July 27, 2010

The Pasco County School Board voted to cap our enrollment at 548 students this year. We have space to accommodate all registered students and then siblings. Once we finalize our enrollment number’s we will begin registering students from our lengthy wait list.
 
We are disappointed, but know our school will continue to set the bar for schools of choice in Pasco County.

Thank you to everyone for your support, and now let’s focus on the smiling faces of our students who arrive on August 16th.

Looking forward to a successful school year working with the Imagine families.

Kathy Helean




June 24, 2010

Dear Imagine Families;

I wanted to give you a quick update on all that is happening this summer at our school.

On June 15 the Pasco County School Board went against the Superintendent’s  recommendation restricting our enrollment to 550 students and tabled their decision until after the Pasco County Board of Commissioners decision on our temporary zoning variance--this will occur on July 27th. We have no reason to believe we will not be granted expansion, as the board could have very easily accepted the Superintendents recommendation and be done with the matter in large part from a letter of support from the county both for our school and their support of this variance. I believe that the county, as indicated in their letter to the school board, will allow this temporary variance and that we will be allowed to expand to 624 students as requested. Please note, contrary to what was reported, we will offer 8th grade for the 2010-2011 school year.

We understand that many parents have been waiting patiently to be contacted to enroll--our current wait list numbers are over 820 students. I have made the decision to begin the enrollment process ONLY with siblings as, doing so, will keep us at or around our student numbers cap and will honor the commitment we made to those parents. All additional enrollments will occur AFTER July 27th.

Finally, my replacement should be 'in place' in the next few weeks. I am certain that this person will be able to continue the “Tradition of Excellence” we have worked so hard to establish.

Have a great summer!

John T. Selover - Principal




June 9, 2010

Dear parents;
 
The good news is that we are on the June 15th Pasco County School Board agenda…the bad news is that the Superintendent will not be recommending an increase in enrollment. According to Nancy Scowcroft, Supervisor of Charter Schools (Pasco County) “…until both groups have voted to approve, the Superintendent has indicated that we cannot move forward with approval of 624.  We cannot bind our School Board until there’s approval from the County.” The reason given is that Pasco County Government has not, in writing, yet provided them with evidence that our school is “clear” to enroll 624 students. As I indicated in a prior posting, I have met with the chair of county commissioners and her staff, who were very helpful, to come up with a reasonable solution to this problem.
 
According to County staff, with the purchase of two additional busses, the county would support our expansion to 624 students as there would actually be a reduction in traffic on and off of SR 54. This information has been communicated to the school district. At this point the only “formal” county approval we need to make this happen is a change in zoning…which staff had indicated is no big deal.
 
So, what does this mean, to you, a parent waiting very patiently for your child to be enrolled at our school?  Basically that you will need to wait longer as we continue, in my opinion, to get the run around from the district who has never in the past brought up any of these concerns.
 
According to Mrs. Nancy Scowcroft, “Once the County votes to approve a one year extension for Imagine, the Superintendent can make a new recommendation to our board to adjust Imagine’s maximum capacity to 624.”
 
Thank you again for your patience, we will continue to update our website to keep you informed!
 
John T. Selover - Principal




May 27, 2010

Dear Families – I am saddened to report that I have no “definitive” news to give you regarding our enrollment. However, there is hope….

I am pleased to tell you that I believe we are making progress with Pasco County government for approval to house 628 students next year. On Monday our developer and I met with County Commission Chairperson Dr. Pat Mulieri to discuss our problems and, we believe, worked out an amicable short-term solution to our site problem. The “long and short” of the solution, addressing the traffic concerns of the county, was that we would agree to purchase two additional busses resulting in an actual decrease in traffic in and out of our site. The county has indicated that they will be in touch with the school district to explain that all site “issues” have been resolved. It is our hope that, with this new information, the district will act quickly to grant us permission to enroll students.

Once we receive permission to enroll students we will update our website and begin calling parents IMMEDIATELY.

Again, thank you for your patience, we are as frustrated with this “process” as you are…

Sincerely,

John Selover - Principal




April 21, 2010

Dear families – I am sorry to report that we have more bad news….the Pasco County School Board decision on our maximum number of students able to enroll in our school for next year has been delayed until the May Board of Education meeting. We are as frustrated with this “process” as you are as we were led to believe, since December, that we would be able to enroll to a maximum of 678 students.

The reason for the delay, as we were told, is that the district wants to wait for Pasco County (government) approval of our ‘modified’ site plan (i.e. new buildings in use,, increased traffic) for our charter maximum of 728 student K-8. This approval, according to our developer (Kevin Howell Construction), is expected to go before the County Development Review Committee (DRC) on May 13th.

We apologize for this inconvenience and understand your frustration. Please continue to check our website for updates.

Sincerely,

John Selover - Principal




March 30,2010

As many of you know we held our lottery on Monday, March 15th. This lottery established the “picking order” we will use when filling our seats for next year. Our intention was, on March 16th, to begin to fill our open seats for next school year—from early December we were expecting (with confirmation from the district) to have just over 150 seats available. Very soon after our lottery we were informed by the district charter liaison that our ‘expansion’ needed Pasco County School board approval and that we would be forced to wait until the April 20th Pasco County School Board Meeting before we can proceed with enrollment. Needless to say we are very frustrated and upset that we were told one enrollment number (678), only to find that, after extensive planning and budgeting, the number was likely to be reduced. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused our families but truly, this matter is out of our hands.