lexus," the mobile cart he uses to store dry erase markers, textbooks, tests and other supplies he needs to teach class.
"The cart is unbelievable," Zota said. "I have a beautiful storage level on the bottom. It has features. It's not a typical cart."
As the population of New Tampa swells and the state forces schools to reduce class sizes by 2010, educators are having to come up with creative ways to squeeze more kids into already overcrowded schools.
This year, Benito and Liberty middle schools unveiled one solution: floating.
Overcrowding is especially precarious at New Tampa's two middle schools. Earlier this year, district officials announced plans to open a third middle school in conjunction with an elementary school and a county park. They said the school would open by the start of the 2005-06 school year. But now the school district is telling parents not to count on it.
"It has a lot of wetlands on the site, and working with the various agencies to get permitting has taken longer than we anticipated," said Mary Ellen Elia, the district's chief facilities officer.
"We do not believe we will be able to get the permitting done in time. It's more realistic to anticipate the longer schedule in middle school."
A more realistic opening date for the yet-unnamed middle school is August 2006, she said.
But while the district's construction timetable has slowed, the growth in New Tampa has not.
Benito Middle, which can only hold 1,314 students, has 1,401 enrolled this year, said Cathy Valdes, director of the district's area 3, which covers New Tampa, Lutz and the University of South Florida area.
Liberty Middle was built for 1,383 students and now has 1,452.
This time last year, there were 1,224 students at Benito and 1,388 students at Liberty.
In addition to growth, schools must contend with pressure from the state. The class-size amendment, which Florida voters passed in 2002, mandates that public schools must cap class sizes at 18 in prekindergarten through third grades, 22 in fourth through eighth, and 25 in high school by 2010.
To meet those mandates, schools must hire new teachers. But with nowhere to put them, teachers like Zota float. And the teachers who do not must give up their classrooms when they are not in use and find somewhere else to make lesson plans.
So "it's a whole buy-in," said Dena Collins, assistant principal for curriculum at Liberty Middle.
To do that, Liberty and Benito offered floating teachers a few perks, Zota said.
Zota, for example, gets an office with his "own computer, desk and garbage can." He must share it with other teachers, but it's the thought that counts, he said.
At Liberty, there are four floaters and Tony Corbett, a seventh-grade geography teacher, is one of them. Corbett gets a Compaq laptop, an Epson projector and anything he wants from the school catalog for volunteering to switch classrooms. Corbett picked out a rolling briefcase.
Corbett switches classrooms four times a day and like Zota, he can rattle off all four - 507, 503, 526 and 625 - without hesitation.
"Kids are expected to change classes five times a day," Corbett said. "At 33 years old, I can switch four."
He calls his cart the Corbett Cart O' Know How. The left side of the cart has a slot for late work and missing assignments. The right side is designated for class schedules, attendance, seating charts and class rules.
Floating, he said, forces him to be more organized.
"It's good for me," Corbett said. "I was totally unorganized last year. Not totally. It was an area that needed improvement."
Students like Matthew Sox, an eighth-grader at Benito, don't mind the nomadic nature of their teachers. Sox and his classmates have come up with names for their teachers and their carts. Zota has been called a "birdie" and his cart "a BMW."
Now, the 13-year-old likes to refer to the cart as a Honda Civic because of its small size.
"Everything is educational (and) knowledge-based," Zota said. "It's not always with four walls."
